DATE: Monday, October 6, 1997               TAG: 9710040331

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D6   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY CAROL HORTON, PILOT ONLINE STAFF 

                                            LENGTH:   61 lines

LET THE WEB HELP YOU SHED UNWANTED POUNDS

If ever there were a topic that's flooding the Internet, it's health and fitness. Ironic that sitting behind a desk and staring at a monitor can make you slim and trim, but it is no doubt a good place to start.

Educating yourself about diet and exercise is a good way to start a new fitness program. This way you can evaluate what you're already doing, and determine what changes you need to make in your lifestyle to achieve your desired results. (4Diet.Com) is a comprehensive site on fitness, nutrition, diet and exercise. There are various links to American Medical Association sites including a page to calculate your BMI (body mass index), evaluate your current diet and determine your ideal weight.

There's also a nutrition and calorie counter that provides the caloric value and RDAs for just about everything under the sun, including the food served at many major fast food chains. It's here you can learn the shattering news that a medium Heath Bar Blizzard at Dairy Queen has 820 calories and 36 fat grams.

By now we all know that diet and exercise go hand in hand when it comes to overall fitness, but sometimes it's easier to start with one or the other and work our way gradually to that fine physique. If you choose to begin your fitness plan by adjusting what you put in your mouth, The Healthy Choice Eat What You Like site has plenty of promotional materials about the familiar frozen foods in the green boxes, but there's lots of other stuff here, too. There are low-fat recipes and recipe makeovers, a nutrition quiz, fitness tips, Q&As with fitness professionals and even a chat site for timely fitness issues.

Another site that's good food for thought is the one produced by Cooking Light magazine.

Good Housekeeping and Prevention magazines have teamed up to create the Weight Loss and Fitness site. Similar to 4Diet.Com in its extensive nature, this site actually gives the detailed how-tos of a step-by-step fitness program.

There's even a link to a site that calculates how many calories you burn doing a particular exercise for a specific length of time. The Bonfire of the Calories asks for some personal data and then determines how many calories you'll burn doing anything from running and walking to cross country skiing or golfing. (Hint: Carrying your golf bag for 18-holes will burn over 1,000 calories!)

If you prefer to work-out with a few hundred of your closest friends, most of the big health clubs have Web sites. Bally's, one of the biggest locally, has a site that includes all of their locations across the country as well as (of course) membership information. Right now they're offering special discounts for membership renewals and family add-ons that are done online.

Along the lines of fitness en masse, the national diet franchises like Weight Watchers and Nutri-Systems also have their own sites. Like Bally's, you'll find more information about how to join than you will specific fitness information, but if you've decided that a program like this will work for you, the site might give you some valuable information in making your decision.

Once you've finally established your fitness program, you'll want to stay abreast of news and trends in the field. It's easy to do with Health & Fitness On The Net, which links to major media sources.

So cyber-spuds, strap on your Nike's and go online. You'll find more fitness information than you can shake a keyboard at - which, by the way, burns approximately the same amount of calories found in one small french fry.

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