Nutrisystem

It's overpriced. Never tried it, but it's just clever marketing that boils down to proper portions and good foods. You can do the same thing on your own by making chicken, lean beef, veggies, and good carbs all at home. AKA food prep

Isn't that one of the ones where they "give" you food? To *me* that cuts out the real learning that a diet should provide.

bornforbattles wrote: »

It's overpriced. Never tried it, but it's just clever marketing that boils down to proper portions and good foods. You can do the same thing on your own by making chicken, lean beef, veggies, and good carbs all at home. AKA food prep

This....

Food is prepped for you, though you still buy your own bread, vegetables and fruit. So what do you actually learn? Well you learn how to use your microwave well. It DOESN'T teach you how to prep your own food nor to really measure out portions. So like practically all premade eating programs, weight regain is likely. Why pay if it's probably going to help you get back up to the weight you're at now?

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I tried it and didn't last a month. Overpriced and gross. It would have been cheaper to build a menu and plan with Lean Cuisine. I dreaded everything but a couple of the desserts.

I'm assuming the convenience is what is drawing you to the program. that's what drew me to the program. I spent $500 and lost 3 pounds. You can still get convenient pre-portioned food at the supermarket. They sell those bags of steamer veggies that are really easy to prepare. Special K has these egg white breakfast sandwiches. There's gardenburgers, too. What I'm saying is, if you are looking for convenient, try the freezer section of your grocery store. I know, everyone says eat fresh whole foods you prepare yourself, but that's not easy, and sometimes you need easy.
So, you can still get convenience, with better flavor and better nutrition if you just look at your grocery store freezer section.
PS - I kinda hate lean cuisines. All noodles! Blech!

Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »

Isn't that one of the ones where they "give" you food? To *me* that cuts out the real learning that a diet should provide.

Me too. I don't think being spoonfed meals out of a box is a good way to tackle a weight problem. Learning how to shop, prep and cook healthy meals are some of the most important life skills we ever learn. Plus, even if you're a bad cook, your meals are probably more satisfying than Nutrisystem's.

I would go out of my mind if I had a week's worth of prepackaged meals waiting to be eaten. If the food were delicious, I'd want to wolf down two or three dinners in one sitting. If it was nasty, I would dread every meal. Either way, I'd be very depressed, but then, I love to cook.

I started Nutrisystem in Sept '13 and lost 30 or so pounds following it strictly. I went on to lose 60 more (and counting!) while transitioning off and now being totally off. I have struggled with weight for years and it was the only thing that helped me stick to something and really begin to have success.

I don't really understand people who say the program doesn't work. Calories in, calorie out, remember? It's a 1200, 1500, or 1800 calories (depending on your weight/gender/age, and you can change plans if the initial one isn't working) worth of pre portioned food. If you stick with it, it will work. A lot of people don't stick with it because they don't enjoy the food, or they don't weigh/measure their add-ins as you should and end out going wildly high on calories. The food wasn't awesome, but not bad either. As good as most microwavable stuff and able to be spruced up with the vegetable/protein/carb add-ins that you supply. The price isn't bad after all the discounts you can get.

I agree with those who say it doesn't teach you all you need to know to maintain the weight, if you just follow the program and then quit and go back to normal. No diet will work--including MFP--if you revert back to your old eating style. Nutrisystem has maintenance plans where you transition off and learn to cook your own food, and if you ignore that part then yeah you will not learn to cook your own food. Here's what it taught me: (1) portion control. I developed the practice of weighing and measuring everything. Learned I was wildly off on my portion sizes (2) Following a set eating plan, but in a simple way. I was trying to use MFP before Nutrisystem but couldn't stick with it because it was burdensome to me to do all the logging and figuring out what to eat. I wasn't ready for that. With NS, you don't count calories but just eat the meals they provide and eat 80-120 calorie portions of other foods. So you don't have to log, you just check off the food groups off a list. It is simple. (3) It got me on a pattern of eating small meals throughout the day which really worked for me to control eating binges. (4) It got me eating in a nutritionally balanced way that included all the food groups and not just the ones I naturally gravitated toward. (5) It got me out of "bad food" vs "good food" mentality, because you can eat all things in moderation, including pizza and desserts. The key is portion control, and eating those things in the context of an overall healthy diet that provides proper nutrition.

Finally, it was so simple I was able to do it. I just ate what they told me. I know some people might see that as too simple, that it isn't teaching you enough. But realize that I was chronically morbidly obese and no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to do it on my own. I tried MFP and couldn't make it work for me back then. Binge eating out of control, couldn't stay motivated. Reaching out for outside help instead of just going it alone was a wonderful decision for me. Knowing I was paying for it probably made me take it more seriously, and the simplicity of the program meant I could invest all my energies into just implementing it without having to learn how to cook and shop a new way at the same time. Just implementing it was all I could handle and was a major struggle to just do that. But simplifying things let me focus on the psychological piece, learning how to have a healthier relationship with food. And also focus on developing an exercise plan.

Eventually, I started phasing off Nutrisystem because I was feeling bored with the food and was having success. I thought I was ready to start "eating in the wild" so to speak. So I started transitioning off by doing what NS calls "flexing" where you sometimes switch out their meals with a nutritional equivalent that you prepare yourself. I tried new recipes and learned to shop and cook a healthy way while using NS as my primary food at first, but as I got better at it I would flex out more. I took about 1.5 months to eat a month of food the first month (they will let you pick the timing of your shipments), then I went to 2 months, 2.5, etc. while still following their eating plan. Then I started tracking on MFP and Fitbit and switched to using this method of tracking. Doing that exclusively now, but I still eat NS food occasionally as convenience food. For some reason I don't fine MFP difficult now, but perhaps because I got some of the emotional/motivation issues dealt with and gave myself time to learn how to eat properly while I was on NS.

No_Finish_Line wrote: »

if you actually eat the prescribed food then I would imagine it would work well.

the problem is you've really learned nothing, and as soon as you go off nutrisystem, your odds of gaining at least some of the weight back are probably close to 100%

I learned a lot while on NS that I am still applying, about measuring food, keeping track of intake, good nutrition, controlling portions, exercise, etc. It's all part of the program, and was enough learning for me at that time. I was overwhelmed with all the learning I had to do on MFP, it was all hitting at once. NS took away the work of food prep while I just learned how not to binge eat, start exercising, learn to eat vegetables and fruits, etc. There is a maintenance plan that involves slowly transitioning to shopping on your own and cooking a new way, in a step by step fashion. The problem comes when people try to skip the transition to maintenance and just go back to normal. But anyone can do that on any diet plan, including MFP.