SYD Classic Testimonials
I never thought that joining a website would change my life. But it definitely has!
The 24/7 nature of StartYourDiet.com makes it possible for me to check in whenever I need support or encouragement. That has been a key difference for me in finally losing weight permanently. Before I would always start a diet with great enthusiasm and then peter out a few weeks or even a few months later and undo all my hard work. With the support of the site's tools and other members of SYD, I learned it's critical to pick myself up after a mistake or a binge and keep moving forward. I've learned how to create a healthy lifestyle.
When I started I was unhappy with the way I looked and rarely exercised. So far, I've lost and kept off over 70 pounds. I still enjoy eating good food and I love buying clothes in the "regular" sizes at stores -- I no longer have to buy whatever fits -- I have choices now! I enjoy running, biking and swimming and have competed in a triathlon. Most of all, I want to share how great it FEELS to be healthier. I have so much more energy!
There is no magic pill for weight loss -- if there was I would've found it because I tried nearly everything. What it does takes is a willingness to learn and change, and to keep on trying even if you make a mistake. It's a personal journey to a healthy lifestyle and the payoff is worth it. Believe me, if I can do it, anyone can!
"SYD has made an amazing difference in my life. I never imagined in 2006 when I joined the site, how much a part of my life it would become. The tools the site offers are invaluable for calculating calories, and determining your progress toward personal goals that you set for yourself. Guidelines are there for you, but you customize the tools to work best for you personally. The ability to set goals is very helpful, and the recent addition of user-created contests gives members so many tools to connect with others. The message boards are great, and very helpful. It's simply an amazing site.
A big strength of the site is the members who belong to SYD, and the sense of community that there is here. I have met people through the site who have become very personal friends, and I have met at least 10 of them in person. People here really care about the progress of others. We see each other through good times and bad, weight-related and personal. The site has provided an avenue for us to get to know others who are one in the quest for better health through weight loss.
I honestly don't know if I would still have 85 pounds off if it weren't for StartYourDiet.com. It has become my daily touchstone. It is what keeps me mindful of my health and my weight, and the friends that are here encourage each other like no other site I have seen. It is the best spent money I can think of to stay in touch with my health and friends who realize that we are all in this together. I am still a work in progress, working toward goal and optimal health in my late 50s. I will belong to this site…forever! Thank you SYD!
The reason I have been successful in my new lifestyle has been the message board and blogs. Whether I have joys or sorrows, I know that there is a group waiting to support me. On the flip side, when I read in a blog that I have inspired someone to succeed, I am overjoyed and push myself even more. All new members are welcomed with open arms and no one is a stranger. My SYD family has donated hundreds of dollars to help me achieve my goal to walk in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. The men and women on that message board care about my success and I care about theirs.
The interactive charts and graphs drew me to this site, but the support of the message board and blogs will keep me a lifelong success story.
I've lost 35 pounds using SYD and it is the best decision I've made. This is the new me and the new lifestyle I have become.
I knew that tracking my food intake was really important if I wanted to lose weight. I found StartYourDiet.com on a Google search. Not only did I find a place to log in my food, but I was surprised by all the wonderful charts and graphs and motivational tools and at such a reasonable cost too!
There is something else I found that I wasn't expecting and hadn't even realized how much I needed: The camaraderie and support of all my fellow SYDer's. StartYourDiet.com message boards and blog features make it easy and safe for users to share their journey, cheer each other on, lift one another up, challenge each other, discuss the latest in books and diet/nutrition news and even agree to disagree at times.
Logging on to StartYourDiet.com is like getting one big virtual {{hug}}!
StartYourDiet.com has helped me stay accountable, both to myself and to other people. I tried to lose weight one other time, using diet pills. Needless to say, that didn't work out in the long run, and I gained the weight back and then some. The biggest difference between "this" time and "back then" is that I stayed accountable to myself, using the tools at SYD. This time, I didn't try to "get away with" having the worst foods I could while still losing weight. Instead, my whole lifestyle has changed, and I don't even want to eat all the junk food I used to enjoy. Now, I'd much rather eat healthy, quality food for energy that I need in order to keep up with my active lifestyle!
