True Facts about NutriSystem, Part 2 (the personal journey story)

Disclaimer:  I'm not a nutritional expert.  I am not a representative of NutriSystem and have not been compensated by them in any way.  I have had success with a this particular program and people have asked me about it and my journey so I figured I'd share a few things.

True Facts about NutriSystem, Part 2 :  my personal journey on the road to losing 50 pounds

I’m half a pound shy of reaching my goal of losing the 50 pounds I set for myself in February of this year.   I was going to wait until I reached 50 to write about the journey, but frankly, half a pound is more than what I fluctuate between morning and night, and it will go too, like all 49.5 of its friends.  I’ve got this. 

So where to begin?  How about how I decided to go with Nutrisystem to help me with my endeavor? Or perhaps my motivation?  Or both? 

I’d read once that a goal killer is to share your goal aloud.  So at the beginning of this year, I made a quiet promise to myself I was going to address my unhappiness in my own skin.  I had let busyness and inconvenience and Alabama pollen and weather, and pretty much any excuse I could come up with stop me from running, but I had not stopped eating like I was running regularly.  In fact I was eating in with such thoughtlessness, I packed on about 15 extra pounds in 2016, on top of the 35 I’d already needed to lose.  I was not in a good place healthwise and I didn’t look like me anymore.  I’d hit a point on the scale that I had never expected to see, in my life.  A number I hadn’t even reached when I was pregnant, though I did get close with my second pregnancy.    

I’ve thought quite a bit about whether or not to write the number on the scale publicly.  The number was an anathema to me, for me.  However, I know people who weigh the same as or more than that number, who are gorgeous and fabulous.  So I’m reticent to state the number lest they think I would pass the judgement I applied on myself on them.  I would not.  I do not.  How one feels about one’s weight and body is very personal and should not be up for contest or comparison.  Beauty is not a number on a scale and it comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  Yet, I also know that celebrities and other people in the public eye are not always honest about their weight and give lots of people the idea that the small numbers they claim are realistic, healthy and/or desirable.  So I’ve spent some time wondering whether or not it would be more responsible to share my start and end numbers just to give people a realistic point of measurement from a real person.  Honestly, I’m still struggling with this. 

Back to my decision to make a change.  I made my first, quiet decision at the start of the year, but I didn’t actually start right away.  I knew that a simple exercise plan was not going to cut it.  You cannot out exercise a bad diet.  I ate a lot of healthy foods, but I also ate a lot of crap.  And I’d opt for crap over healthy choices when crap was easier to access or might “feel good” in the moment.  Or I’d pair healthy choices with very poor ones.  On the road I’d get a nice salad from a grocery store but pair it with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and maybe a beer.  Really.  I’m not proud, but it did happen.  More than once.  I’d fallen into some very bad habits.  I’d never wanted my girls to see me “diet” but I was going to have to make a major change and a diet was in order. 

I researched several different diet plans to determine what would fit in my weird life. 

I knew from experience that the South Beach diet worked really well and the food was great.  I’d gone on the South Beach plan when our amazing fertility specialist in Reston diagnosed me with PCOS and told me it would help balance out my natural insulin levels and help me not only conceive but help me maintain a viable pregnancy.  He was right.  Totally worked.  I lost the weight, ate really well, conceived E and turned a high risk pregnancy into a healthy little ginger monkey.  The downside of South Beach is that my husband was not as big a fan of the food as I was.  Once our baby arrived, the idea of making separate meals for the two of us and feeding a wee one was not remotely appealing, so it fell by the wayside.  When I considered going back to it, the same barriers to success were there.  The reason the food is so good is that you do a lot of thoughtful shopping, measuring and prepping.  Doing that for myself at home, where my husband does the majority of the cooking and my kids are not partial to many of the interesting ingredients of South Beach food and would notice things that are missing from it.  Plus, South Beach acceptable ingredients are mostly perishable and with my travel schedule the chances of good food going to rot before use was significant, not to mention that I didn’t have the same kind of stores near me that I had the last time I was on South Beach.  I’m sure I could have made it work if I’d been seriously inclined, but I didn’t want the work.  I knew, if it wasn’t easy I would not do it.  If you like really delicious, gourmet, fresh and healthy food and have time and the inclination—I totally recommend South Beach diet.  After the first two weeks of cleansing your system which involves some painful limitations, the food options are very broad and recipes are wonderful.  If you lean toward lazy, as I do, unless you’re motivated like I was to conceive and have a viable pregnancy, it’ll be hard to stick to. 

