Sunday, March 18, 2012

SlimKicker Review: After One Week

I was invited to try out this site to help with my health, fitness, and weight loss goals. The first thing I noticed about this site is the immediate walk through of the site. That is very helpful for any website. If you're looking for a way to keep your health and fitness routine fresh, this is the way to do it! SlimKicker.com presents you with a multitude of health and fitness challenges for you to incorporate into your daily routine!

After the brief walk through I took the time to browse around the site myself. I wanted to see how it tracked everything. Then of course I was interested in the types of challenges it offered since that seemed to be the main concept of the site in general. Some of the challenges were the types of things I like to see when it comes to encouraging people to make better choices and ease them into a better lifestyle for their health and fitness. Simple challenges like move during commercials, do 10 wall squats a day, replace juice with tea for a week, eat a salad a day,..etc.

However, some of the challenges go entirely against my personal health and fitness beliefs such as the "No Snacks after Dinner" Challenge. It is common knowledge in the weight loss world that to keep you metabolism boosted throughout the day it it best to eat small meals around the clock, which for many include Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks in between. I personally eat 5 - 6 times a day a small snack in the morning, Breakfast, Lunch, and After Noon Snack, Dinner, and Late Night Snack. To eliminate a snack after dinner would have my body going more than 12 hours without food if you include 8 hours of sleep. I would wake up in the morning hungrier than I normal which would cause me to overeat throughout the rest of the day or feel hungry all day. Not to mention drop my blood glucose levels and basically it would just be a train wreck from there, but I guess that's the other great part about this site. You don't have to accept any challenge you don't want to or don't agree with and still do well.

 I wasn't a fan of the "Eat Like a Caveman" challenge at first either because it's based and a strict diet that is in my personal opinion is unrealistic for today's busy families. However, after I read the challenge I warmed up to it a little more because it was only asking you to do it for week and only for one meal a day. Which is pretty attainable, even over a long period of time.

I was also skeptical of the fact the challenges only last week with the thought that it kind of contradicts the idea that Health and Fitness is a lifestyle change, but after accepting a few of the challenges, I've come to see the benefit of these challenges. The challenges introduce you to a healthy habit that in order to complete the challenge you actually have to think about in your daily life and find a way to fit them in. After doing it for a week it becomes a habit that you can continue with it. For instance I accepted the "Replace Soda challenge". I usually drink, milk, juice, and water throughout the day, but have gotten in the habit of drinking a diet soda with my dinner every night. This challenge had me thinking about what else I could have instead of just reach for that can of soda. After doing it for a week, I find myself automatically going for ice water or Crystal light instead!

All of the challenges that I perused were all well written and explained not only the challenge, but the benefits of the challenge, which is good because I'm one of those people that like to know why I'm doing what I'm doing and how it's actually going to help me.

Another great thing about this website is that you can get e-mail notifications about the latest challenges. I recently received a notification about a Giveaway challenge that's fun and easy. The challenge this week is to do 1 Body Weight Exercise a day for 5 minutes A Day! There's a $50 Nike Gift Card at stake which would be an awesome reward if I actually won it, but I'm just looking forward to incorporating some of the Body Weight Exercises into my daily routine! The e-mail I received broke down 6 body weight exercises to try. So, I got started right away!

You can enter your food items on this website just like many other calorie counting websites and earn points for it. With each entry you receive points as well as a little healthy eating tip associated with the type of food you entered. I have to admit, some of these tips were new to me and had me thinking about it throughout the day. Just another way SlimKicker offers you ideas on how to improve your health and fitness.

This is just my initial impression about this website. The longer I work with it the more excited about it I become. I will post another full review after about a month if you want to find out more about it.

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