Get your copy of The Spark by February 1 to Join the 28 Days to a New You Contest!

Monday, January 18, 2010

How much could you accomplish in 28 days? Find out by reading The Spark and entering February's "28 Days to a New You" Contest!

We've distilled the best, most powerful elements of the SparkPeople website into a fun, easy and incredibly powerful 28-day program that is only available in our new best-selling book, The Spark. This groundbreaking program combines the best of the SparkPeople program fundamentals, the best science and medical advice, and the best of what has worked for the members of SparkPeople.com.

What could you do in 28 days? Lose weight? Tone up? Change your attitude about food and fitness? With our 28 Days to a New Your Contest, you can accomplish all of this and more.


Here’s what the contest involves:

• Get your copy of The Spark by February 1, 2010.
  
• Go to www.SparkPeople.com/TheSpark and enter the bonus code found inside your book. This will automatically place you into a private SparkTeam for book readers.
  
• Read The Spark and complete the 28-day program outlined in Part 2 of the book. We'll send your weekly emails and support along the way to help you stay on track!
  
• After completing the program on February 28, create a message board post in the SparkTeam's 28 Days to a New You forum telling us how The Spark's 28-day program helped you take your program to exciting new levels, fueled your motivation and helped you reach new goals—and a new YOU! (To qualify, you must post before Friday, March 5, so we can select winners.)
  
• Everyone who submits a post will be eligible to win a personal makeover at a salon near you (value of $100 per person). Five lucky winners will be selected!

How and Why to Join the Contest:

• Get motivation, accountability, and support from our experts and other members who will follow the 28-day program with you! Did we also mention that the program is fun and effective?
  
• Win prizes! Everyone who purchases the book and posts his or her story between Feb. 28 and March 5 will have a chance to win! Click here for contest terms and conditions.
  
• Don’t forget to help us spread the word about The Spark and this 28 Days to a New You Contest! Tell your friends to join the contest with you by clicking the "Share" button below (this allows you to email, post to Facebook and more).

Lose Weight, Feel Great, and Enter to Win a Personal Makeover!

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Earn SparkPoints and Win Prizes with 'The Spark' Free Chapter Challenge

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

In an effort to continue helping millions of people reach their goals and live healthier lives, SparkPeople is kicking off The Spark Free Chapter Challenge and we want you to be a part of it!

All you have to do to participate is visit Free Chapter Challenge landing page. There, you will find a sample email and Twitter/Facebook posts that you can easily send to your friends, family, co-workers and other contacts, inviting them to download and read a FREE chapter of SparkPeople’s best-selling new book, The Spark.

There are two components to the contest. For each person who downloads this free chapter via your referral, you'll get:

1. 10 SparkPoints (up to 250 Points per person)
   
2. An entry into our prize drawing for great prizes like Coach Nicole's "Fit, Firm and Fired Up" workout DVD, SparkPeople Store gift certificates, and iPod shuffles.

The top 100 people with the most downloads attributed to their usernames will be entered into a drawing for a $500 weekend getaway.

With this fun and easy contest, you'll get SparkPoints and a chance to win great prizes while Spreading The Spark at the same time! Your friends and family will get a free chapter from our powerful new book that just might help them reach their goals, too. Everybody wins!

Thanks for your support!

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SparkPeople.com, America’s #1 Weight-Loss Website Has #1 Bestselling Book

Monday, January 11, 2010

Good morning, SparkPeople! We have some BIG updates about our new book, The Spark that we wanted to share with you—and the world. So, we created this press release, which you can also read below, to share the news. Please look for another update and personal message from SparkGuy in tomorrow's Weekly Spark email, too!

SparkPeople.com, America’s #1 Weight-Loss Website Has #1 Bestselling Book

Wall Street Journal, Nielsen BookScan and Walmart.com rankings highlight the quiet phenomenon in American weight-loss

Cincinnati, January 8, 2010 - SparkPeople.com, the most active weight loss and fitness website in America, is pleased to announce several publishing milestones for The Spark, a new book from Hay House written by SparkPeople founder and CEO, Chris Downie. For the week ending January 2, The Spark was the #1 self-help book and the only weight-loss book on The Wall Street Journal Best-Sellers List in the hardcover nonfiction category, in which The Spark was ranked 7th overall. The Spark ranked #1 in sales of all hardcover nonfiction weight-loss books tracked by Nielsen BookScan (the authoritative sales data provider for the publishing industry and the basis for the Wall Street Journal bestseller lists), outselling its nearest competitor by more than two-to-one.

In addition, The Spark has ranked #1 among all books – paperback and hardcover, fiction and non-fiction – on Walmart.com’s daily Top 50 New Releases list since the book was published on December 29. Just prior to publication, The Spark hit #1 on the pre-orders lists of amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com (bn.com), and walmart.com.

