Day One on NutriSystem

It was a big decision to spend so much money on dieting, but I wanted a chance at maybe losing a few pounds over the summer compared to eating on the run with the kids home. This plan is expensive; at least for me. I went for it.

The day finally came when I received my first, what the plan members refer to as a, Big Brown Box. I excitedly opened it up and was immediately offended.  There were so many chocolate bars, chocolate in general, & junk food, i.e. cookies, chips, snack mixes, and muffins. It hit me.....not only is this how the world thought I had been eating, but NutriSystem was catering to that mentality as well. I decided to brush it off and go with it. I decided it couldn't hurt to try to lose weight eating all the stuff they thought I already did. At that point, I decided I could care less what anybody thought and, in the spirit of an old hair commercial, "I'm worth it."

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for all the minor details that accompanied this plan, but I figured it out quickly once I opened a tiny little package of instant mashed potatoes and thought "This is lunch?"

What was most surprising was that once I ate the breakfast entree and the shake, and a few hours later, the mid-morning PowerFuel, which was peanut butter out of a tablespoon measure, I suddenly found myself extremely hungry. I was actually starving--something I had never felt before despite not eating all day long prior. Suddenly, I was obsessed with food when I had never given it a thought prior. Ironic I think.

I toughed out the sudden urge I had to snack while giving up my pop simultaneously. By the end of the day I had a raging dull headache. It was relentless to the point I had to get up in the middle of the night and take some pain medications--something I never do--and I can count on my hands how many times I've actually ever had a headache. I wondered if it was from sugar withdrawal, and set out to the NutriSystem community to find out. What I found was nearly 1,000 posts in the blog section regarding this starter headache.

It appears many people suffer with the headache. Some have it for 3 days. Mine only lasted that one day.


Now that I've been on the plan for a few months with periods of being noncompliant when on the run, each and every time I restart, the headache returns the first day. It is resolved with Aleve. I can't say what causes that because it isn't sugar withdrawal. I've monitored what I've eaten during the day or two I've been off plan, and there was no sugar to withdraw from. I wonder if it isn't the preservatives found in this shelf-stable food.

Back on the Wagon Full Blast & Paying For It

 So today I made the decision to adhere strictly to my NutriSystem plan, mostly because I finally made it to the grocery store (which is required on NutriSystem unless you want to starve).  I'm paying for it because each time I do this I wind up with a raging migraine the very first day back on.  I am not sure why this happens, but if you are on the NutriSystem site and you search headache in the blog area, you'll get far too many posts about it. Some people say their headaches lasted three to four days.

It's a scary thought to me, but one for which I choose denial.  I can probably count on two hands how many headaches I've had in my lifetime prior to NutriSystem and probably on one hand how many times I've taken meds to treat a headache, but this headache is special enough to keep me up at night until I cave at around 3 a.m. and take the meds. Today I just took them around lunchtime and it's definitely lessened the severity.

Is it the preservatives in this shelf-stable food? Probably. I'm too scared to read the labels too deeply to find out.  I just wanna lose weight during this hectic time and not wait to lose it when everything calms down a bit.  Guess I could be trading off some potential health effects for weight loss.