Holly's+Support+Group

I will be working with myplate @ livestrong.com, a nutrition support group that serves as an online food, calories and exercise diary, as well as a social networking system to connect people will similar nutrition goals. Livestrong is clearly an off shoot of Lance Armstrong's livestrong project. It serves as a community for those trying to lose weight, get in shape or simply eat better and take better care of themselves. Like most online communities, there are blogs and discussion boards in order to foster communication between members.

So I have been keeping track of what I eat and how I exercise most days (besides a couple weekends which were too sad to report..), but have been forgetting to take screen shots. This is the basic layout of the main feature, "My Daily Plate", which gives you a report of calories, fat, carb and protein breakdown, etc. The information can be complied to look at weekly or monthly totals and statistics. You are given the option of creating meals you eat often from scratch or picking from a enormous list of precreated food items. The same is for exercise. You can choose from a list (that include as obscure activities as "19th century dancing") or creating your own based on time, intensity and your weight.

Who knows when I will be doing 19th century dancing, but it apparently burns more calories than getting your hair or nails done... imagine that.

I started searching beyond the calorie counting aspect of the site and found support type groups, focused on a number of different topics. I decided to join this one because it described itself as for students or twenty-somethings, "the "no kids, have cereal and cake for dinner" group". That seemed description seemed to fit me. Interestingly, the first post has nothing to do with diet, exericise or being a twenty something... rather looking for a good joke. Slightly random, but we shall see,

The next application I found was this concept of "dares". I liked that these showed the support and community aspect of the site... sort of solidarity in your efforts. I took this one (sadly because I already walk more than 20 minutes a day, thanks to a massive college campus) and one to eat more fruits and vegetables (because lets be honest, there are some serious gaps in my ramen noodles diet).

So far, this is my sparse profile, which I will soon be hopefully improving. I'm planning on uploading some photos and trying to make some friends. Maybe my dares and groups will help to get me connected to others in the community.