The tools on SYD have kept me accountable for all the decisions I make, so I have zero desire to "cheat" anymore. SYD lets me log in and track my weight, meals, water, exercise, vitamins, measurements, and a whole host of other things anytime, day or night. I love all the charts and graphs, which allow me to see my progress and figure out where things are going well and where I could improve. These things have been important for keeping me on-track…but the community has been invaluable in their commitment to helping me succeed.
I started SYD on April 25, 2010, and upgraded to the "deluxe" membership on April 29th because I was in love with all the tools and wanted more. It wasn't until after I moved from Wisconsin to Virginia, for school, that I got involved with the online community. I don't like talking about weight loss in-person, but talking about it with "strangers" online didn't bother me, and I was instantly comfortable talking to all the people who were facing their own journeys. I was soon hooked on "logging and blogging" and involved in the message boards daily. The community soon turned into real friends, not just online strangers. That's when my weight loss really took off. All the tools and people were there for me at the perfect time for me to be successful. I was able to lose nearly 20 pounds in the SYD Biggest Loser competition that ran from January to April 2011, and I reached my goal of being below 140 on April 29, 2011...coincidentally, exactly one year after starting my deluxe membership.
I continue to use the SYD tools as I learn to maintain my weight loss of 75 pounds, and I've recommended the site to several "real life" friends, a couple of whom have also signed up and gotten hooked. With the help of the SYD tools (and continued improvements from the incredibly responsive staff!) and support from the community, I forsee no problems maintaining my weight and active lifestyle indefinitely! Thank you, SYD, for helping me to achieve and maintain a life I LOVE!!!
Hi, I'm Alissa :)
Wife, Sister, Daughter, Friend and Former-Executive-now-Stay-at-Home-Mom (FENSAHM) to three amazing kids...all of these roles seemed to have created an excess of weight on the previously slim and trim ME. In November of 2010, I had had enough and happened to pick up the book, 100 Days on a Diet...reading some material, getting online and a few clicks to BOOM SYD website. "Start my diet?" I thought...oh yeah...START NOW. So I did...Joined on November 16, 2010 right before the holiday season.
I love the community, can't say enough about the ample opportunities to connect on the Message Boards and in Blogs...connect with others and myself. Because, honestly, what I needed was to be REAL with MYSELF. The blog and the food log became my mainstays...helping me process my thoughts and reassuring me that I am not alone...I could not have gotten through the Holiday Season with out that support! I eventually ended up leading the Second Annual (we sure hope it becomes annual!) SYD Biggest Loser Contest with a group of ladies who also wanted an added challenge to keep them focused on their weight loss goals. WOW...where else could 16 ladies (to start with) who have never ever met, become such good friends and bond over common challenges and successes and setbacks?? Not to mention find endless support from others who are not participating in the challenge but WATCHING IT and CHEERING US ON?? SYD...that's where...SYD.
I am now down 35 pounds since I joined in November...some pounds lost a few times and all well earned. I have about 22 pounds left to go, and thought I have hit a plateau and leveled off my weight loss for a few weeks...I keep coming back to SYD and find the encouragement to push forward and just jump in where I am. There is no judging there, no criticism, no shame and no lack of empathy...it is a wonderful community that I keep coming back to and plan to for as long as I am welcome. Nearing my 6 month mark and targeting hitting my goal by August, I know the SYD community will be my backbone and strength when I am lacking. Not sure what else I can say...amazing people brought together by an amazing site that looks to offer it's members useful tools to assist on the road to health. So glad I happened by SYD...more than words.
My diet is like a triangle, composed of three tools that help me to be successful. The first tool is me, after many years of poor eating and exercise habits, I have finally found the motivation and self control I need to change my life. I have worked very hard to make the life changes necessary to improve my, and by extension my family's, eating and exercise habits. This has not been easy. I work hard everyday to stay on my plan, to plan ahead for all eating contingencies and to get in the exercise I have planned for. Some days it seems like all I can think about and others it comes to me easier. The farther along the path to success I get, the easier it seems to come. I am building new, healthier habits everyday for myself and my family is also benefiting from my lifestyle changes and I am seeing my children and husband making better choices for themselves each day. I find this to be very exciting and rewarding - a bonus to go along with my weight loss!