I’d also had success with Weight Watchers online in 2005, prior to the my experience with South Beach, getting trimmed down to look good in a dress I loved, for one of my best friend’s wedding.  I liked that I could “earn” points by exercising or even doing certain types of housework.  The food options are really broad but you have to religious about recording your intake and your activities and you have to stick to your point allotment without fail to be successful.  Sticking to your point allotment requires, once again, lots of measuring, weighing, considering, preparing and even reading, doing math and the likelihood of having to prepare separate meals for the family.  None of that is hard, and the online apps for recording everything is easy to use.  It is a good program and I know people who have had great success with it, even maintaining their success for years.  However, it’s more work than I wanted to do now that I’m juggling marriage, two active girls’ schedules, a full time job with travel and numerous volunteer activities.  I could foresee failure before even starting.

I also checked out several other programs I’d not tried personally but heard about people using and finding some success.  Lots of measuring, prepping and smart shopping other perfectly good plans designed for people who do not travel and often have a lot more time than I have to focus shopping, prepping and exercising.  And speaking of exercising, I didn’t want a plan that was combined with a special workout—it’s totally a winning combination.  However, with my travel schedule, it simply was not going to work to combine a dramatic change effort related to what eat with a new fitness routine.  My travel schedule interrupts routine like nobody’s business and I know me.  If one side started to slip, I’d get frustrated and end up dropping both things.

I needed and wanted a program that would help me reset my eating habits back into smart choice, be really easy and not expect me significantly more active than I already am (read: NO SPECIAL EXERCISES).  I planned a return to running and other official fitness activities, but I did not want to dramatically cut intake while substantially increasing output.  My return to running and whatnot would be used to help me with my transition from a weight loss program to a maintenance plan once I succeeded in reaching my goal. 

Ultimately, I decided to go with NutriSystem.  Unless you specifically order the frozen foods, the program foods can be stored in your pantry (or my dining room) and are very portable.  A microwave is necessary for dinners and some lunches, but several of the lunch and breakfast options can be tossed in a purse, backpack or briefcase and go with you.  Most of the hotels I stay in have in room or in lobby microwaves, so I could take the dinners with me on the road and make that work.  I decided this was my best bet.  But I, still, did not place the order right away. 

The first week of February I went on a work trip that happened on one of my coworkers’ birthdays and sort of quietly celebrated it out at dinner.  This picture was taken.

When I saw the picture, I barely recognized me in it.  The red hair is a giveaway so I did know it was, in fact, me.  Since everyone else in the shot looked very much like their good looking selves, I couldn’t blame the angle or the lighting or photographic distortion to explain why I looked like a stranger to myself. 

I'm the redhead in the far left.  Yeah, I didn't recognize me either.

I came home and placed my order.  I started with the Lean 13 deal that had a starter week boxed up with shake packets and snack bars to go with a month’s worth of breakfast, lunches, dinners and evening snacks.

I placed that first order on February 11.  The first box arrived a few days later.  It sat unopened in my office for a while.  I was reticent to start, afraid of failure. 

I finally opened the box before a work trip that was not a client facing activity.  I knew it was a lousy time to start, because I was going to be hanging out with work friends and there would be dining out and raising glasses and catered lunches and delicious snacks.  I realized, though, there was NEVER going to be a good time to start.  It also occurred to me that making through a lower stress, if higher temptation filled, week with people I know and enjoy would be an excellent test to my ability to make this program work. 

I started the program on February 20, having my program breakfast, snack and lunch at home.  I had food packed for the rest of my meals for the week.  I did have to check my bag because the dinners would qualify as a “liquid”, but it was a 4 day trip so that wasn’t such a big deal as I would have been hard pressed to get everything in carry-on bag anyway.  The first box was delivered with a shaker for mixing the turbo shakes with ice and water.  That came with me too.  Dinner wasn’t awful, but it wasn’t delicious.  It was bland and not anything as pretty as was displayed on the box. 

The first week was difficult.  I was hungry.  All the snacks and delicious looking lunches and dinners that passed under my nose were all more tempting than usual.  I also abstained from any alcohol because it was not part of the program and I really wanted to do this thing right. 

