Losing weight the Web 2.0 way - Fat-Off challenge

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RunFatBoy is a tool created by Jim Jones to help newbies lose weight. RunFatBoy provides customized workouts based on your weight and then you can customize the workouts from there.

Pros

• $5 per month
• Very customizable to create the workout that will work for you
• Lots of Web 2.0 goodness
• Offers both Metric and Standard
• Easy to use, functionality works well

Areas for improvement

• Ability to go back in history - appears you can only look at the current week
• Algorithm for initial workout - not sure where the weights come from but they seem heavy for an obese man (I would assume just as bad for a woman)
• Some information on where the pre-defined workout comes from - this is an issue I have with every tool I have looked at.
• Needs graphs of workouts and weights

General thoughts:

I think RunFatBoy is for someone who wants a little bit more than Skinnyr, but less than Traineo. If you want a way to track your workouts in an easy to use manner with a diary, then RunFatBoy is for you. If you are the type that needs a community for motivation, then look elsewhere. For me, the suggestions above would need to be implemented for it to be worth the $5/month charge.

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iTrainHarder is an online nutrition and fitness tracking and planning system that allows you to see your results as well as plan for new ones. Our software will allow you to track your progress using the most advanced web tools available for personal fitness.

Pros

• Very well built application, smooth and robust technology
• Site has 5 major components: nutrition, training, measurements, blog and trainer.
• No matter what food I tried, I could not find one that is not in their database
• Each feature has a tutorial video
• Usability is high

Areas for Improvement

• Design is very geeky, not easy enough on the eyes
• Appears to be set for men, not women in its appearance
• No community - could be a positive or a negative
• Explain the pricing - "as low as" - what does the pricing look like?
• Make the design more relaxed with colors that make people feel more relaxed
• Add some line height to the text - there is tons of (good) text on the site but it is a little hard to read with the lines being so tight

Final thoughts:

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Skinnyr is the most basic of the tools tested (it is still very useful!). The idea with Skinnyr is that you can create a graph with your current weight. You can put the graph on any site you are associated with like MySpace or your blog. Here is a test graph I just made to demonstrate:

Pros:

• Very easy to use interface
• Simple to setup
• Charts can be embedded into any web page with no HTML or coding experience needed
• RSS feed for graphing

Areas for Improvement:

• A way to add past weights, for example if I forget to add yesterday's measure, there is no way to backdate the weight
• Perhaps a converter from metric to British
• Maybe look at a more friendly name than Obfuscatr :)
• More options for the graph - colors and so forth for better integration into various sites

Final Thoughts:

I think Skinnyr does a good job at what it set out to do. It does not claim to be a fully-featured health and fitness site. It is an online scale. And it is a great online scale.

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traineo

traineo’s idea is simple: join traineo for free and pick up to 4 friends or members of your family (who will become your 'traineo motivators') to receive weekly email updates on your progress towards your weight loss and fitness goals. Our easy-to-use software allows you to choose what you’d like traineo to report to your motivators so they can give you the motivation, support and accountability you need to achieve your goals.

Pros:

• Very well designed site - loads of Web 2.0 features but they are useful which is important
• The Web 2.0 features are VERY impressive so far - mouseover shipping and get a beautiful on-screen popup
• So far this is the only one of the tested sites that has a store - 3 items, tshirt, analog and digital scale - the t-shirts only come in sizes up to xxl, hey some of us are bigger than that when we begin! And maybe offer more options than just black? maybe a pink or green or white?
• Traineo seems very well rounded - forums, articles from experts, and then training information
• I like the motivators feature a lot - have other people you know (and those you don't yet know) to give you encouragement - this part is so critical when trying to lose weight
• Their did you know facts across the site are cute - here is one: 298 calories are burned, on average, per day, by a traineo member.
• Very big emphasis on community
  

Areas for Improvement:

• Mobile version perhaps?

Final Thoughts:

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Gimme20 provides the following: Fitness Tracking, Community, Weight Tracker and a Blog. There is a mobile fitness tracker which I think is a great addition. They have also just launched a fitness widget for your site.

Pros:

• The charting tool is nice - you can create charts for anything - #of glasses of water, #of times you have checked CenterNetworks each day - anything!
• Couple of the innovative items I have not seen on the others (may have missed on the first review) are the mobile reporting function and the workout reminder function.
• The fitness tracking section allows you to record your workouts, chart your progress, build a workout, find a workout, and set reminders.
• Excellent use of Drupal CMS
• Mobile version

Areas for Improvement:

• I would have left the local area off until there are more posts and posters as right now it says there is nothing in Atlanta and defaults to the entire USA.
• There were some concerns about where some of the content came from on Gimme20 - you can read the concerns on this post

Final Thoughts:

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MyFoodDiary

Pros:

• Over 35,000 foods listed in the diary
• Color-coded food analysis helps to see what you are doing wrong
• Dream planner - I call one of their features a dream planner - basically you can replicate today over and over to see where you would be in 3 months

Areas for Improvement:

• Offer a free trial
• Update the design

Final Thoughts:

Screenshots - click to enlarge

SparkPeople

Pros:

• Team aspect - members can join teams like the CenterNetworks team
• Very strong community - message board has several million posts
• Free

Areas for Improvement:

• So many messages about it being free, it almost feels "scammy" (I know it isn't)

Final Thoughts:

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