Cutting Fitness: 5 Reasons Why Sparkpeople Sucks!
Website Review of the Day *drum roll*….Sparkpeople.
I was browsing the internet and stumbled upon Sparkpeople. It’s another website for weight loss or weight gain. I signed up and have been a member since 2006. Sad to say, but the experience has been unbearable! Read on to know more…
Peace
Internet trolls? I wish! Arguments? I can’t find them! All those women and no menstrual madness? Nope. There’s never any trouble on Sparkpeople. There are Moderators for the forums, but what’s the point when there’s nothing to moderate? The entire website is full of happy people changing their lives for the better. How sad.
Approachable
Chris Downie started Sparkpeople ten years ago, and he sucks just as much as the website does. You can send him a private message through the website, meet him at fitness events, and he actually posts on the forums! Outrageous! How dare the site owner get off his high horse and walk with the big little people? Shouldn’t he be some faceless person no one’s met or seen since the website started making money?
It gets worse. The other Spark employees are just as approachable. They post regularly in the forums, many have experienced the various sides of fitness (aka they were fat too), and they include personal stories on the DailySpark blog, so they’re actually *vomit* likeable. Don’t you miss the days when Employees and Moderators only turned up to destroy a troll, before they both disappeared back into obscurity? I do. I really do.
Free
Besides the Spark Store, everything on the website is free. Trackers? Free. Reports? Free. Forums? Free. Speaking with qualified experts? Free. Your own personalised blog? Free. Articles? Free. For goodness sake, Mister Downie, charge for something! Instead of forcing people into an expensive subscription for life, the website makes money from sponsors, advertising, and the store I mentioned earlier. Some fitness websites offer freebies, but the freebie is usually just spam a daily email. When Sparkpeople offered free access, they meant free access. I guess you’ll have to find some other way to spend your cash…
Everything you need
Remember how the Baker was for bread, the Butcher was for meat, and the Grocer was for vegetables? Now Walmart and Tesco do it all, so the Butcher, the Baker, and the Candlestick Maker aren’t necessary anymore! Sparkpeople is killing the diet industry the same way! Everything I needed to lose weight is on Sparkpeople. Fitness videos? They’ve got them, free and for cheap. How about a small discussion group for others just like me (or you)? They’ve got it, or let you start it. Calorie counters, exercise burn calculators, and what about BMI charts? Darn, they’ve done it again! Once you enter the website you could stay there forever and have everything you need. Years later I still discover new things!
It works
Worst of all, the weight loss program actually works. You know how the diet industry relies on dieters failing so they’ll continue to use the program forever? The billion-dollar industry relies on dieters who lose weight, relapse, regain, lose weight, regain, lose weight…For some reason, Sparkpeople want you to succeed at permanent weight maintenance. They even have a Weight Maintenance section. This is suicide for the diet industry! A slim, healthy person educated in a healthy lifestyle with a great support system doesn’t repeatedly lose weight, buy tasteless diet ‘food’, or fall for pointless infomercials about useless products offering the world and everything in it. Why is Sparkpeople being so selfless selfish?
As you can see, all the great things you’ve heard about Sparkpeople are true. Unlike some other fitness programs, this one fulfils its promise to ‘Make Your Life An Adventure’. The ups and downs since I lost these 75lbs has been an adventure, and it’s not over yet. I blame Sparkpeople for helping me move from a size 20 to a size 8. I blame Sparkpeople for taking me from 51% body fat to 25%. I blame Sparkpeople for the endless support when I wanted to throw in the towel and eat until I exploded popped.
If you still want to sign up then click here. Make sure you come back. You’ve been warned.
38 thoughts on “Cutting Fitness: 5 Reasons Why Sparkpeople Sucks!”
Hi Zahra! Great post – very funny and well written. Congratulations on your weight loss success.
Thanks for the comment! Your weight maintenance journey is very inspiring.
Very true..I’ve used SparkPeople for 17 months, lost weight, kept it off and got addicted to sparking! Love it and recommend it everyday.
I love the sarcasm! Totally made my morning and really reassured my decision to join this site. Thank you for pointing out the positives in such a hilarious way. Emailing this to my husband!
This is the worst post I’ve ever seen!
Haha :). Thanks so much for this review and congratulations on your life-changing results. We do LOVE helping people reach their goals.
SparkCheers!