The day I returned home, that first week, my flights were delayed so I got home later than expected, after dinner time.  I’d saved the “pizza” dinner for my return home and I’d looked forward to it.  Even bad pizza isn’t terrible, right?  When I opened the box, which was supposed to contain a piece of flatbread, some sauce and some cheese to be assembled and microwaved, I discovered there was NO FREAKIN’ CHEESE.  I actually cried.  I was hungry and tired and wanted my stupid lousy pizza and it didn’t have any dang cheese.  It hurt my feelings.  My Mister tried to not laugh at my response and told me to get some cheese from the fridge to put on it and perhaps I could call the company to complain.  Customer service is not open after 8pm.  I was pretty bitter.  The faux pizza didn’t make for very good pity party food. 

It is possible that had I not had a month’s worth of already paid for food in my dining room, I might have quit the program right then and there.  But I’d already made an investment, so I had to stick it out for the month.  It also helped that the number on the scale had dropped a few pounds.  At least there had been some progress connected to my sacrifice. 

I don’t recall how much I lost that first week.  I’ve got it written down in the journal NutriSystem provides but I abandoned after a few weeks.  It’s handy but I didn’t want one more thing to carry and I was being very regimented about following the program, so I didn’t feel compelled to keep it.  I did manage to log in the online journal, Numi, that by March 3^rd I’d lost 8 pounds and 14 days into the program I’d lost 9.8 pounds.  Progress was being made. 

After three weeks into the program I was down 10 pounds and even trying to enforce my program rules in my dreams:

My next big test of my resolve came quickly thereafter.  I had a major work trip to Orlando.  Due to the sweet location, proximity to my girls’ Spring Break, my sister living in Orlando, my other sister coming down from ATL to watch my girls and some awesome teammate peer pressure, the Orlando trip would not be just work related but a venture out to Universal and my first chance to explore Harry Potter’s wizarding world, plus some time at a few of the Disney parks and a crazy road trip with my girls.  How would I ever manage to stay on program with all that going on?  I figured it out. 

Representing Ravenclaw March 18, 2017

It helped that I drove the girls and myself down to Orlando, so I could bring a small cooler of fresh veggies in addition to 14 days worth of program foods and almonds and pecans for morning and afternoon snacks on the go.  I used the hotel microwave and brought my dinner to the poolside café with me and ate with my girls, my sister and my coworkers while they ate from the café menu.  I made snack bags of 2 tablespoons of almonds and pecans and tossed those in my purse along with my breakfast bars and lunch bars.  I drank lots and lots of water.  I’d even indulge in a cider or a wine with dinner in lieu of having a program associated evening snack.  Between the work at the conference and all the walking at the parks and all the other fun activities I did with the girls, I got well beyond the recommended 30 minutes of activity.  So despite being tempted right and left, I kept my head and my choices in the game and had continued my slow and steady weight loss.  Best part—I even got to taste frozen butterbeer (holy mackerel, a taste is all a person needs—SO MUCH BUTTERY SWEET GOODNESS). 

When I came home so pleased with myself for not falling off the program, my mister had this to say:

My Mister has been incredibly supportive.  He has been ridiculously blessed with incredible metabolism—at 53 he can still consume 3000+ calories a day on not gain an ounce.  He still drinks whole milk, non-diet sodas, some bread with his butter, and whatever starches he fancies.  He has no concept of portions.  He believes serving a person less than 10 ounces of meat is just rude.  While he always cooks veggies to go with the dinners he makes, he used to steam them with a chunk of butter on top.  The closest he comes to “dieting” is when he occasionally forgets to eat because he’s busy.  But he usually makes up for it by eating half a lasagna or something like that.  Being supportive of someone else’s dramatic change in eating habits, when you have no personal reference point and it directly affects you and how you do things, isn’t as easy as one might think, but he’s been wonderful about it. 

He now makes the vegetables without butter and butters his separately.  With the program you can eat as many true vegetables as you want.  So large portions of steamed veggies with 3 ounces of filet mignon or some other grilled or steamed protein have become regular alternatives to program foods when I am home.   He also bought me a NutriBullet (not associated with NutriSystem) to make blending fruit with the NutriSystem shakes easier to do with less hassle than with our regular blender.  He is also wonderful about picking up the raw veggies I use for snacking and the premade salad that LOVE from Publix.  His encouragement and support have been an important part of my success with this endeavor.

