(mostly content from SparkAmerica website)

Fitness Game:

If you're moving, you're winning!

I want you to take five minutes to consider the things in your life that you consider fun. Maybe it's a movie night with the family, happy hour with your friends, a long walk with the dog, vacationing in Argentina or a game of basketball with the boys. Having fun is synonymous with a smile on your face, spring in your step and feel-good hormones firing. What if we told you fitness could be added to that list? If you've been inactive for some time or have preconceived notions about what it truly means to live an active lifestyle, the two concepts may sound contradictory. Changing people's minds is exactly why we developed the fitness game, though! After working with millions of people from different backgrounds and with their own set of goals, our experts came together to design this program, which will help you move more, incorporate small changes that can change your life and learn valuable leadership skills--all while having a whole lot of fun along the way. WIth just 10 minutes of exercise a day, you can join an elite group of people who enjoy daily activity and all the benefits--increased energy, elevated mood, better sleep!--that go along with it. By engaging in a little friendly competition, you'll discover a renewed sense of fun in your fitness routine while improving your life and future health. What's not to love? 

 

Daily Goal:   10+ minutes per day

Weekly Goal:   140+ minutes per week 

 

(goals are adjustable, these are given in the beginning)

 

 

How To Play:

How do I play?

It's as simple as doing just 10 minutes (or more) of activity, as many days as you can!

What's in it for me?

Decades of observation has resulted in a fascinating discovery...

1. Setting a goal to be more active for at least 10 minutes each day,
2. Reaching that goal, and
3. Tracking your progress

...has significant benefits beyond getting into better shape (which is great, too). It turns out that this small fitness goal can lead to reaching much bigger goals in all areas of life! 

 Free Mini Book

I didn't read through the whole mini-book yet, but I think it's based on the Spark program that most of you will be familiar with, to work out each day for at least 10 minutes a day and try to have a fitness streak going. This material is taken from the new SparkAmerica website, that some of you cannot go to. I'm not trying to annoy anyone, just demystify something that you can do, away from them, either in a notebook, calendar, or on another website, such as My Fitness Pal. It's up to you, it's your health improvement project!

 

 

Introducing PeopleOne Health: New Name, Same Great Experience!

 

What's in a name? When you're doing big things, a name is everything! With our exciting future in mind, we're happy to announce that, starting on September 1st, Spark360 and Empower360 will now be collectively known as PeopleOne Health. As a result of our recent merger, we feel strongly that PeopleOne Health best reflects our commitment to keeping people at the center of our care model.

Our founders are passionate about creating a new and equitable model in healthcare, and, while our name has evolved, our commitment to the exceptional care and service we provide to all members remains our top priority. The coaches, doctors, nurses and staff you interact with on a consistent basis will remain the same, as will our member portal and app. The name change may be new, but Empower360 and Spark360 have already been working to integrate services over the course of the past year so we are confident that this will be a seamless transition.

With big goals in mind for the months and years ahead, the announcement of our new name is a step in the right direction as we continue leading the charge in creating an improved model for healthcare, one that incentivizes people to be healthy. As our teams continue to work more closely together under the PeopleOne Health brand, we are committed to expanding our reach to new offices in new cities while enhancing all services we offer to our members. Soon, you will be able to access our new member portal; until then, you can continue using our website and mobile apps without making any changes. We look forward to continuing to serve you and bring our new healthcare model to you as PeopleOne Health!

*Reprinted, for future reference:

https://portal.spark360.com/HealthyLiving/Article/1462

 

 

My Take: With their new foray into providing healthcare insurance, it seems inevitable that they will be breaking promises to their international 'friends', about opening up membership to new countries. No other health insurance has gone international. They say they are doing what pays the bills better. I'm sure that's necessary, but I think they should also be telling the truth in these matters! They should just admit that that won't be possible for them.

This Isn't Goodbye, SparkFriends--It's A New Beginning

 

 It was a quest--to gamify our lives!

 

SparkPeople began with hope. Hope that a community of like-minded, strong and driven people could motivate one another toward personal growth and overall happiness. Hope for a healthier way of life away from frustrating fad diets and extreme exercise routines. Since 2001, SparkPeople has stayed true to its original mission, offering hope, guidance and inspiration to more than 25 million people through its free goal-setting and weight-loss platform. Watching SparkPeople's members achieve amazing goals, manifest and live the lives they deserve, and cheer on people around the world has been nothing short of incredible. Before anything else is said, we want to thank you for inviting us to be a part of your journey and for the privilege of earning your support and enthusiasm for the brand. We feel confident in saying that no other brand has a community or members that live as passionately as ours! 

Now, it's time for something new. On August 17, 2021, we will be closing down SparkPeople along with its features and mobile apps to make way for a new platform, whose foundation is similarly rooted in the values that made SparkPeople so successful for two decades. As many of you know, SparkPeople's business model has always been free and was driven by advertiser support, a model that became difficult to maintain in recent years. With many larger technology companies emerging in the health and fitness space, we struggled to compete for the same advertising dollars that would keep the site online and alive since it costs many millions of dollars per year to run SparkPeople. In seeking solutions, we discovered that, while our mission remained the same, our approach needed an upgrade.

