Tomorrow is a New Day

Soooo, I spent the last couple days Forcing myself to accept the Fact that I won't be losing 6 pounds a week doing my Weight Watchers plan in my 40s like I did in my 20s when Mr. F walks in the door with a movie and candy treats for all last night.  He is a huge movie buff and supposedly Forgot that I'm not eating junk.

Well, since I had reached my Weight Watchers points for the day at that point, I took a bite of one of the Heath bars that came in this king size package and told him to hide the rest for another bite another day or some when points allowed.  See, in my mind, I know I have a WW recipe for toffee that I've made in the past and I Figured one bite wouldn't hurt.  Only that weakened me instead.  I held out for most of the time it took everyone else to eat their sweet treats, and then I caved. Ate the whole package of two bars.

I had been losing anywhere from 0 to 0.25 pounds a day....then this morning I get on the scale expecting to see either no change or a fraction of a gain, having weighed myself yesterday, and low and behold, a whole 0.75 pounds are gone.  How that happened, I have no idea, but if I try that again and the results are the same again, I may not ignore that and do it more often. lol

Today, the kids had no school and an orthodontics appointment 1.5 hours away, so I drank a green smoothie for breakfast and grabbed a packet of instant oatmeal to eat at my mom's house after the appointment for lunch. I planned a trip to the meat market out by her house where I can stock my Freezer with meats for 6 months on the cheap, so cooler in the back of the car Filled, I headed to her house. .

When I got to my mom's, only my dad was there.  We visited for a Few and then drove to see my mom at work where she always has leftover donuts waiting for the kids.  I didn't eat that oatmeal, as I wasn't hungry and therefore didn't even think about it until I saw it slide across the dashboard on a turn during the trip home.  My mom tried to send that massive box of donuts home with my kids and called me a meanie for not allowing it.  I am not their Favorite person right now.

I ate a couple of beef jerky sticks on the way home, had a bite of a FlatOut Pepperoni Pizza the hubs made for everyone, 3 ounces of leftover pork tenderloin, and drank some pop and then separated and packaged up 40 pounds of chicken breasts, ground sirloin, and bacon with my FoodSaver.  There is more, but nothing else required separating before Freezing. Not sure where that leaves me today. Doesn't sound so bad when I type it, but I literally have no idea what calories or points was in what I did eat today. It happens, but I won't let it derail me.  A bad day is just a bad day and tomorrow is always a new day.

Weekly Weigh In - Week #27

So the soluble stitches I had really caused me some grief this last month, so much so that I wound up being a bit of a couch potato and totally slacked on feeding myself appropriately along with the family. I just wanted to get mealtime over with and go soak in the tub again. I'm feeling pretty good and am back on the NutriSystem wagon with my latest delivery of supplies, as of yesterday. I somehow managed to lose a pound despite eating things like pizza and ice cream. Granted, I didn't treat myself every day, but if I didn't want to deal with thinking and planning for myself, let alone prepping more food, I just had what the hubs served up. Ready to get back to the business of losing!

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - Maple Sausage Patty

I turn this patty into my mid-morning snack with the egg scramble being the mid-morning protein serving, and always with veggies to work in more filling veggies.

I forgot to take a picture of the package first, but I'll add it later when I get some more.  My messy omelet is on a salad-size plate, but you can see how it is substantially more food than just the patty itself, which only requires heating in a microwave. You can also put it all into a whole wheat tortilla wrap if you don't mind using up one of your Smart Carbs for the day.

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - Biscuit & Gravy Mix

This is one of my favorite breakfasts because it comes close to my favorite treat - biscuits & gravy (which I usually ate 3 times a year).  Sure, it has a "diet" flavor/flair to it, but close enough for me. It is probably the most tedious entree to fix up, as you must mix the biscuit mix, shape, and microwave it, and if you want to brown it on top, then spray it with nonstick cooking spray and broil while waiting for the boiling water you've added to the gravy mix rehydrates the sausage bits, etc.

NutriSystem Food - Dinner - Rotini & Meatballs

You can bake up some garlic zucchini and squash, etc. to add to this dish to make it more filling and you get to eat a Smart Carb with it. I always team up my Italian dinners with a piece of whole wheat bread and a pat of butter (an Extra). Here it is plain.  It fits into a 1-cup measure and appears to possibly be 3/4-cup serving size.

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - NutriFrosted Crunch Cereal

This is a filler item I buy from Big Lots on the cheap when I find myself out of breakfast entrees and yet still have entrees left for the remainder of the day.  This serving size fits into a 1/2-cup measure. I don't like milk, but I add just enough to wet it a bit, and you have to eat it quickly before it gets soggy, so don't dally on the cereals.

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - Maple Brown Sugar Oatmeal

What can you say about oatmeal?  I use water and don't measure.  I just like mine runny versus thick, so I make it the way I like it. Here it is.

NutriSystem Food - Snack - Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Here they are, the NutriSystem version of Oreos.  They taste good & fit a crunchy craving.

NutriSystem Food - Snack - Honey Mustard Pretzels

Here is my evening snack...the honey mustard pretzels in the package and then in the palm of my hand.  Why dirty a bowl or cup for this?