My favorite salad from Publix.  I could eat it every day.

My daughters have been wonderfully encouraging, too.  I really struggled with embarking on something so obvious because I really did not want my healthy, active, beautiful girls to get the impression being thin was something important or even the real purpose of this journey for me.  E, my older daughter, didn’t really like the idea of me wanting to lose weight at all and asked why I thought I needed it.  I discussed, with both of them, my need to reset myself and the kinds of choices I made with food.  We talked about healthy choices and how it’s okay to eat some junky foods sometimes but not all the time and that too much of even healthy food was a bad thing.  I explained that I had stopped looking and feeling like myself and I wanted to get back to that again.  I told them I was using the program to help me retrain myself and my body so it would be easier to keep making healthy choices.

One of the very positive impacts of this journey on my girls, is that we have a lot of easily accessible, ready to eat veggies, in addition to our usual selection of fresh fruits, in the house and the girls will grab celery or cucumbers or even tomatoes to snack on as often as they might grab a pear or even chips.  Ultimately, we all are eating better.

 

Special occasions are a challenge to any diet and my experience wasn’t any different.  Fortunately, we didn’t have any big events from my start time until Easter.  So I’d been on the program for two months by that point and lost 20 pounds.  When Easter arrived I had tasted the fruits of success and was not inclined to lose any momentum.  However, when your parents invite you to Easter Brunch at the Westin, you don’t say “no”.  You go and you make some very different choices than you might have made in the past.  I ate LOTS of salad and fruits.  The buffet had wonderful dish of grilled vegetables that I filled my plate with more than once.  I also ate an indecent amount of boiled shrimp, with lemon juice instead of cocktail sauce.  And because I really wanted to, I also got very very small servings of a two three of the desserts, to enjoy the taste.  I even had a mimosa.  Because the choices I made were still healthy choices and many things were very low calorie, my “indulgence” wasn’t ridiculous—I didn’t even have that over stuffed feeling I had so often got, in the past, when leaving delicious buffets like that.  On that day I skipped my afternoon and evening snacks and dinner, opting for some raw veggies to assuage any signs of hunger, though they never really came.  I don’t recommend skipping meals, but it’s what I did.  Monday, it was straight back to the program.  No set back on the scale, at all. 

My birthday was two weeks later, another occasion for indulgence and potential derailment.  My sister came into town to celebrate.  My parents took us out to dinner.  But derailment was avoided.  I skipped my afternoon snack, ate a reasonable “flex meal” dinner of edamame and California roll and a cider at PF Chang’s, with my family.  I even had a small slice of the DQ ice cream cake my Mister bought and a reasonably small slice of the birthday cake my daughter made for me, all by herself.  Obviously, no evening snack was necessary.  Yes, I’d consumed more calories than usual, but it was a planned indulgence.  Instead of feeling like I’d failed my mission, I felt totally in control.  I was back to the program the next day. 

The same sensibilities were applied on Mother’s Day when we returned to the Westin for Brunch with my parents and on Father’s Day when we ate at Texas de Brazil (I elected to have the salad bar only option).  Smart choices, small indulgences and bypassing regular planned snacks were always part of the game plan. 

I’d like to tell you cravings go away and you don’t even want some of the things you used to enjoy but that would be a big fib.  I haven’t stopped loving cookies, DQ Blizzards or fresh bread with butter.  I avoid eating them. 

Making it through Girl Scout Cookie season with two girls selling cookies and not faltering was a serious challenge.  The feeling of accomplishment was huge—giving me the confidence I needed to continue to avoid things that would only lead to my downfall.  Don’t get me wrong, we bought lots of cookies.  I just didn’t eat them this year.  Next year, Imma be on some Dosidos, but only two or three, not 12 at a time. 

I still stress eat, too, but I stress eat a bowl of raw veggies instead of a bowl of kettle corn.  There’s a lot less guilt in eating a big bowl of cucumbers than a big bowl of the salty sweet goodness that is kettle corn. 

