Fitday Vs. SprarkPeople | Diet and Exercise | Real Life Fitness | PhitZone

Get on track

If you are working out and eating right, chances are you are counting your calories. These days it is more than just writing what you eat down on paper. We have technology that takes it one step further.

There are many websites out there, some are free, and some you need to pay for. I was looking for a free site to use to count calories, and keep an eye on what I was eating.

FitDay

FitDay is free up to a point. You can get the basics at no charge. My husband’s favorite price. You can input your food, even create custom foods. There are calendar view that show everything you’ve done for the day with little icons. This was very handy for me.  I could see at a glance what I had done (exercise, tracked food, weight and measurements, et.).

FitDay gives you a report, and shows you a pie chart of your percentages of fat, carbohydrates, and protein-very nice. You even have the option to print a daily report to take with you. This is what I did, and hung on the frig so that I could cross off my food for the day as I ate it.

Local

If you want to work offline, you can purchase the Fitday software to run locally on your computer. We can’t comment on this portion at this time, because we haven’t tried it.

Premium

Another option is to pay for the premium membership. This essentially takes the advertising off of the site, which could speed it up.

SparkPeople

I have to say that SparkPeople is my favorite of the two. Absolutely no charge. This was not the deal breaker though. SparkPeople does not give you the calendar view, but, has a place to input data (measurements, weights, etc.)

Like with Fitday, you can track your food, and create custom foods. You can also share foods with other users. This is very handy. There is a pie chart of your percentages. You can track other specific food nutrients. For instance I chose to add fiber.

There is a tab for entering exercise, and to set up workout plans. This is nice because you can enter custom exercises.

There are tabs at the top of the page for recipes, message forums (very nice), and to get a hold of support (also very nice). Spark People also lets you set your goals, as does Fit Day, but with Spark People, when you put in your weight, it has a line graph to show you where you are, and where you should be to meet your goal. This is a double edged sword. If you are anything like me, you want to be right on target and get upset when you aren’t.

And the winner is

Both of these sites are very valuable tools to track your food. They both have their pluses and minuses. Overall, I am happiest with Spark People. They are more goal oriented, and have support to help you along the path.

If you track this information online, what site do you use?