Anyone here use Nutrisystem?

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2

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  • ticiaelizabeth
    ticiaelizabeth Posts: 139 Member
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    I tired this during my teenage years. I found the majority of the food inedible. You could always make your own at home "nutrisystem" using protein shakes/meal replacement shakes for breakfast, frozen meals for lunch and dinner. Doing this would bring you in under $150/month. However I would recommend cooking your own as you can control what is going into the meals.
  • Debmal77
    Debmal77 Posts: 4,770 Member
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    bump
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
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    Nutrisystem
    Pros:
    • It works.
    • It takes no thought, just eating.
    Cons:
    • You don't learn serving sizes because the food is often low-fat-low-sugar-low-everything that isn't available everywhere.
    • People come to MFP and say they gained back the weight after coming off of it.
    • The food is not as good as food you can make yourself.
    • It's very expensive.

    MyFitnessPal (aka weigh your own food)
    Pros:
    • It works
    • You can eat literally anything you want, so long as it fits in your daily calories.
    • You learn serving sizes.
    • It's free (minus the cost of the food scale, which is like USD $15-20).
    • It is as tasty as you want to make it.
    • What you learn lasts you a lifetime
    Cons:
    • You have to put thought into your food choices instead of paying extra to have someone else do that for you.
  • rungirl1973
    rungirl1973 Posts: 2,559 Member
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    I tried it a few years ago when my company offered 40% off as part of their "wellness" plan. The food wasn't awful, but it wasn't delicious, either. It's like the poster above said, sort of like canned Chef Boyardee.

    Also, the plan calls for you adding your own fresh fruit and vegetables in addition to the meals they provide. The cost for food is more than the $250/month or whatever it is.

    For me, I was hungry all the time. I'm 5'8" and very active. The 1,200 calories per day that the plan allows is just not enough food for me, even with extra fruit and veggies.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
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    stinsonkms wrote: »
    I know it works because my mom lost a ton of weight on Nutrisystem. She said the only bad side was that the food tasted bland. Since in my last post a lot of people were all about counting and portioning your food, Nutrisystem is great because it does that for you. Now the only bad side for me is that it costs A LOT of money. It's over $250 for a month. It may not sound like much but as a college student, I'm also trying to save up for a new car and $250 would be half of what I'm saving each month for my new car, and I really need a new car, but I'd also like to lose weight.

    What are some of the pros and cons of Nutrisystem?

    I've had friends who did this diet, lost weight, but gained it back once they returned to their regular eating. Obviously this is because they ate more calories on the real food than they did on Nutrisystem. Because I saw what happened to friends, I never tried this diet.

    I'd like to suggest that the reason your mom lost weight on this diet is because she was able to stick to it and eat at a calorie deficit. In other words, the type of diet is personal preference only, the hard work of moderating our food is really up to us.

    If I were in your shoes, I would put that $250 in the bank and create a calorie deficit eating all the foods you love. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to set up your goals in MFP, to weigh all foods and log whatever you eat, log your cardio calories and eat a portion of them back, and see how that works for you. You get all the foods you love, you don't spend any extra money, and your food won't be bland. :)
  • jkwolly
    jkwolly Posts: 3,049 Member
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    Why would you want to eat something that taste bland!?

    And costs an insane amount of money for what it is?

    Insanity.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
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    britishbroccoli wrote: »
    Nutrisystem
    Pros:
    • It works.
    • It takes no thought, just eating.
    Cons:
    • You don't learn serving sizes because the food is often low-fat-low-sugar-low-everything that isn't available everywhere.
    • People come to MFP and say they gained back the weight after coming off of it.
    • The food is not as good as food you can make yourself.
    • It's very expensive.

    MyFitnessPal (aka weigh your own food)
    Pros:
    • It works
    • You can eat literally anything you want, so long as it fits in your daily calories.
    • You learn serving sizes.
    • It's free (minus the cost of the food scale, which is like USD $15-20).
    • It is as tasty as you want to make it.
    • What you learn lasts you a lifetime
    Cons:
    • You have to put thought into your food choices instead of paying extra to have someone else do that for you.

    THIS is the best post I've seen in a long time.

    dT8p6yxTe.jpeg
  • jkwolly
    jkwolly Posts: 3,049 Member
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    SLLRunner wrote: »
    britishbroccoli wrote: »
    Nutrisystem
    Pros:
    • It works.
    • It takes no thought, just eating.
    Cons:
    • You don't learn serving sizes because the food is often low-fat-low-sugar-low-everything that isn't available everywhere.
    • People come to MFP and say they gained back the weight after coming off of it.
    • The food is not as good as food you can make yourself.
    • It's very expensive.

    MyFitnessPal (aka weigh your own food)
    Pros:
    • It works
    • You can eat literally anything you want, so long as it fits in your daily calories.
    • You learn serving sizes.
    • It's free (minus the cost of the food scale, which is like USD $15-20).
    • It is as tasty as you want to make it.
    • What you learn lasts you a lifetime
    Cons:
    • You have to put thought into your food choices instead of paying extra to have someone else do that for you.

    THIS is the best post I've seen in a long time.

    dT8p6yxTe.jpeg
    Double agree!