Chris (SparkGuy)
SparkPeople Founder/CEO
Dear Zahra Brown, Sparkpeople has taken away all my individual weight loss innovations since all i have to do is follow theirs, i am so successful and love bombed by this cult that i have stopped eating an entire spinach alfredo pizza every few days, which in turn destroys a segment of my local economy, the pizza delivery person loses income and i lose weight at one or two pounds a week, at age 72, which is about 3.33 times older than you, i could waste away to 145 pounds from 195 pounds all within one year, 2011, the worst part is that i have bought their book and a DVD, so i am under their influence even offline 🙂 and i have fallen in love with Coach Nicole, whose DVD is toning my whole body !! please do not rewrite my movie script, it has already bankrupted me 🙂
From the title I was expecting to run over here and defend Sparkpeople. Awesome post! Very true! New follower to your blog!
Great article…I was actually wondering if there was something wrong with it lol.
Awesome article! I’m blacKandi on Sparkpeople and I’m the team leader of the drama free 30 Day Shred and Iron Maidens teams. It’s very nice to meet you!
I´m a SparkPerson and I love it! Great description of the process!
I <3 SparkPeople! I had to read this post cause I could not imagine what kind of SP experienced lead to it. Anyway, been a member since 09. I lost 50lbs, learned to run, now have a healthier diet, met a host of great people. I still have my challenges but I know how to get it done because of SP. Yeah all that certainly does suck;)
I lost 75 lbs with SP. Plus, I got myself off antidepressants after about 15 years of being on them; because I learned so much about mental illness through SP. Turns out that so much of mental illness doesn’t need meds at all. Oh, but wait… if I stop taking meds, at means that the pharmaceutical industry doesn’t make tons of money off of me! Well… guess what… they could go broke for all I care, because I’m done being poisoned! Turns out you just need healthy, unprocessed foods with no chemicals or preservatives; and to exercise to have a healthy body AND a healthy mind! SP is doing more than just making people thin! A large part of my new healthy diet includes foods that help my mental health issues (Major Depression, Bipolar, Anxiety… and a few others). Stop putting poison in… put good stuff in… and your body and mind will react and look the way it’s supposed to!!! I’m happy and healthy. I’ve literally turned my life around! Thanks SP.
Oh… and by the way… this was an AWESOME article! Thanks so much for posting it!
Great article!
I’ve been a member of Sparkpeople since Oct 2006 and have lost 102 lbs!
What can I say… I use it… it works!
If anyone cares, my name on Sparkpeople is SUNRISESUNSET. Add me as a friend on Sparkpeople or I’ll cry.
Actually I won’t cry, I’ll just be disappointed. Just a tad.
A comment from the Sparkpeople CEO? See what I mean about him being nice! It’s terrible.
LOVE SparkPeople! LOVE your success! LOVED your blog! YOU ROCK!!! (And LOL Anthony Chipoletti!!!)
Blessed be!
Maha
Ha ha!! I’ve lost 91 lbs and still going strong that to ME and Spark.
Loved your article,
HIPPICHICK1
Almost 100lbs? You must be devastated. Yes, your life must be so much easier being lighter and healthier, but wouldn’t it better to be big again? Of course it would! Unfortunately, we can’t regain because Spark’s program works not only for weight loss but maintenance too. I suppose we’ll be stuck in our new wardrobes and bikinis on the beach forever. Darn!
OMG! Sparkpeople is the *worst* (<<<scratch that) i mean the best program I have ever come across. They have so much (UN)motivation (<<>> i mean SMILING has become natural again, which was something I had forgotten how to do. There is one… errr NOT ONE person who is beating you down for eating some NO NO’s, or for missing a workout.
The complaint I really have, and this is real… I don’t feel I have enough time to complete my spark stuff some days. This is because I am spending too much time SITTING DOWN to try to complete my stuff, when I should be up exercising or deciding what non high calorie food to stuff my face with (not really ‘stuff’ – more like ‘cram’ >>> lol) but maybe I am being a bit compulsive about it. Is feeling guilty a bit normal???
Well I need to shove some *healthy* breakfast down the kiddos and my own throat, before I head out to my 1 of 3 day routine @ the gym… and SUFFER (ACTUALLY LYING HERE) through another spinning class (((LOVE IT & EVERYONE SHOULD TRY IT))). then workout on the stair climber. then come home and later work out on the wii.
The PAIN (which hurts less then you would think) is sooooo worth it!!!!
not sure what happened on my sentence with the (UN)motivation part… but it was supposed to say… remove the UN part of it… (ooooops!!!)
and…
Zahra… (iLOVEurNAME as well as your spark page NAME)and LOVE YOUR ARTICLES!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing! visit my page again PLEASE!!!!! lol. HUGS!!!
You SHOULD feel guilty for not completing 100% of Spark. Either get points from EVERYTHING EVERYDAY or log off and never return. I think a Spark article said something like that…Maybe. Maybe not.
