Nutrisystem; why it worked for me when nothing else did!
Written: Jul 03 '06
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Helpfulness of Suport |
 |
|
|
Pros: Delicious food, easy to follow plan, done completely online in the privacy of your home.
Cons: A little pricey
The Bottom Line: I would highly recommend Nutrisystem to anyone who wants to lose weight easily without making visits to a center or spending hours upon hours preparing diet meals!
|
|
|
| nicnat25's Full Review: NutriSystem Weight Loss Program |
After having my second baby in 2005 I was having a hard time getting that last 10-15 pounds of pregnancy weight off. It wasn't much, but enough to make me self conscious and really want to get it off fast. I have tried other diets in the past and for one reason or another, they didn't work for me. I always said that if I had someone telling me exactly what I needed to eat to lose weight, the food was easy to prepare, and I wasn't going hungry all the time, I could lose weight! I also didn't want to have to drive to a center, go to meetings, or have to "weigh in."
I thought my expectations of a diet were too high and that I'd never find anything that met all those criteria! Then one day I was reading the Sunday paper and came across an advertisement for Nutrisystem. What first caught my eye were the words "buy a 28 day program and get a week of food for free." It wasn't so much the fact that I would get a free week of food that appealed to me the most; it was the fact that the meals were all pre-packaged (aside from a few fresh produce and dairy items I would need to buy), and I wouldn't have to spend half the day in the kitchen making up diet meals! With 2 demanding babies, how would I have the time to do all that cooking for myself, let alone cook regular meals for my family?
I read on to get more information, then went online to get even more. It sounded a little expensive just to do it for one month, but it also sounded like the exact diet I had been looking for and didn't know existed. Just to join the program is free, but what you're paying for is the food. When you join, you get a user name, can create your profile, and you can look at other user's profiles and even talk to other members about their experiences. You also have access to a counselor, and you can create a virtual model on the site to actually "see" your weight loss. I created mine and she actually looked a lot like me. It was kind of scary!
After talking it over with my husband, I decided to just go for it. I figured it might be a GOOD thing that the cost was on the high side, because if I knew I was spending a lot of money on a supply of diet food then I would be more likely to stick to it! If I didn't stick to it, then I would be mad at myself for wasting $337.00!
You have 2 choices on the price you pay for your food. You can just order one month of food for $321.62 plus $16.00 shipping, or if you have more than 10 pounds to lose and want "auto delivery" monthly shipments, it brings the cost down to $289.46 monthly with free shipping. Since I really didn't have a whole lot of weight to lose (not to mention my husband would probably have freaked if I had ordered more than one month!), I chose the one month plan.
First of all, the selection was AMAZING. I was so surprised at just how many different choices I had. You look at a list of breakfasts, then choose any combination of 28 of them, then you look at a list of lunches and choose 28 of those, then choose 28 dinners from the dinner list and 28 desserts/snacks from the dessert/snack list. I wondered why they only had me choose 28 of each since the ad said you'd get a week free. Well, they choose that free week of food FOR you. It was sent automatically with my 28 day plan.
I got my order pretty quickly. Another plus! Along with it was a plan book that has one page for each day of your diet. It shows you exactly what you need to eat and has a circle next to it that you check off so you know you ate that item. For instance, breakfast is 1 Nutrisystem breakfast entree, a protein, and a fruit. So then you look in the back of the book that has a list of acceptable proteins and fruits along with serving size, and choose 1 from each list. A lot of the foods on the lists are items you would normally have on hand, but I went shopping and got a bit of a variety before I started the diet. (And by the way, I really didn't have to buy a lot at the store...some fruits and veggies mainly!) There is also a list of veggies and fats, because some meals require you to eat veggies and with supper you can eat a fat (an example of a fat would be some walnut halves, a spoonful of peanut butter, etc). It was VERY easy to follow. At the bottom of each page you are supposed to fill in your weight and check off how many glasses of water you drank that day. You need 8 glasses every day, but I'm terrible at forcing myself to drink water so some days I fell pretty short. I imagine I probably would have lost even more weight had I drank the full 8 glasses every single day. You are also supposed to keep track of your exercise, which I didn't do although I WAS exercising.
As it was, I still lost a good amount of weight. I stayed on the program the full 35 days and I went from 146 pounds to 132 pounds. Yep, I lost 14 pounds in 35 days! I didn't cheat or stray from the diet even once. I just kept thinking what a waste it would be to spend that kind of money then just mess it up, so I wasn't ABOUT to cheat! It really wasn't hard to stick to though. Most of the food was delicious and I had ordered a pretty good variety, so it kept things interesting. I did order a few things that I wish I hadn't. For instance, I ordered several packages of scrambled eggs for breakfast. Well, with your breakfast entree you get to eat a protein and guess what's on the protein list? You guessed it...an egg! So to order scrambled eggs is pretty much redundant.
Another thing I wish I hadn't gotten was the muffins. I really didn't like them; they were very dry and I about couldn't swallow them without chugging some milk to push them through. I also wish I hadn't ordered so many pizzas. They were really good, but you get one small round pizza crust that you pour out a packet of sauce and sprinkle a packet of cheese on. The package weight was just over an ounce, if that tells you anything! Had I known that in advance, I would have stuck with ordering entrees that had more substance...the 9 and 10 ounce meals!
Another mistake I made was ordering too many salty snacks. The snacks and desserts are all the same category and that is eaten at dessert time. I'm the type of person who has to have a SWEET for dessert at the end of the day every day, so to go without a sweet is major for me. Thankfully I had ordered plenty of protein bars for lunches, so what I would do some days is eat my salty snack for lunch and save a protein bar for dessert. That way I only ended up with no sweet for just the last few days of my diet. Don't get me wrong; all of the salty snacks I ordered I LOVED, but I just have to have my sweets!
I'd say about the first 3 or 4 days of my diet were the hardest. I was pretty satisfied and wasn't going hungry, but it was the adjustment to "not eating everything in sight" that was hard! After that, it was a piece of cake. (No pun intended!). I was satisfied and wasn't left hungry after meals. You eat 6 times a day, so it seemed that as soon as I started getting hungry it was time for my next meal. Another plus is that almost INSTANTLY after starting the diet, I felt SO good. I had energy I never had before and I just felt healthy! I hadn't felt that good for a very long time.
To sum it up, I really feel like Nutrisystem is the perfect plan. It was easy to follow and I've kept most of the weight off. Now that I've kept the weight off from my second baby, it's time to order another month of Nutrisystem and get the last few pounds off from my FIRST baby!
Recommended:
Yes
Approximate Monthly Cost (US$) 300.00
Food Variety Restrictions A wide variety of allowed foods
Restrictiveness of Portions Satisfying
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
nicnat25
|
|
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.