Nutrio

There's an impressive team of experts behind this weight loss community site, including several senior dieticians, doctors and sports specialists. The site is scattered with brief but enthusiastic testimonials from visitors. The main channels are listed down the left-hand side of the screen with another menu strip at the top of the page. Several features are highlighted on the homepage, which requires a lot of scrolling to take in all the information. The keyword search facility is on the lower left.



SPECIAL FEATURES



Weight Loss Program This is also known as MyNutrio and Weight Loss Wizard and is free. You answer a series of 19 questions so that your personalised program may be calculated, and you are then given some feedback on your answers. This was one of the best versions of this type of thing we have found on the web - it really was personalised to our answers and our only criticism, apart from the general low speed of the site, was that the calorie amounts recommended for weight loss were a little too strict - you may want to add a couple of hundred calories if you have a lot of weight to lose or are active. Your eating plan then appears on the homepage of the site on a daily basis once you've logged in, and you can click on the links beneath it to check out the weekly menu plan, exercise plan, record your progress, and so on. Be aware, too, that some ingredient substitutions for things like non-fat cream cheese may need to be made in the recipes.



Features are highlighted at the centre of the page and typical content includes 'what we mean by healthy shopping', 'life as fitness', 'controlling cravings with exercise' and anger management techniques. Click on the More link to be presented with more options. Beginners will find this section particularly useful. The articles are informative but not too long, and there are some great ideas for healthy living such as 'cross training is as easy as choosing a new activity', 'correct posture can make you look about 10-15 pounds lighter instantly' and advice on how to fit regular exercise into a busy schedule. There are links to other relevant articles at the base of each one, and every time you click on a new subject a new window opens, which you will either find useful or maddening, depending on the size of your screen.



Daily News is the place for topical stories and response to new research findings. 'A Woman's Workout is Work' has boffins telling us nothing we didn't know already, girls: they found that 95 per cent of women over 40 get their exercise doing household chores. Some content comes from news agencies such as HealthSCOUT. Click throught the archive for a list of other newsy articles - there's plenty of interest here, including broader health issues such as the dangers of trampolining for children and how sugar placebos are actually reasonable cures for serious problems.



Nutrition 'Are you fat phobic?' they ask here, with the aim to make visitors realise that while the fat content of foods is important when dieting, calories are important too, and cutting down fat too much can cause bingeing. A memorable statistic was that one teaspoon of oil contains 45 calories but so does one cup of raw salad vegetables. Also here are steps to a skinner, healthier kitchen, tips for eating healthily on the go when you're a vegetarian, and ways to give your children a nutritious start in life. There are plenty of archived articles, so you will have plnety of reason to keep coming back here.



Fitness Keepping fit when travelling, advice for running your first 10k race, the key to exercising regularly, why you should never skip your warm-up and 'The Executive's Guide Deskercise' are typical subjects in this article-led channel.



Mind/Body Discover here how to stay positive and focused while dieting, how to say 'no' to being too thin, why weighing yourself more than once a week could sabotage your efforts, how to cope with comments that you would be pretty if only you lost weight, plus other interesting health issues such as how to improve your sleep and keep yoour brain functioning at optimal levels.



Tools All the usual suspects are here - a healthy weight to height chart, how to calculatee your body mass index and target heart rate, a calorie burn guide explaining how much energy various sports and activities use up, a food analyser with the nutritional content of individual foods and drinks. The Fast Food Facts section is dominated by American takeaway chains, but some of the information is relevant toUK visitors - such as full nutritional breakdowns for McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC products, so if you fell off the wagon you know how much it hurt.



References includes the USDA's healthy eating pyramids, details of how to understand America's nutrition labels and other wording on packaging, and comprehensive sections on all you need to know about vitamins and minerals.



Community There are seperate message boards for nutrition, fitness and mind/body, with a choice of subjects in each and all are very well attended. The Starting Place for new participants in the nutrition section is obviously popular , but there's also a recipe exchange, a board called Moving on Up for students and young professionals, plus the Dr's Orders board focusing on the progress of one particular member. Motivation is the key subject in the exercise message boards while the mind/body boards cover emotional eating, a section for those with more than 100lbs to lose, one for those over 40 and an 'I Did It!' board for taking a bow.



OTHER FEATURES



Poll, nutrition quiz, newsletter, send to a friend