Chewing gum is my crutch.  I chew copious amounts of sugar-free gum.  It helps me get through times when I might otherwise be stress eating or grinding my teeth or boredom eating.  Some days I go through several packs of gum.  It’s a terrible thing to put that much sorbitol or other artificial sweeteners into you gastrointestinal system.  I don’t recommend it if you can avoid it.  However, it has helped me, at work and at social occasions when food is everywhere. 

On the road for work and even on vacation, I take my food with me.  I don’t always eat the program dinners, because eating out with the team is definitely more fun than eating mediocre microwaved food and meals out with clients are also rather important.  The breakfast bars and lunch bars and little snack bags of nuts always get consumed.  If I have a car or a convenient grocery store, I will often buy ready to eat celery and carrots.  I’ve even taken bags of sliced cucumbers, and celery and carrots with me on flights—especially when I know I’m up for a long couple of flights.  On a few occasions, I’ve eaten some of the dinners cold.  They are not better that way, though not a whole lot different than when warm. 

One of the things that is really helpful about this program is that the foods, especially the non-frozen ones, take almost no time to make.  This makes it easy for me sit down and eat with my family, even though they are eating something different.  I’ve even managed to order foods that are similar to things we often eat as a family.  When the family has spaghetti, I have a program pasta dish.  When we have chicken pot pie, I have a program one.  When we get a pizza, I have a program pizza.  (Though, I’ve managed to go to Mellow Mushroom and eat just ONE slice of pizza.  I didn’t know that was even possible before now.)  If we have burgers, I make one of the frozen burgers, which isn’t as good as my husband’s grilled burgers, but it isn’t bad.  It’s main drawback is it’s the size of a slider.  And on the occasions we have breakfast for dinner, like egg mcmuffin style sandwiches or waffles, I have the program versions (which are meant for breakfast, but I don’t care because we are having breakfast for dinner).  The program versions of waffles and egg sandwiches are part of their frozen options and are both quite good.  The waffles are great.  The egg sandwiches are not quite as delicious as the ones I make for my family, but they are tasty.  Nutrisystem frozen food options are, without question, better tasting than the non-frozen ones. 

As I’ve progressed I’ve felt more confident about doing more “flex meals” for dinner than not.  I usually order salads with no dressing and no cheese but with some sort of protein, like shrimp, chicken or steak.   I love it when they have options with fruits and nuts and avocados.  At home, my Mister makes great proteins and I fill the other 3 quarters of my plate with veggies.  Corn is considered a smart carb, so it fulfills that requirement when the steamed veggies are of a mixed variety. 

My dinner 

My kid's dinner

When I was in NYC with my girls, walking 5 or more miles a day, I even let myself have some of the fresh Italian bread with a little butter, to go with my shrimp cocktail and salad.  And when E made her favorite spaghetti dinner all by herself, I ate the dinner she made—a small portion and none of the garlic bread.  And when our neighbors' daughter made an ice cream sandwich cake for dessert when they came over for a cookout, I had a wee bit of it (so good!).

ice cream sandwich cake

I’ve mentioned that this has been a slow but steady journey.  Right before my birthday, I’d hit the halfway point, having lost 25 pounds at that point.  I wanted a blizzard to celebrate.  I ate a bowl of baby sweet peppers instead.  Then I bought some summer clothes.  I didn’t have single part of shorts that fit.  I surprised myself and pleased my husband by purchasing shorts that hit mid-thigh instead of my usual Bermuda shorts length.  I was a little disappointed that the sizes I purchased were a lot smaller.  Perhaps it was the brands.  It also probably had a lot to do with the fact that I don’t like tight or snug clothes.

The clothing part of this journey has been interesting.  I still wear many things I wore 49.5 pounds ago and everything I bought 25 pounds ago.  Pretty much all of those things are loose and some, I probably shouldn’t wear because they are literally falling off.  I still have some clothes that I wore before I put on all the weight and couldn’t bear to part with because I loved them and had spent some serious coin on them.  It’s been really fun to put things on and have them not only fit but look good again.  The Sunday before last I put on a bikini that I wore on my honeymoon.  I pranced around my room, in front of my husband and told him “I’m wearing this to church today, BECAUSE I CAN.”  I didn’t really wear the bikini to church, but I’m pretty sure I wore a little bit of extra confidence.

