I’m on about the tenth week of Nutrisystem and it’s going well: Starting at just under 290, I finally stepped on the scale and saw “270.1” appear. I’d like to keep losing – and my goal for the 12 weeks I’m on Nutrisystem was 25 pounds, but as I suspected, that’s a little bit aggressive. Still, dropping 20 pounds has been terrific so far and I still have a few more weeks to get into the 260’s and perhaps even into the 250’s by the end of the year if I can keep the momentum going. We shall see.
Since mornings tend to revolve around getting my 13yo daughter K- ready for school, it’s turned out to be easy for me to use the Nutrisystem NuMi app to plan my own day’s food too. Since I don’t have a fixed office, that involves me packing all the food I’m going to eat until dinner time, with the assumption I don’t have access to a stove or microwave. I manage this by using NuMi as a menu planner rather than food logger, and it’s proven easy and straightforward.
For example, here I am at the beginning of a typical morning in the app:
Nutrisystem front loads your eating so that you have more carbs and proteins in the morning – basically the opposite of how I tend to eat, which is how I added on all the weight in the first place – and by the end of lunch I’ll have eaten three proteins (PowerFuel), two carbs, and a Nutrisystem breakfast and lunch item.
For lunch today, I’m going to pre-cook the Chicken Fajita Melt, which I can then easily scan and add to the app even though it’s 7.30am:
Sometimes I add things and then eat them in a different order, but this morning I opted for an omelette and some sliced chicken for breakfast, a chocolate shake with some fruit thrown in as my mid-morning snack, the fajita melt + yogurt + an apple as lunch and a bag of popcorn as a mid-afternoon snack.
Calories add up, it revs up my metabolism appropriately, and it’s all neatly shown in the app:
Oops! Looking at this screenshot I realize I haven’t yet actually added the omelette. Easily done, even hours later.
The tech is all well and good, but what does my day’s eating look like? Glad you asked!
Here’s my lunchbag:
My Ninja blender has cups you can put directly on the blender so my turbo shakes are always with water and ice, and come out more like a milkshake. I just bring that with me as-is and give it an enthused shake or two before consuming.
You can also see my half-eaten omelette. The mystery food wrapped in foil is the chicken fajita melt. Neat, easy and with the addition of one extra veggie as an emergency snack if I get a bit hungry…
I’m good to go for the day. Generally I just look at the app to remember what order I thought I’d eat things and space it all out. So I don’t eat the melt and yogurt and apple all within a few minutes, but stretch it out so that lunch is maybe 12-12:45 that way. Since I work through lunch almost always, it’s easy to do that!
The only down side is that food that should be served hot – like the southwest fajita melt – end up cold, which is not optimal. But it’s just fuel for my body so it works, I can consume it, and I just keep my eye on the end goal and it’s fine. If you have a microwave or other way to heat your food up, I would however recommend you take it cold and then cook it just as you’re ready to eat it!
And that’s it for Nutrisystem week ten. Two more weeks to go and we’ll see how I did with my goal on the program!
Disclosure: I have received all of my products from Nutrisystem for review purposes and that my opinions are 100% my own. As is always the case.