If you are interested in the social networking diet/healthy lifestyle category, you might also want to check out SparkPeople.com
SparkPeople has well over 1 million members and 70 million page views per month with huge growth rates. Comscore ranks SparkPeople the 4th or 5th largest health site by page views and Hitwise ranks it the second largest diet site by site visits - with about 6 million total visits per month.
BUT, the best part is the large number of people making a healthy lifestyle change every day in our social networking community. Here's an example of the comments we get on a daily basis:
***** THANK YOU! I wanted to let you know how much this site has helped me. I have been on every DIET on the market. I still have weight to lose, not sure how much, I decided not to set a final goal. I want to keep going until I feel healthy and look healthy. I have lost 56 pounds since starting on SPARKPEOPLE on January 15, 2007. But most importantly, I wanted to share some amazing numbers with you. The first number is from 1/11/07 and second numbers 7/15/07 Total Cholestrol was 322 -- 191 My Tryglycerides 247 -- 98 HDL "Good" Chol. 67 -- 53 LDL "Bad" chols 206 -- 118
I am proud to say that this amazing decrease is NOT due to any medication, but to healthy eating and exercise. Which I would have never been able to do without SPARKPEOPLE. The support and motivation from members of my teams has helped me in so many ways. THANK YOU for this wonderful site ! *****
Make your life an adventure!
Chris/SparkGuy SparkPeople Founder & CEO
Abe
· 2 years ago
Thanks for mentioning thedailyplate, but you didn't mention why it's better than all the other diet sites: it has the biggest food database and users have added to it to make it HUGE and totally customizable (you can put items together as "meals" and then one click adds them all at once!)
If sparkpeople had a parallel or even close food data base I'd be using it for the better interface and group support elements plus it's a cleaner, faster site to use -- but it's simply not as accurate or as easy because it doesn't have all the foods that thedailyplate does.
I use thedailyplate as a score card for The Hackers Diet - "How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition" - which is GREAT (I'm down nearly 50 lbs over 7 months) though it's basically calorie counting (which works well for me and many others, but not for everyone, like any diet I suppose). Check it out at: www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet or google it, many positive reviews.
david james
· 2 years ago
Hi there i'm a diabetic and have been a member of most of these sites at some time. I actually find thedailyplate to be the worst of the lot by a long way. I wish u luck if u need an accurate count on carbs to determine your insulin dosage, the ability for users to update data is a joke and mistakes easily happen. They probably have the largest db with the most mistakes. Check their founders for any sort of medical profession, the site is more of a novelty without and real current content. Be very careful using this site, it will have very limited flavor and i'm sure they are infringing on other sites db's.Their food diary is also very average.
Brad
· 2 years ago
I have actually been using this site (successfully - 13 lbs down so far) and it is very useful. As far as how they've acquired their users, when you do searches like "calories in xxxx food" or "nutritional info on xxx food", they show up fairly prominently, so they're doing a good job on the SEO, and after doing a comparison of their site with others, theirs has the advantage of having a lot of nutritional info on specific brands of food, etc (where others just have generic info).
That being said, I think they could improve: 1) finding generic foods on their site - there is no categorization or way to browse and find the foods you want, only search. Try to find calories for a cookie where you don't know the specific name 2) If you lose track for a day, there's no way to just update at end of day and estimate the number of calories you've eaten. You have to add all the individual foods.
All in all, though, I think it's a very useful site with loyal users. Someone will pick them up.
Lex
· 2 years ago
Hi Brad,
Thanks for the kind comments. We actually have answers to both of your two improvements, though I agree wholeheartedly we need to do a better job at making them readily apparent:
2. We offer a "generic calorie" item that you can add to your MyPlate tracking on days you don't want to track each thing individually. Simply add it to your plate, and adjust the number servings to match the total number of calories you'd like to estimate for the day.
I LOVE The Daily Plate! That's actually a screen shot of the group that I started up there. I started with SparkPeople, but TDP seemed much more user friendly. I just felt comfortable using the features there. I have lost 28 pounds since I started even though I have had major surgery since my weight loss journey began.
Mandee
· 2 years ago
I am a Daily Plate user and I have to say that they have acquired all their users by simple word of mouth. When a site is as wonderful as this you dont need any special tactics to gain users other than simply being a great, easy to use site that everyone will tell their friends about.
I believe 100% in tracking all your calories and exercise output daily if you are making lifestyle changes, trying to figure out where you go wrong in your diet so that you can correct it as well as monitor your carb and sugar consumption for a diabetic who needs an easy way to calculate all of that for their doctors. TDP IS that for all those people.
I have told so many friends and family members who are now ALL members and they tell their friends and so forth...Which results in rapidly increasing numbers.
