| Product: |
eDiets |
| Date: |
31.10.02 (1343 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good community spirit, good support
Disadvantages: not flexible enough
I joined eDiets in July 2001 after gaining weight slowly but surely for a couple of years. I had tried many other diets in the past and only once had a real long term success. I truly believe that dieting is a state of mind and that if you are not truly motivated, for your own good reasons and if it is not the right time for you, it just will not happen. Dieting is a long term thing and I have no time for the quick fix "lose 100 lbs in 3 days" type things. When I joined eDiets I was generally fed up with all the weight gained but most importantly I wanted to try for a baby and realised that losing weight was a first good step. But what really tipped the scales was when someone asked my partner when our baby was due. Imagine, wanting to get pregnant and being mistaken for pregnant because you have a big fat belly! Not fun.
Anyway, I came across eDiets online and decided to give it a shot. For me, registering to the site, paying for 3 months and having the weekly weigh-ins was the commitment I needed to get going.
The site is quite friendly and easy to navigate. It has some great features such as the community area with supports groups, which I found very helpful. When you register you fill in a profile that includes your eating habits, exercise, where you shop, etc. Based on that they issue a weekly meal plan and a basic exercise plan (they now have a more detailed plan with a separate subscription). The meal plans are quite varied and can be modified but I found them not flexible enough. They are not really suitable for someone who does not necessarily want to have three main meals and a mid afternoon snack. The most annoying thing is that it does not let you add your own recipes. To be honest, in the time I was subscribed I never followed the meal plan just used them for general ideas and made my own meal plans, counting calories with a cooking software I have.
A nice feature of the site is the journal where you can write what
you eat and when, how you feel, etc. I found that quite helpful, mostly to maintain awareness of where I was and what I was doing. It may work for some and not for others I suppose.
The weekly weigh-in was the most important bit for me, it allowed to keep track of my progress and see graphs of the loss over time, which was really nice. They also had a BMI sliding scale, but that only showed where you are at that point and not the progress, which was a shame. With every weigh-in you get a message telling you how well you done, or if you did not lose weight, encouraging you and asking questions to try and see why you didn't lose. There again I found the site lacking in flexibility. Mainly, as a woman, I wish it would take account of things like the menstrual cycle that can have a big effect on weight. It is quite frustrating to know you ate well and exercised but did not lose anything due to pre-menstrual water retention.
Another problem with the weigh-in feature is that you can make corrections if you made a mistake. On my first week I realised after entering my weight, that the scales were not positioned flat and I was 5 lbs out, but I could never go back and correct that, which was quite annoying.
At the time I was registered to eDiets the live chat feature was not available so I don't know what it was like. I did use the online chat support once and it was OK.
I had a look at the US site of eDiets and they seemed to have more features and overall be better, I hope the UK site will catch up if it hasn't.
I lost quite a bit of weight during my registration to eDiets and I think overall it was quite helpful, I'd probably join again in the future. I only left when I found out I was pregnant :-)
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