This rocks!
Great article…love it!
I’ve been a member for over 6 years, can’t stay away…90 pounds lost.
Hey–SparkPeople has to be checked out–there is one other thing that “sucks.” The site is so easy to navigate that you don’t have to know anything about computers or technology to use it. Not nly is it a complete weightloss package, it is easy to open….
And I have lost over 120 pounds and went from being in a wheel chair taking over 20 prescriptions a day to walking with a walker and taking 3 prescriptions a day. I work out faitfully at the pool each day and my health reports are all awesome now. I can’t think of anything that might suck more, lol.
Thanks-a-mundo for the article post. Want more.
very nice post, i certainly love this website, keep on it
Hey this is very funny, and yes spark people is a very cool site.
But I have a totally true complaint!
The goddam add a friend is unbearable it takes you in a round robin over and over.
I just want to add a friend!!
Why is this so hard! why not have a goddam Button that reads “Add a f$#% friend!
For crying out loud !
Unless of course you choose to eat on a plan different than the high carb spark plan.
If you choose something like Primal Blueprint, or Paleo, or Atkins or low carb of any variety than you will be chastised for speaking about what works for you, you will be hounded when you offer any research that does not march lock step with the Spark regime and if you question any of them at ALL about the science behind the nutrition your account will be deleted and you will be given the boot.
My account was deleted after losing 45 lbs and questioning the constant recommendations to get the majority of your caloric intake from carbohydrates. When the Dieticians on Spark people made the statements that those suffering from PCOS would benefit from more carbs I cried foul and ask (privately) that the dietician and “coach” read some of the more recent studies in the field.
I was told if I did not stop that they would delete my account.
And so, I too am one of the people that dislikes spark. Except that I really dislike them. Calorie restricted diets have been proven to be ineffective in the long term. Spark people is a calorie restricted diet. Low fat, high carbohydrate is what the government has been spouting for the last 30 years. We as a nation get fatter and fatter. You might have a small amount of success with a program like spark in the short term. But if you are going to yo you diet and gain those pounds back while the so called experts ignore any of the latest scientific evidence, then you are doing a disservice to your customers.
But spark people are willing to peddle poor science and the lipid hypothesis to an eager customer base to the tune of 2.7 million dollars a year. And as long as those people stay (relativly) fat and keep coming back for more then SparkPeople can keep selling adds, and web space and keep getting rich by promoting foods that do not help their customers get any more healthy.
I am not the only low carb advocate that has been banned and had their account deleted from Spark in the last 6 months. The more vocal you get, the quicker they kick you off. Contrary to suggestion that they are open and understanding, heaven forbid you question the Standard American Diet or the status quo.
Try myfitnesspal.com or any of the other free sites. SparkPeople are a group like big agriculture who are willing to sacrifice your health to make a buck.
Scott ‘Big Daddy T’ Odirom
I like Spark People as well…. I have been using the app to track my water and my food. Congrats on getting rid of 75 lbs! That is totally awesome!
I know this is an old post, but I just added you as a friend, my user name is SARAHFROMCANADA.
The only thing that bugs me about SP is the food tracker, it can be difficult to find the food you want, and I wish they had mL instead of just oz.
yeah…. awesome! I was getting mad at first and thought, seriously? how trivial! and wanted to whip you, I had to scroll down and started reading it again LOL! you trickked me as my grandbaby would say.
Terrific post and glad you are fit and happy.
I just found Sparkpeople.com and was wondering where the hidden fees are but apparently according to you and other members of Sparkpeople there aren’t any. What, Huh? this is a joke right? How can a healthy eating website not want money from me and others who have fallen off the weight loss wagon a gazillion times – I have money to give you and you don’t want it? Amazing, I have no words. I don’t know if anyone will see this because this is an old blog, but it sure has motivated me. I think I’ll join just to annoy all the other sites I have considered, that cost money, that don’t give refunds and don’t answer questions or their phones and most of all have yucky powdered food which is expensive. I thumb my nose at them all … even you WW!
Tongue-in-cheek, very cute. I was getting ready to retaliate until…..well, I get it now. 🙂
I have to say, I really wanted to know why someone thought Sparkpeople sucked. I have been using it on and off since 2009 and have seen it really improve over the years. It is a wonderful resource and has been an inspiration. This article was very cute! A good way to highlight all the terrific features they offer. I love the exercise videos, recipes and trackers. Thanks for the chuckle!
I’ve lost 100 pounds using Sparkpeople in 18 months. Congrats to us!
I guess I am the only person that can’t figure out how to DO it.
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