Free diet programs offer you the functionality of the fee based programs.

Find Out What You Can Get For Free

It seems that some of the free diet programs can offer you a great service for no financial outlay at all.

My general philosophy when I buy something is that you get what you pay for. If you get something free, don't expect much.

But on the internet this philosophy doesn't always ring true.

There are some commercial diet programs online that offer similar online functionality in diet programs as do companies such as Dietwatch and eDiets.

These diet programs are still commercial and still gain income from your visits, it's just that they don't charge you, they charge their advertisers. It's a bit like a free newspaper, magazine or even as you'll notice this site. They send it to you free and charge their advertisers to advertise.

Some free diet programs of course, do not have advertising on them, however at some point, they would have to start charging a membership fee or put advertising on it, in order to continue providing the online service, because like any other business, an internet business costs money.

The overall benefits to the consumer, however is that you get something for nothing.

Some of the free diet programs that I found on the internet after a very quick Google search were:

• Sparkpeople
• Fitday
• Startyourdiet.com

Sparkpeople

Not sure why they're called Sparkpeople.

I found their sign up process to be relatively painless. You will get newsletters from them, but I found them to be relevant and not spammy.

I was also impressed by the fact that during the signup process, the system won't let you make unrealistic goals, which I feel happens a lot. Many people are so desperate and determined to lose the weight, that they'll make a goal that is not only unreachable, but also unhealthy.

The meal plans are easy to change and make food substitutions or you can put in your own food as you feel necessary. As you check off each food item eaten, it will calculate how much calories, carbs, fats and protein you've consumed.

The fitness section is also good. It determines a fitness schedule for you, you get to pick the days that you want to exercise and it tells you what kind of exercise you need to be doing to achieve your goals specified earlier in the sign up process.

They do also offer Sparkpeople points, forums and reports on how you're going.

Also, their system will tell you on what days to do what. The only trouble with this is that if you live in a different country and are a couple of hours behind or ahead, it won't let you see or check off what exercises or food to eat for that particular day.

Overall though, I found Sparkpeople to be one of the truely free diet programs around, with great functionality, flexibility and ethics.

Weight Loss Programs Rating.

You can sign up for Sparkpeople here.

Fitday

This site is primarily a site you can go to in order to try out their fitness software which they are offering for sale for $29.95.

I didn't find that the Fitday site sign up was as comprehensive as the one that Sparkpeople had. It asked you for your age, height and weight, but no other details.

From there it just goes straight into adding foods and exercises, with no suggestion as to what might achieve your goals.

To tell you the truth I didn't find anything really spectacular about Fitday, but that's just my opinion.

Weight Loss Programs Rating.

You can sign up for Fitday here.

Startyourdiet.com

In essence this is not really a free diet program, it is a demo of what you could get if you joined on their deluxe membership basis.

Upon sign up, Startyourdiet.com will offer you the choice of a basic (free) membership or their deluxe (19.95 per year) membership.

The basic membership gives you access to weight loss goal planning, diet profile, daily weight tracking calender, daily diet task list and weight chart. The rest of their functionality such as tracking meals and exercises with access to the food database are reserved for the paid membership.

I also didn't see any exercise-related component on Startyourdiet, but did see that their deluxe membership gives you access to blogging tools so you can blog about your weight loss progress. I thought that this was good, but then if you wanted to blog, you can easily sign up for a free blogger account.

Weight Loss Programs Rating.

You can sign up for Startyourdiet.com here.

If you have a particular comment about free diet programs, don't be shy, send them to me through our form and I'll upload them to the blog (minus your name and/or any identifying details to ensure your privacy.)

Diet & Fitness Tips

If you found this useful, get great diet recipes, fat burning exercises and other articles like this one in our diet & fitness newsletter.

Top Of Free Diet Programs Page.