SparkPeople.com, which is free to join, is America's second-largest consumer health website after WebMD based on comScore’s page views engagement metric. SparkPeople averages over four million unique visitors, 12 million visits and 100 million page views a month. With members in more than 100 countries, SparkPeople, an employee-owned company whose only outside investor is AOL co-founder Steve Case, is experiencing viral growth. It is attracting 175,000 new members a month with its breakthrough formula that combines goal setting, nutrition, exercise, motivation, and social networking within America’s largest weight loss and fitness online community. SparkPeople members have been featured by numerous national media outlets, including the "Today" show, "Entertainment Tonight," PEOPLE magazine and Good Housekeeping, which has an excerpt of The Spark in its February issue, on newsstands next week.

“We believe the strong sales of The Spark reflect the passion of the SparkPeople community and the fact that, like SparkPeople, the book is fundamentally different from other approaches to weight loss,” said Downie. “Of all the major weight loss books this season, The Spark is virtually the only one that is not just about what to eat. The Spark provides the most effective, medically proven and flexible meal plan for losing weight available anywhere. But we all know that just knowing what to eat means nothing if you can’t stay motivated. And it just won’t stick if it’s too hard to incorporate into our real lives.”

Downie continued, “As The Spark explains, by blending the science of nutrition and fitness with the science of motivation with the power of online social networking, SparkPeople is reinventing weight loss in America and sparking countless lives. Millions of people are freeing themselves from the over-promising, all-or-nothing, unsustainable diets that set them up for failure and yo-yo weight swings. They are embracing a weight-loss and healthy lifestyle system that breeds confidence, success and momentum by starting with manageable changes, makes weight loss fun and energizing, and turns it into a springboard for achieving other goals that change lives, not just waistlines.

“I couldn’t be more grateful to our members for helping make The Spark a #1 bestseller, and even more importantly, for making such a positive difference in one another’s lives every day,” Downie concluded. “These milestones belong to them and the amazing 25 employees who have made SparkPeople the quiet phenomenon in American weight loss.”

The Spark includes:

• A 28-day program that distills the most effective, medically accepted nutrition and fitness practices from SparkPeople into an innovative four-stage, four-week program available only in the book
  
• The 27 “secrets to success” that thousands of successful SparkPeople members have used to reach their goals
  
• SparkPeople member success stories that offer an honest and inspiring look at weight-loss – with all of its ups and downs – from those who have lost anywhere from 2 to 200 pounds
  
• A fully illustrated workout program created by SparkPeople’s certified fitness trainer, Coach Nicole
  
• A stunning 16-page color insert featuring before-and-after photos and the stories of some of SparkPeople’s dedicated members
  
• A step-by-step, mix-and-match food plan that teaches how to combine foods into delicious recipes that don’t prompt feelings of hunger or deprivation
  
• The story of Downie’s personal struggle with severe social anxiety, which he overcame in his 20s by accidentally discovering what evolved into the cornerstones of the SparkPeople system

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Win a Call from SparkGuy During "Show Your Spark" Book Club Weekend

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Hi everyone –

Things are pretty exciting here at SparkPeople, with the launch of our first book The Spark last week! We truly appreciate everyone’s support in helping us reach our goal of landing The Spark on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Time will tell if we reach that goal, but we still need your help to get there! If you haven't picked up your copy of The Spark yet, you can go to Barnes & Noble and save 30% off the retail price for a limited time. (Click here for your coupon!)

The biggest and most important "Show Your Spark" Weekend is coming soon: January 22-24. Mark your calendars! This is your chance to show others that you're part of a worldwide movement of people who are reinventing fitness, nutrition and healthy living! All you have to do is hold a "Show Your Spark" Book Club meeting that weekend to share The Spark with others. Every SparkTeam that hosts a book club SparkRally will be entered to win a phone call from author Chris "SparkGuy" Downie during your meeting!

We have developed all the materials you need to hold your very own book club SparkRally that weekend. You can access these materials on our Online Book Bonus Program, which is only available to people who purchase The Spark. However, because some of you may be planning your book club and plan to purchase the book later, here is a short book club guide that will provides ideas for your meeting.

Every SparkTeam that holds a Book Club SparkRally will be entered to win one phone call from Chris “SparkGuy” Downie during their meeting. We will randomly select a winner on Wednesday, January 20, and notify the Team leader via SparkMail.

Good luck to everyone and for more Spread the Spark ideas, visit this page. And to Show Your Spark every day of the year, check out our branded products and apparel at SparkPeopleStore.com. We hope that we can count on you to Show Your Spark this January 22nd- 24th, 2010. As always, thank YOU for making SparkPeople such a positive place!

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Coach Nicole Named Health Woman of the Year

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

We are happy to announce that Coach Nicole was recently honored by a local (Cincinnati) website, CincyChic.com, as the 2009 Woman of the Year in the Health category! To read the story and Nicole's thoughts on what it means to be healthy, please click here.

Her new DVD, The Spark: Fit, Firm and Fired Up, is now available at SparkPeopleStore.com and several online retailers, including Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and BarnesAndNoble.com. To learn more about the eight workouts included on this DVD, click here.

Please join us in congratulating Coach Nicole for this exciting honor! Way to Spread the Spark!

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