TDP is just that good~Everyone should be a part of it
LiamD
· 1 year ago
TDP is a fantastic website for people looking to lose weight and track intake; or for people who are at a healthy weight and just want to keep track of what they are putting in their body. Although the site is pretty plain and unappealing, and it can be somewhat slower than other sites in this category (myfooddiary.com; sparkpeople.com; caloriecount.com), I don't know that any other site can match the vast database of foods that TDP has accumulated - it really is quite impressive. I've heard that they stole some of it from other sites, but I really don't care, so long as it serves my purpose :) With their food database, exercise tracking tools, and newest "groups" functionality, this site offers people the best bang for the buck, especially since it's free! Best for young singles like me who eat frozen Trader Joe's meals more than anything else - they have it all! I love TDP.
Ushma
· 1 year ago
I am a user of the Daily Plate. I agree that the Daily Plate has more foods in its database than fitday.com and other calorie counter sites. It is a lot easier to use and the format is more user friendly. By the way, Abe, thanks for your reviews. They convinced me!
My only complaint is the useless but prominent placement of water consumption meter on the site. Everyone requires different amounts of liquids, and water contained in juice, coffee, tea, and other drinks are just as good. The evidence on water is limited and therefore does not merit such placement on the page. There should be a way to get rid of it.
Sonia
· 1 year ago
The reason the daily plate hast the largest database of foods is because they stole them all from other sites like dietfacts and calorielab.
Demand Media buying them has just vindicated such behavior and shows just how low their standards are.
All Comments
If you are interested in the social networking diet/healthy lifestyle category, you might also want to check out SparkPeople.com
SparkPeople has well over 1 million members and 70 million page views per month with huge growth rates. Comscore ranks SparkPeople the 4th or 5th largest health site by page views and Hitwise ranks it the second largest diet site by site visits - with about 6 million total visits per month.
BUT, the best part is the large number of people making a healthy lifestyle change every day in our social networking community. Here's an example of the comments we get on a daily basis:
*****
THANK YOU! I wanted to let you know how much this site has helped me. I have been on every DIET on the market. I still have weight to lose, not sure how much, I decided not to set a final goal. I want to keep going until I feel healthy and look healthy. I have lost 56 pounds since starting on SPARKPEOPLE on January 15, 2007. But most importantly, I wanted to share some amazing numbers with you.
The first number is from 1/11/07 and second numbers 7/15/07
Total Cholestrol was 322 -- 191
My Tryglycerides 247 -- 98
HDL "Good" Chol. 67 -- 53
LDL "Bad" chols 206 -- 118
I am proud to say that this amazing decrease is NOT due to any medication, but to healthy eating and exercise. Which I would have never been able to do without SPARKPEOPLE. The support and motivation from members of my teams has helped me in so many ways.
THANK YOU for this wonderful site !
*****
Make your life an adventure!
Chris/SparkGuy
SparkPeople Founder & CEO
I tried sparkpeople and several others (I did a little review on http://tinyurl.com/28rtws including fitday.com, traineo.com, sparkpeople.com, thedailyplate.com, calorieking.com, and calorie-count.com) and I liked many of their interfaces MORE than thedailyplate
BUT
Thedailyplate has, BY FAR THE BIGGEST FOOD DATABASE!!!
If sparkpeople had a parallel or even close food data base I'd be using it for the better interface and group support elements plus it's a cleaner, faster site to use -- but it's simply not as accurate or as easy because it doesn't have all the foods that thedailyplate does.
I use thedailyplate as a score card for The Hackers Diet - "How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition" - which is GREAT (I'm down nearly 50 lbs over 7 months) though it's basically calorie counting (which works well for me and many others, but not for everyone, like any diet I suppose).
Check it out at:
www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet or google it, many positive reviews.
That being said, I think they could improve:
1) finding generic foods on their site - there is no categorization or way to browse and find the foods you want, only search. Try to find calories for a cookie where you don't know the specific name
2) If you lose track for a day, there's no way to just update at end of day and estimate the number of calories you've eaten. You have to add all the individual foods.
All in all, though, I think it's a very useful site with loyal users. Someone will pick them up.
Thanks for the kind comments. We actually have answers to both of your two improvements, though I agree wholeheartedly we need to do a better job at making them readily apparent:
1. Add the term "generic" to your search, or use our advanced search (http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition/advanced/) and check the box to "limit to generic items only."
2. We offer a "generic calorie" item that you can add to your MyPlate tracking on days you don't want to track each thing individually. Simply add it to your plate, and adjust the number servings to match the total number of calories you'd like to estimate for the day.
http://www.thedailyplate.com/nutrition-calories...
Hope this helps!
I believe 100% in tracking all your calories and exercise output daily if you are making lifestyle changes, trying to figure out where you go wrong in your diet so that you can correct it as well as monitor your carb and sugar consumption for a diabetic who needs an easy way to calculate all of that for their doctors. TDP IS that for all those people.
I have told so many friends and family members who are now ALL members and they tell their friends and so forth...Which results in rapidly increasing numbers.
TDP is just that good~Everyone should be a part of it
My only complaint is the useless but prominent placement of water consumption meter on the site. Everyone requires different amounts of liquids, and water contained in juice, coffee, tea, and other drinks are just as good. The evidence on water is limited and therefore does not merit such placement on the page. There should be a way to get rid of it.
Demand Media buying them has just vindicated such behavior and shows just how low their standards are.
BAD FORM TDP