SparkFriends, we'd like to introduce you to SparkAmerica, a new and free platform we hope you will join to help spread the spark to even more people! SparkAmerica is a national movement and fitness challenge, where you can compete with cities across the nation, work toward your personal growth and even win prizes! The ad-free site will also include a nutrition and fitness tracker, challenges, articles and recipes, along with many other features we are working to develop (including a new community we hope will be as robust as the one you helped create with SparkPeople!). While many of these features are still in the very early stages and are not available yet, we're confident that you'll find the motivation you need to continue on your health journey. 

SparkAmerica is part of our new business model, in which we work with companies and organizations to help keep their employees healthy. Not only does this business model allow us to expand our health offerings to more people, but it also does a much better job of paying the bills and will likely allow us to hire more people over time to keep improving our tech platform. You will see us mention companies a good amount on SparkAmerica. We want to make it clear that SparkAmerica is 100 percent free for individuals to use, and is even free for your company to use! We provide a variety of valuable customization options and other services for companies that pay us, which is how we're able to offer the base tech platform for free. We’re very excited that we can open up our website and app for this business, keeping it free to all individuals and organizations in the United States to keep helping many people.

One feature we can't wait to share with you is SparkCoach, a revolutionary program developed by our team of health and behavior change experts that helps members stay accountable to all their nutrition, fitness, mental health and professional goals. SparkCoach can either be complementary to food tracking or possibly even replace food tracking for many people. At this time, due to various rules and regulations, SparkAmerica is only available to people based in the United States. You can check out more about SparkAmerica and join the movement, by clicking here. This is the only link you should use to sign up for SparkAmerica; please do not go through Spark360 or the app. Please note, you don’t have to choose a city to join. If you want to wait to select a city, we’ll be growing our list to 70 cities by the end of this week. 

As we begin this exciting transition, we know you will have as many questions about your accounts as you do feelings about the shutdown, so we wanted to cover a few points: 

1. At the bottom of your nutrition and fitness trackers page, you'll find a new feature that will allow you to download daily nutrition summaries, as well as fitness and weights tracked. 
2. Unfortunately, other items including recipes and blogs cannot be saved. If you want to hold on to either for future reference or use, we recommend using the "Print to PDF" option to print at home. 
3. Premium members will no longer be charged. As a thank you for your loyalty, though, you will still have access to premium content through August 17!
4. (updated June 9) SparkAmerica will launch its nutrition tracker on August 15! 

Lastly, we recognize that SparkPeople's passionate community is one of its most treasured assets, and we want to ensure that you continue to support and uplift each other even after SparkPeople goes offline. In an effort to continue to foster this community, we will be creating a "SparkPeople Alumni" Facebook group! You can click on this link to join your fellow SparkPeople friends: Click here! We will be approaching some SparkPeople members who embody the brand and what it means to be a positive leader to help lead this group, and we hope it becomes a space for you to share your wins, find inspiration on your off days and celebrate all that it means to be living healthy!  This group will be a "bridge" as we work to build community features on SparkAmerica. If you have any more questions, we encourage you to reach out to us at support@sparkpeople.com. 

While SparkPeople will no longer be online, we are confident that you, our first SparkFriends, will continue to work for the betterment of yourselves and those around you, spreading hope and inspiring others every step of the way, just as you've done for the last 20 years! We hope to see each and every one of you working toward your goals over at SparkAmerica! This isn't goodbye, but a simple see you later and thank you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

 

*Reprint of article, for future reference:

 https://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/wellness_articles.asp?id=2659

 

I reprinted the article, but I am not however, their greatest fan. I am struck by the audacity of them to say that they hope we will all be using their new site, when they KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that many of their members (former members now) will be unable to ever use it! Dishonesty does not look good on them.

Not A Boring Day Reading - - No, OH!

 

I am really disorganized in the computer. Today, I've been moving blogs from one email account to another, because I put them in the wrong place to start with. And so now they are where they need to be, so I can put them in their blog archive. They're in the right person's email, in other words. Finally! It's more complicated than it needs to be. Well, I found some photos that I didn't know were around. Many of them disappeared when SparkPeople closed, but I found some anyway! Wow! What kind of find is it? I found, believe it or not, at least FIVE YEARS of photographs!!! It's a MAJOR find! I'm doing Snoopy dances!

New Skills for a New Start

"Unsuccessful people make their decisions based on their current situations.

Successful people make their decisions based on where they want to be."

Dr. Benjamin Hardy, organizational psychologist    🎯

 

I would like to be in this Fiat Convertible!
 

 

Where I would like to be is healthy - - mind, body and soul.

