Is This "Good" Content?

[VacMan]

Hey everyone,

Just getting things rolling with my new fitness blog.

I want to ask you...

Do you think of this as "Good" or "High Quality" content?

I want to deliver value.

What do you think?

Is Your Diet “Tricking” You?

Feedback is appreciated and respected.

Thanks!

[sheffy4]

I read up until this line:
People who loose a ton of weight right after starting up a new diet are not losing the right kind of weight.
Then I got distracted by the spelling mistake. This might be pedantic, but I thought I'd point it out anyway since it bothered me, and it might bother other readers. It's not "People who loose a ton of weight," it's "people who lose a ton of weight."

[Keith]

Originally Posted by sheffy4

I read up until this line:
People who loose a ton of weight right after starting up a new diet are not losing the right kind of weight.
Then I got distracted by the spelling mistake. This might be pedantic, but I thought I'd point it out anyway since it bothered me, and it might bother other readers. It's not "People who loose a ton of weight," it's "people who lose a ton of weight."

Seconded. When I'm engrossed in an article, spelling errors instantly snap me out of it.

A couple of comments on the article:

Criticisms:
* The article seems long for the content. It feels like you could've explained all that in half as many words.
* I'm concerned that you talked repeatedly about maintaining muscle mass and didn't once mention exercise (specifically resistance exercise). If you're losing weight and you want to retain muscle, resistance exercise is very important.

Compliments:
* The pictures and captions are good, IMO. They add character to the article. (I assume you have rights to use them?).

[TheHulaQueen]

I like the look of it alot... the photos really make it look professional. The article reads well. I skimmed it and the headlines throughout helped me follow the flow. I was tempted to click on the link at the bottom for the free software, but being on a mostly raw diet assumed it's probably not applicable.

My one suggestion... would be that the orange header looks a little dated (70's) and something more modern might help. I like the blue header part with outlines of healthy people. The Google Adwords section seems wider than on most sites, and on first click if all I see is Adwords sometimes I just close the page. So it might be an idea to get more of the article on the first fold of the website.

What's your aim with the site? Names list? Google Adwords?

Good luck,
Sheryl

[Keith]

On the topic of adwords, they were actually fighting your article. It seems to have updated to a John Gabriel ad now, which I think is roughly in synch with what you're saying, but last time I looked it was full of "lose weight fast!" ads which conflicted with your message.

Did you deliberately remove those? If so, good move IMO.

[ragtag]

I liked the article a lot, especially the first half. There was actually a bit of info there that I didn't know, so I learned something new.

The only comment I have that it was a little longer than needed, but otherwise it was great.

Spelling mistakes didn't bother me, as I didn't notice them.

[Stu]

I agree with Keith, it's way too long, you need to consolidate the information you're presenting. Also, where did you hear that low calorie diets use up muscles for energy over fat? I can't claim to know anything specific about that but it sounds wrong, isn't fat a much better source of energy than muscle? And so I'm not completely derailing this thread that's another thing you should think about, giving sources for your info.

[VacMan]

Thanks sheffy4, Keith, TheHulaQueen, ragtag, and Stu!

I really appreciate the feedback.

I agree it's a bit long, and thanks for catching that spelling error!

Future posts are works in progress.

And I'm changing out the header graphic soon too, I agree that it's not really aligned with the purpose of the site.

Any other feedback is greatly appreciated if you've got any opinions on the site/content.

Thanks!

[Ali from The Office Diet]

I think it's good, solid, well written content. I'd agree you can cut it a bit. With paragraphs like this:

Those glycogen stores and the water surrounding them gets used up very quickly, and all that water, and glycogen weighs quite a bit and it also burns up very quickly.

So the actual weight loss you see on the scale is just this initial flushing of the glycogen and water, and nothing more.

In addition to this loss of glycogen, you will probably lose quite a bit of energy as well, because this glycogen is used to give energy to your muscles.

...you can probably cut 50% of the words and not lose any meaning. For example, I'd probably trim it down to this:

Those glycogen stores and the water surrounding them weigh quite a bit and also burn up very quickly.

So the weight loss on the scale is just this initial flushing of the glycogen and water, and nothing more. You will lose energy as well, because this glycogen is used to give energy to your muscles.

Also, for some reason the captions below the pictures looked kinda spammy to me (like the sort of images you get for advertisements). Possibly reduce the font size, and use lower-case rather than capitals at the start of each word?

But on the whole, it's excellent content.

Good luck with the site, and with OK-Cal!

Best,

Ali

[Amandaaa]

I think it's a good topic, and overall, I like the message of the article. And I think it's great that it's so detailed-- because there's nothing worse than finding a good article title, and then realizing that it's just two paragraphs of fluff. ...But I agree with the others who said that it might be better if you made it a bit more concise. Try to make all of the information flow together as smoothly as possible...and keep reviewing what you've already written to make sure you're not repeating anything.


Also, (if I have to give constructive criticism ), I would say: be more selective with your line breaks. A lot of those sentences (toward the middle of the article) could be included in the same paragraph, so there's no need to jump to a new one. ...It might make it appear a little more organized, too.

[VacMan]

Ali and Amandaaa,

Thanks so much for your feedback!

I agree, I'm going to have to perfect my writing style.

I think over time with feedback and practice I'll get it down.

It's a work in progress.

It's hard to decide if I want to go back and edit the heck out of previous posts, or just to move on to others. And editing the pics are really tough but I do agree that the font is pretty big, so I'll keep that in mind for future posts.

You can really get stuck "over-thinking" what you write. (at least I can)

I've been moving on to new formats with video and text interweaved.

The text is much shorter after hearing the feedback here.

You can examples here:
Yummy Fitness

Thanks again! And anyone else who wants to comment is welcome to.

I really appreciate the feedback and take your responses to heart.

[WanderingOak]

I thought the article had decent content, until I realized that the point of the article was to market OK-Cal, a bit of shareware that you wrote. It didn''t matter that the software was free, I just didn't care for the 'bait-n-switch'. Also, the fact that the software is NOT cross-platform compatible (Windows only) is a major let-down.

[VacMan]

WanderingOak,

Thanks for the compliment about the article, but making people feel "bait and switched" isn't what I was going for.

I thought that since the article is free, and the software is free, then offering software is no different than offering the article.

Plus, I spent about a year of my life developing that software and thousands of dollars.

I thought I was offering a service by giving it away free.

I didn't think people would feel "betrayed."