Fortunately for me, my tastes in clothes have generally leaned toward classic lines and designs, so I can get away with wearing many things I now fit again.  It’s like going on a shopping spree without the annoyance of having to shop or spending money.  I’ll still probably need to do a bit of shopping as the season changes though, particularly for work.  The size thing is still nutty, I still need to try a range of three different sizes and might fit anyone of them depending on the style or brand.  I also have to bring myself to donate so more of my larger sized clothes so I don’t feel like I have a safety net to return to if I forget my resolve.

Some of the changes in my body have also been interesting and required some mental gymnastics.  I'm 46 now and my skin isn't as resilient as it once was and isn't tight anywhere.  That doesn't bother me much though.  As I get back into running and yoga again, more muscle definition will show and I'll not fret at all about the loose-ish skin.   It's not like it was tight 50 pounds ago either.  The change that has been difficult is the loss of my boobs.  When I breast fed they were at pornstar proportions, and I was relieved when the returned to normal after weaning.  I was also relieved, that unlike many of my fellow moms whose breasts were smaller after weaning than they were before they were pregnant and breast fed, my breasts were close to the same size, may a little larger.  Naturally, I accounted for my excess weight as the cause of  the "a little larger" size.  I've always liked my breasts.  They have been a very feminine feature to an otherwise, not particularly feminine body--broad shoulders, narrow hips, straight waist.  So, when the pounds disappeared and my breasts shrunk with them and lost their roundness, I was a little bummed out.  Of course, I reminded myself that I am very fortunate to have two healthy, intact breasts and didn't let myself have a long pity party about it.  But it would be dishonest to say I loved all the changes to my body this journey has created.  I'm over my disappointment, though--the rest has been very positive, and it helps that my husband keeps telling me that my boobs are still awesome.  And at this point, I'm pleased enough about the changes in my body, that I ran around in public, all day, in a WonderWoman costume for a work team building activity.  And I've been planning how I'm going to ink up my hips and belly now that I might be inclined to show them off again.

While I didn't get into using the Numi app for logging intake and output and all that helpful stuff for people who like to track things and are motivated by details.  I have gotten into the habit of weighing myself, at night before bed and first thing in the morning.  It's not a habit I recommend.  It is interesting though to see how dramatically one's weight can fluctuate between bedtime and morning.  Morning weights are always better--always.  Part of that actually has something to do with gravity.  The other part is by morning much processing is done and after your morning tinkle, you've eliminated some extra water.  If you're going to weigh yourself daily, the morning is the best time.  If you weigh yourself sometimes in the morning and other times at night, there's a chance you'll give yourself the impression that you've put on weight, when really you just need to poop.  I don't even recommend weighing yourself daily.  I do it, but I'm not sure how helpful it is.  It's always more fun to weigh myself after returning from a trip, when I haven't been able to feed my obsessive compulsive bedtime/morning routine, and see actual, meaningful movement on the scale.  I'm weirdly motivated by my probably unhelpful routine, so I do it.  But I don't recommend it, unless you're motivated in a similarly weird way.

I’ve been nervous about the transition to maintenance for a while.  It is seems more daunting now than trying lose 50 pounds.  With that last half pound to go, I’ve got to start thinking about running and yoga and planned exercise again.  I’ll need to look up 5k races and set my sights on a race to train for.  One of my awesome girlfriends from work has proposed we pick a race to do together when I’m ready—that’ll help keep me focused.  I’ve got a 30^th high school reunion coming up in 2 years—that’ll also be good motivation.  I was in fabulous shape at my 10^th,  better shape than I was when I graduated, so it will be nice to go back in great shape again.  If I aim really high, I’ll take one of my college friend and all around superhero’s challenge and try to get myself in a position to do the Goofy Challenge in 2021, the year we turn 50.  I won’t announce those things, officially, until I’m on my way though.  Once the plan infiltrates my dreams, I’ll share it with others—that methodology seems to work for me.  I need the encouragement and support saying it aloud provides, but I’ve got to convince my psyche it’s going to happen first.

Whatever works, eh?  

Here's a few more then/now pictures for comparison and documentation of the slow and steady transition.

Team mates and a picture of me in which I recognize me (August 2017

Same Ravenclaw shirt I wore in March (shown earlier) as it fit in July

 Me  (and loved ones) at a wedding May 2016

Me on Mother's day May 2017

Part 3 of the True Facts series will be my reviews of the foods.