Where I would like to be is bright - - capable, and helpful

Where I would like to be is brave - - tough as nails, the steel kind!

My choices for learning new skills is to:

1. be a better blogger - - get more practice, read more blogs from others

2. eat more fruits and vegetables - - have them delivered to my home

3. be more outgoing around new people - - let yourself be new! enjoy the slow lane!

Using Your Blog at SparkPeople

 

By: Jen Mueller, SparkPeople Community Leader, 11/25/2008*

 

I remember the first time I heard the word blog. I had to ask for an explanation, and even then wasn't exactly sure why I should be interested in reading, much less writing, a blog myself. According to Merriam-Webster, a blog is "a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer." The more familiar I became with blogs, the more I discovered how helpful they could be, and how I could use SparkPeople.com to meet all of my blogging needs.

The popularity of blogs has skyrocketed over the past few years. There are currently about 15.5 million active blogs, up from 5 million in 2003. (This includes all blogs, not just those on SparkPeople.) What's more, Internet users create over 120,000 new blogs every day. More than just a passing trend, blogging is here to stay.

With so many bloggers as it is, why should you do it, too?
A blog is your own personal outlet, where you can voice your opinion, share your ideas, and reflect on the changes you're making. Blogging on your SparkPage (whether it's a written or video entry) is a great way to update people on your progress, share your ups and downs, and talk about anything and everything that interests you. When you post an entry about how you had a bad day, for example, you'll often get encouraging comments from other members who've been there, telling you to pick yourself up and start again. When you post about your accomplishments, others can congratulate you on your success. And even if no one comments, your blog is still helpful to you (just like conventional journaling is), and to anyone else who stops by to read (or view) it.

As an extra bonus, blogging on SparkPeople is a good way to get involved with the vibrant and positive SparkPeople Community. We've found that members who are active in our Community tend to lose more weight than those who are not as involved. That's just another reason that blogs can be a helpful tool in your healthy lifestyle journey.

Using SparkPeople for All of Your Blogging Needs
We recently launched some new features that allow you to customize your blog and make it easier to do all of your blogging right here at SparkPeople.com. Now you can post multiple photos on a single blog entry. You'll also see links to more blog posts to the right of each entry, as well as links that make subscribing to blogs quick and easy! You can choose to post a written entry, or do a video blog.  Your real-world friends can also follow your blog through an email subscription, too, even if they aren't members of SparkPeople

 Your SparkPeople blog doesn't just have to be about your weight loss or health goals either. You can write or talk about a wide variety of topics that interest you.

Now that you know why you might want to blog, how do you get started? You'll find a link to your blog on your Start page(look in "My Community" column) and on your SparkPage.

To add an entry, click on "Blogs" at the top of your SparkPage, then on the "Add a New Blog Entry" button on the right if you want to do a written entry. Simply fill in the title and body of your blog and then click "Post Blog Entry" at the bottom. Or you can click "Add a Video Blog", and then upload the blog from your personal computer.  You're on your way! (Yes, it is that easy.) Also, be sure to tell your friends and family about your blog to get additional support as you work toward your goals!

*This is from another website, but I thought it still might be somewhat inspirational, so I copied and pasted it here, removing all the links. I didn't change it otherwise. Please keep in mind that there is no longer any SparkPeople after 8/17/2021

Tom Sawyer Be A Bad Boy

 

     I read this book recently, called 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' which is a classic American novel written by Mark Twain. It's about a boy named Tom who got into a LOT of trouble! That seemed to be all he knew how to do! His aunt had to be very patient to put up with him all the time, but still sometimes she would hit his ear with a thimble. That's what she would do, grab the thimble! That would hurt, the ear is sensitive. Tom is friends with Huck, who he loves to hang out with, but not if other people are around. He's kind of mean in that way. Tom isn't always a good boy, like I said.

     He found a sympathetic soul in a girl named Becky, and asked her to be engaged. Just like that! Yeah. But then she was brought to tears and loathing when she found out just before she arrived in town he was engaged to a certain Amy. Oh, boy! That was wild! This kid is wild! He had to tell her all about getting engaged too, she had never heard of it! He has this charm inherent in him, she was like, "Will we marry? Oh, that's so nice!" And then, "Oh, no, Amy! I hate you!", and she threw down the brass doorknob he gave her. It was a cabinet doorknob that he found somewhere. 

     Tom goes on many adventures in the novel, but my favorite is when he was on an island with two of his friends, and they were pretending to be pirates. They were running around naked, and I am not sure why there is not more talk about this novel. I had never read it before, and reading it now, as an adult, it was certainly eye opening! Especially that part where he told his friend Huck, on another adventure, that when they're older and were accomplished robbers (a great life goal, by the way) , he said that they would have orgies. Huck was like, "What? What are those?" And Tom was like, "I don't know, but always, robbers have them!" Oh, my God! That was in the book! Mark Twain is funny! You can't get through this book without laughing at something. Read it!