NutriSystem - surprisingly good!
Written: May 04 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great Website, Food is Good, Diary, Fitness Center online
Cons: Wish the cost could be about $50 less
The Bottom Line: If you were happy with weight watchers when they offered food at their centers-this is a must try. NO CONTRACT, if you're not happy, cancel after first delivery
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| nortos's Full Review: NutriSystem Weight Loss Program |
NutriSystem online spoke to me one evening while I was sitting and watching TV in August of 2005 I have been having a lot of trouble losing weight and have tried weight watchers and LA Weight Loss, and actually had success at Weight Watchers years ago when they used to make up a menu for you and you could purchase their foods at their locations. I actually lost 40 lbs back then. So when I saw the commercial for NutriSystem and the offer of one weeks worth of food for free. I had to try it. I put down that remote control, got off my butt and went to my laptop and sat at the Kitchen table for about an hour looking over their program and the foods they had to offer.
The first thing I liked is NO CONTRACT!!! I could try it for a month and if I didn't like it, I could just quit if I want - nothing to lose except my first months food cost and perhaps some weight.
My second favorite thing is the choice and taste of the foods. I remember teasing my mom once years ago when she prepared a dried hamburger by adding boiling water to it. Well NutriSystem has it and it’s quite good.
My third favorite thing is their website :
http://www.nutrisystem.com/main/welcome/
This is where you can sign up and browse. After signing in, some of the tabs on the page you can click on are store, auto delivery, diary, counseling, success stories (of course), weight loss, fitness center, community and virtual model.
STORE - this is where you can find out about the 6 different programs they offer; Women’s Program; Women’s over 60 program; men’s program; men’s over 60 program; type II diabetes program and all-vegetarian program.
I choose the Women’s Program. Here are the selections I have coming this month - You have a choice of 28 selections for breakfast, 28 for lunch, 28 for dinner and 28 for dessert. You also have the option of purchasing “skim milk alternatives” which happen to be small fudge bars which are tasty and the consistency of a tootsie roll but larger.
11 Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal
4 Blueberry Bran Muffin
3 Frosted Oats Cereal
5 Mini Frosted Shredded Wheat Cereal
2 Pancake Mix
3 Scrambled Egg Mix with Cheese
5 Cheesy Homestyle Potatoes with Broccoli
5 Chicken Noodle Soup
3 Chocolate Cookie Bar
5 Cream of Broccoli Soup
4 Fudge Graham Bar
4 Pasta Parmesan with Broccoli
2 Vegetarian Pasta Salad
2 Burgundy Sauce and Beef with Rice
3 Cheese and Spinach Ravioli with Meat Sau...
2 Chicken Breast Patty
2 Chicken Primavera with Pasta
3 Flame Broiled Beef Patty
2 Green Pepper Steak with Rice
3 Pot Roast - Gravy over Beef, Potatoes an...
4 Thick Crust Cheese Pizza
7 Vegetable Lasagna with Meat Sauce
1 Chewy Fudge Bar - 10 pk. (this is the skim milk alternative that I purchase as an additional item)
8 Cheddar Cheese Crunchy Curls
1 Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 Chocolate Mochaccino Dessert Bar
7 Chocolate Shake
5 Mint Chocolate Decadence Bar
6 NutriCrunch Chocolates
You can change your order up until the day before you delivery is scheduled. You can also delay or cancel your order up until the day before its scheduled. I have delayed it numerous times and have not experience any problems. If you schedule automatic delivery, you get a 10 to 15% discount depending on how many orders you continue with. After my 2nd order I went from the 10% discount to 15%. The total cost of my order (free shipping because I’m scheduled for automatic delivery) is $262.73. Another way of getting discounts is if you refer people using your email address, you and the person who signs up would get a $15 coupon for your next order. They also have an online article section called the Daily Dose which has on it a click in picture that changes with each season. Every 50 times you click in you get a $10 coupon sent to your email good on your next order.
I believe my first order took about 1 week to get to me. With my subsequent orders, they have all reached me with 3 days. The only problems I have experienced, but consider them to be minor are a few items were missing from the orders, but I contacted customer service and those items were always shipped to me without any questions and with apologies. In one order I found that a box of cereal was crushed and the contents exposed – again, not problem with replacing. However, what I just experienced today and wasn’t aware of it until now - any and all exchanges and replacements MUST be made with 30 days of your order. I went to have one of the Thin Crust Pizzas I ordered a few months ago and found the pizza to be completely stale and difficult to even break. This happened with 3 from the same shipment, but I couldn’t get them replaced since it has been about 3 months since they were delivered. So far, this is the only negative experience I have found. They still should have been fresh as everything has a shelf life of 12 months.
NutriSystem also has an online Diary which I found to be fantastic. All you do is click on the items that you eat for the day and it totals the calories for you. The Diary also has an exercise log which works the same way, pick the exercise you did, enter the total time you did this workout and it calculates the calories you burned.
My daily caloric intake is 1500 - I eat one of the breakfast, lunch, dinner and desserts they send me each day (which ever one I want for that day). I have skim milk (or the skim milk alternative) and fruit with breakfast; skim milk, vegetable and fruit with lunch; skim milk and fruit for a snack and a vegetable and salad with dinner then their dessert and I’m pretty much set for the day. If I’m having a burger, I usually put ½ slice of cheese on it and use a low calorie roll.
As with all diets they want you to drink at least 8 glasses of water each day.
The Diary also has a journal so if you had any problems that affected you that day, you could enter it there.
NutriSystem also offers you Counseling, either Live Chat; On the phone or through email. I haven’t used this feature yet probably because I’m stubborn and don’t feel I need anyone else telling me yet what I’m doing wrong still. But I do plan on using it in the future.
Every Monday at 3PM Eastern Time they have an online meeting you can go to and ask questions of counselors. I have done that a few times and found it to be fun, it lasts about ½ hour and you can go back and look at the questions and answers from previous meetings.
Success Stories is basically that, people telling you what they have succeeded at losing and also what their lives were like and how they are now. Me personally, I have always had trouble losing weight, but I have lost a total of 20 lbs so far on NutriSystem. I have had to go off of it a couple of weeks at a time due to illness (not related to the diet). A nice little perk they give you is for each 10 lbs you lose, they send you a little bear. The first one says 10 lbs, the second 20lbs.
You keep track of your weight loss yourself. When you log into their website, there is a spot at the top to enter your current weight and from there you can access a graph of how much you have lost.
Another interesting feature of their website is the virtual model. You enter your description, i.e. hair color, style, face shape, ht, weight. They funniest thing was after entering my info…my husband started laughing because it kind of did look like me, frizzy hair and everything. You can update your model with your weight lost by entering your current weight and it will adjust the shape of the model.
Another nice feature is the fitness center – it offers exercise suggests, workouts and instructions, you can also select from a list of the part of the body you want to work on and it will tell you which exercises to do. You can also see animated instruction on how to do each of the exercises (which I really have to start using more often).
I highly suggest you pay a visit to the NutriSystem website and if you can try it out for a month and see how you like it.
Recommended:
Yes
Approximate Monthly Cost (US$) 263.00
Food Variety Restrictions A wide variety of allowed foods
Restrictiveness of Portions Satisfying
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Epinions.com ID:
nortos
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Susan
Location: Hempstead, NY
Reviews written: 77
Trusted by: 171 members
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