The second tool in my dieting triangle is my eating plan. I use a great plan that combines food types to boost your metabolism and get weight loss moving. The plan is a healthy one with an emphasis on protein but I eat plenty of veggies and fruit each day. My dairy intake is limited for now but I still get enough for good health. In addition to following 'my plan', I have cut high fructose corn syrup from our whole families diet and we work hard to eat local, organic, non-GMO foods that are alive and not chemically treated or irradiated.
The third tool in my triangle is StartYourDiet.com. It is the tool that binds it all together for me. I log on everyday. I track everything, everyday. For me it helps me to visualize how far I have come, where I am today and where I could be if I keep up with my eating and exercise goals. When I am feeling unsuccessful, I look back at my dieting history, when I am feeling like I want to eat off my plan - I look at where I want to be the next day or week. The charts, graphs and other planning tools are invaluable to me. By looking at the pace graph I can keep myself motivated to continue, by looking at my weight chart history I can remind myself of how far I have come. By planning goals I can push myself to meet them. For me, the other two parts of my diet would not work without StartYourDiet.com. I need the visual aids that are available to me and I need the self accountability that daily charting provides. The farther along in my diet I get, the more I see that I will ALWAYS need to hold myself accountable. I may never be able to eat 'normally' or as freely as many other people do. For me, StartYourDiet.com will be a lifelong tool and one that I will always need, and use, to help me stay on track.
There are other components to my weight loss success, of course. Dedication to my exercise plan, the support of my family, friends and co-workers and sometimes just a nice compliment from someone I have not seen for a while can really have a good impact on my dieting attitude. All together they add up to a healthier me and I couldn't be more pleased with the way things are going.
I started my diet 294 days ago and I have lost 104.2 pounds so far! I have lost 17 points on the BMI chart. I define that as success! I have reached 71% of my weight loss goal and I am still feeling good about dieting. I am working hard to achieve the next 29% of my goal. Thank you StartYourDiet.com for helping me to achieve my goals!
Embarking on a weight loss journey for me was about regaining my health. In the past 15 years I had managed to gain 100 extra pounds which fueled a lot of weight and diet related illnesses. By 35 years old I had developed diabetes, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia just to name a few... I knew my only way to a life worth living was to shed the extra weight. But a hundred pounds seemed so overwhelming that I didn't know where to start! I remembered when I typed in "start my diet" in the search engine and found SYD (Start Your Diet). I was drawn to it because of the quality of it's graphs and charts, and it seemed like a great place to log food. There were lots of free sites that did similar things, but I really liked SYD and decided that if I was going to embark on losing 100 pounds, it would be worth the money to do it on a website that I really liked. The charts and graphs helped me to identify the things in my life that helped or hindered my weight loss, and helped me to find the balance of calories and exercise that I needed to lose the weight.
What I didn't expect was the support that I found! I started a blog, and soon after began to read other blogs. To me this is the heart of SYD. If I am having a bad day, there is always enough support to make it though the day. There are so many people on similar journeys on this website and the support that everyone offers is free of judgment and often tempered with great advice. I have read in the past that you need a support system to be successful in weight loss, but I thought it was a bunch of bologna, plus I wasn't about to go to "meetings" because I was too embarrassed about my body and my weight problem. On SYD I found that I was "safe" and could talk about anything, which gave me an outlet to find my way. After learning how much easier weight loss was with a support system, I finally understood why so many diet experts harp on the importance of having a strong support system... I really works!!!
My journey took over a year, and it was filled with great accomplishments, and hard times. Through blogging, I learned to find balance in my life and get the weight off once and for all. So here I am 100 pounds lighter and healthy! I no longer take ANY prescription medications, and I am free of diabetes, high blood pressure and fibromyalgia. My doctors have all been blown away by my success and the level of health I have achieved. I can run a 5K now in 32 minutes, ride horses, or hike a mountain. Two years ago I could hardly walk to the car!!! I recommend SYD not just for the graphs and charts (which are great!), but because you can find the support you need here to complete and maintain you weight loss. It doesn't matter if you have 10 pounds or hundreds of pounds to lose, the first step is to get started!