Below, our top picks in six categories. If you try some and like them, pay it forward by letting us know about other resources you'd like to recommend.
Best Resources For Your Business
Best Online Health & Wellness Tools
Best Health & Wellness Newsletters
Best Fitness & Diet Resources
Best CAM Resources
Best Podcasts & Blogs
Best Resources For Your Business
We use this, and there's no catch. You can invite dozens of participants for calls that last up to 8 hours (yikes!). Participants simply pay their normal long-distance charges - that's it!
If you don't mind a little line on the back of your business card that says "Vista Print", these folks will provide you with no-charge business cards, rubber stamps and more. The idea is that you'll like your experience with the freebie and opt to pay for customization in the future.
Run reports and analyze basic population trends - income, age, race/ethnicity, and more - for just about any location you can think of in the US. Won't cost a dime, although more detailed data or custom reporting will cost you.
Want to send online surveys to your customers? A basic subscription costs nothing. You can ask 10 questions/survey and get up to 100 responses/survey (with no banner ads!).
The basic subscription lets you send a newsletter to up to 249 subscribers once/month. No ads, other than an inoffensive promotional line for the EzineDirector e-mail service itself.
No catch, just an innovative person-to-person approach to funding creative business ideas. Recently reviewed in a BusinessWeek article.
Dreamstime offers a different batch every day of no-charge stock graphics -- all professionally photographed -- for use in brochures, flyers, etc. If those don't do it for you, you can buy images for a buck or so each. MorgueFile offers amateur shots, so you'll have to dig a little more for the perfect photo.
Best Online Health & Wellness Tools
A fun and thought-provoking tool that calculates your "real" age (vs your chronological age) by asking you questions about your lifestyle.
Harvard-developed tool asks you questions to determine your risk of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and stroke.
Best Health & Wellness Newsletters
Pick as many topics as you wish and you'll get a weekly update full of links to the latest info.
Choose your topics - all targeted towards the health and wellness needs of people 50+.
Harvard Medical School HealthBeat
Health and wellness topics of general interest, at no charge.
Best Fitness & Diet Resources
Very active forum on exercise (+ tons of exercise video reviews), with a "no diet talk" rule.
Online healthy living tools (calculators, meal plans, exercise demos and more) + active community.
Online nutrition and activity tracking.
Diabetes Exercise & Sports Association
Yes, people with insulin-dependent diabetes CAN be active, and these forums are full of advice from other people with diabetes.
Hundreds of articles on just about every aspect of strength training.
Detailed nutritional info on zillions of foods (lots of restaurants) + a Pocket PC version
CoolRunning - expert articles help virtually everyone enjoy running regardless of their starting point. Active forums with advice from other runners.
Chi Running - Danny Dreyer's site - everything you need to know about sustainable running that minimizes injury risk. Newsletter + active forums with detailed advice from Chi Running coaches.
Exercise Prescription on the Net
Recommended by ACSM, this site is an amazing and encyclopedic resource for exercise and fitness professionals.
Participating studios across the US offer complimentary yoga classes on the appointed day in September. Great way to try out different yoga styles. If your business wants to participate (can you say, "great marketing opportunity"?), contact the folks listed on the site for more info.
Best Complementary & Alternative Medicine Resources
Office Of Dietary Supplements site (National Institutes Of Health)
Health information resources about dietary supplements - some is consumer-oriented, some is extremely technical.
National Center For Complementary And Alternative Medicine
A compilation of health information and research on just about every aspect of complementary, alternative, and integrated medicine. Picking providers, paying for treatment, descriptions of different treatments - it's all here.
Best Podcasts & Blogs
A one-hour yoga class live from Jackson Hole, WY.
Fifty or so more health and wellness podcasts
Everything from Chiropractic Online to Karate Kafe to A Dieters Life and more.
Health News Update & other National Public Radio podcasts
A cornucopia of different shows on health and wellness topics.
Features from various sources all over the web. Recent topics ranged from outdoor fitness to healthy eating for kids.