  • Alyssa_Is_LosingIt
    Alyssa_Is_LosingIt Posts: 4,696 Member
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    britishbroccoli wrote: »
    Nutrisystem
    Pros:
    • It works.
    • It takes no thought, just eating.
    Cons:
    • You don't learn serving sizes because the food is often low-fat-low-sugar-low-everything that isn't available everywhere.
    • People come to MFP and say they gained back the weight after coming off of it.
    • The food is not as good as food you can make yourself.
    • It's very expensive.

    MyFitnessPal (aka weigh your own food)
    Pros:
    • It works
    • You can eat literally anything you want, so long as it fits in your daily calories.
    • You learn serving sizes.
    • It's free (minus the cost of the food scale, which is like USD $15-20).
    • It is as tasty as you want to make it.
    • What you learn lasts you a lifetime
    Cons:
    • You have to put thought into your food choices instead of paying extra to have someone else do that for you.

    You are awesome.
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    $250 for one person for a month seems like a lot of money to me. I spend about $130 on food per person each month.
    Eating regular food and just figuring out portion sizes is a skill that you can have for life. It isn't very difficult to weigh/measure foods and log. I'd try the lower cost calorie counting first (which has worked for many, many people) before spending so much on something like Nutrisystem.
  • Sophsmother
    Sophsmother Posts: 83 Member
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    You can easily lose weight if you follow the NS plan. I did it years ago and lost weight pretty easily. But you have to stick to the program and follow the NS maintenance plan so you can learn how to eat non-NS food.
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
    edited March 2015
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    determined_14 wrote: »
    jose4096mfp wrote: »
    I buy mine at walmart just started but 44 bucks for a 5 day supply beats 250 a month and when you do order it online they auto deduct it from your account and send it to you very frequently it was anoying i think weekly is better maybe you dont have money one week you can alternate with different foods and go back to it next week

    Errr, $44/5day supply actually comes out to like $262/30 days, which is a bit more than the above poster mentioned it would cost to buy monthly.

    This. That's for ONE person...I don't think I could financially swing it along with the rest of the family's monthly food even if I hadn't heard that the food is terrible. And let's remember, if you're comparing that cost to your total grocery bill, you most likely include non-item foods in your grocery bill as well: toilet paper, laundry detergent, dishwashing liquid, shampoo, razors, etc.

    I'm not begrudging anyone who tries it, though. If you're on NS, good luck and I hope you achieve your goals.

  • MelWick524
    MelWick524 Posts: 215 Member
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    rabbitjb wrote: »
    stinsonkms wrote: »
    I know it works because my mom lost a ton of weight on Nutrisystem. She said the only bad side was that the food tasted bland. Since in my last post a lot of people were all about counting and portioning your food, Nutrisystem is great because it does that for you. Now the only bad side for me is that it costs A LOT of money. It's over $250 for a month. It may not sound like much but as a college student, I'm also trying to save up for a new car and $250 would be half of what I'm saving each month for my new car, and I really need a new car, but I'd also like to lose weight.

    What are some of the pros and cons of Nutrisystem?

    Waste of money
    Waste of time
    Where's your learning curve
    Spend $250 on fresh food, vegetables
    Use free websites like skinnytaste.com to learn how to cook nutritious, calorie accounted recipes
    Weigh your food, learn appropriate portion sizes and how to balance your food and set yourself up for long-term success

    Meal replacement programmes almost never work long-term

    I wish I had read this last year!! Maybe it would have awakened me! I wasted $400 on Medifast last year. 3 days in and I fainted at the gym. I think I was eating something like 600 calories a day, and was still working out 60 minutes a day, burning, I'd say 500-700 calories. Waste of money. Waste of time. Ruined my health. I had such high hopes, too, and then I ended up packing on 30 MORE lbs. :-(
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
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    Sophsmother wrote: »
    You can easily lose weight if you follow the NS plan. I did it years ago and lost weight pretty easily. But you have to stick to the program and follow the NS maintenance plan so you can learn how to eat non-NS food.
    But, you can easily lose weight on any plan if you eat at a calorie deficit. The only thing type of plan has to do with anything is only if it helps you keep that calorie deficit. However, many of the "plans" do not teach how to change eating habits.
  • crosbylee
    crosbylee Posts: 3,455 Member
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    If you are only doing it because they portion everything for you, what will happen when you reach weight and stop? You still need to learn how to portion and count for yourself or you will gain it all back.
  • atypicalsmith
    atypicalsmith Posts: 2,742 Member
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    I don't get why people do this instead of exercise self-control. And I have a feeling that people who do it are seriously cheating . . .
  • DaneanP
    DaneanP Posts: 433 Member
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    emilyesq wrote: »
    There's nothing inherently bad about a program like Nutrisystem or that other one that's named after some woman... brain like a steel trap, mine.

    Jenny Craig?

  • Sweet_Heresy
    Sweet_Heresy Posts: 411 Member
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    I never did the diet, but my aunt gave me a ton of hers that she couldn't eat because of her diabetes.

    The food is gross. If you still need to learn how to cook and portion after the program...why not just skip right to that step and make your own (significantly cheaper, better tasting, more satisfying) food?
  • booksandchocolate12
    booksandchocolate12 Posts: 1,741 Member
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    Alatariel75 wrote: »
    What happens when you stop? That's the biggest problem with these things, you stop using it, and put the weight back on because you go back to old habits. Or you could use something like MFP, have much cheaper food that isn't bland, still lose weight and learn good habits for life.

    ^^This, exactly.

    Also, I don't understand why you would want to pay such an exorbitant amount of money for what you admit is bland food.

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