NutriSystem Food - Lunch - Black Beans & Rice

I use these ingredients--with the dressing, salsa, and avocado all being Extras (not a full serving of an Extra each though)--and 2 oz. of shredded chicken breast as my mid-morning PowerFuel, to turn my bucket of black beans and rice into a Mexican salad. The recipe for the Mexican Chicken Salad Platter is here. When its ready, I can just grab & go.

This entree is just shy of 1 cupful by itself.

Here it is jazzed up in a large soup bowl, and it counts as a veggie serving or two as well depending on how much lettuce you use.

NutriSystem Food - Lunch - Turkey Dog (old plan)

Again, because I wind up with uneven amounts of entrees to round out my days as I go further into each delivery, I go to Big Lots and buy some NutriSystem entrees from their old plan.  They do have some foods that are still on the new plan currently being offered though too.  These hot dogs are not on the new plan.  Again, when Big Lots has a sale, you can score the old entrees for around $0.25 each.  

I know it's the opposite problem from what many face.  While they fight temptation to not double up on some of the treats provided in their 28-day supply of food, I don't.  I wind up starting each day off well, and then get busy, sometimes forgetting the food I even took the time to pack, so I wind up eating the breakfast and lunch entrees mostly without problem and wind up having to make due while out and about as my NutriSystem food awaits me at home. This is my cost-effective solution compared to buying items a' la carte from NutriSystem to round out these days.

Here is a picture of the package first, the contents still wrapped, and then my turkey dog jazzed up with onions, ketchup, and mustard on a single slice of whole wheat bread.  You are allowed to put the dog into a bun, but I don't like to buy 8 buns & only use 1, allowing the rest to go bad.  I improvise a lot.

NutriSystem Food - Snacks - White Chocolate Chunk Cookie

Here is the cookie in the package and then outside of the package.  Pretty simple.

NutriSystem Food - Supply Your Own Snack

On NutriSystem, I am to provide my own Smart Carbs and PowerFuels.  One of the two mid-morning and the other one of the two mid-afternoon.  This is a Smart Carb snack I have in between lunch and dinner.  It's 8 fat-free Wheat Thins and 1 tablespoon of hummus.

NutriSystem Food - Dinner - Italian Herb Flatbread Pizza

Here is the box.

Here are the contents.

How it looks assembled as supplied:

Here it is jazzed up a bit with my lunchtime PowerFuel (chicken), an Extra (BBQ sauce) in place of the pizza sauce they provide, the cheese they provide, and a veggie serving or two of spinach and onions (I usually use red onion, but I was out).  I also usually add mushrooms as well, but I was out of those too.  I call it my BBQ Chicken pizza.

And here it is cooked and placed on a salad plate. 

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - Banana Nut Muffin

Here is the NutriSystem Breakfast Entree banana nut muffin in the package.

Here it is in a 1/2-cup measuring cup. 

and here it is pictured with my breakfast in total today with the chocolate spinach NutriSystem shake.

NutriSystem Food - Lunch - Split Pea Soup

Here is the split pea soup. I like the flavor.  This is it for lunch for me today, as I'm saving the PowerFuel I could team with it for my dinner later.

Here it is in a 1-cup measuring cup, so probably about 3/4 cup.

NutriSystem Food - Breakfast - NutriCinnamon Squares Cereal

You may be wondering what the heck this is, as this isn't what you get in your Big Brown Box.  It's an old NutriSystem plan entree that you can buy on the cheap from Big Lots.  It's marked for $1, but they have sales that can allow you to get them for $0.25 each.

You may be wondering why I have it as well, and I'll explain.  Every day I'm on NutriSystem, the day starts off just fine and completely on plan.  Then something pops up that requires me to be on the run for the remainder of the day or I simply leave home and walk straight out the door completely forgetting the bag of food I had prepared to keep on plan while on the run.  This means that I sometimes wind up with 18 dinners and 20 desserts untouched and no breakfasts, shakes, or lunches to round out for a complete NutriSystem day, so I buy these to save money over the a'la carte items directly from NutriSystem.

This, like all of the cereals I've tried from them are similar in size.  This is a snack-size bowl.  You are allowed to add milk, but I don't like milk, so I just add a splash; just enough to get it wet. Since I consume alongside my spinach protein shake, it is completely satisfying.

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.

NutriSystem Food - Snack - Cheese Puffs

This is a bag of NutriSystem Cheese Puffs.  They don't taste like the originals, but they are pretty good to me.  The bag is huge, like most bags of chips, but the contents occupy barely half of it.  This is fine by me considering I never ate these things anyway and only eat them to follow the plan.  Here is how many are inside placed inside a child-size bowl.....

Personal Pros and Cons of NutriSystem

I'll start off detailing how I came to be on NutriSystem and share the pros and cons of it for me personally.

Firstly, as I've mentioned in another post, I was facing an extremely hectic summer.  I decided to try NutriSystem for the summer because in being honest with myself and recognizing that the mom-is-last syndrome from which I suffer would get in the way of any real success if left to my own defenses, I gave it a shot.  I figured losing some would be better than the mere 3 pounds I manage to lose here and there during crazy times.

I'm glad I did because I have so far lost 22 pounds since April 19, but there are a few surprises I'd like to share with anyone who is thinking about joining.

Firstly, I called the advertised number and asked a lot of questions.  It sounded so easy.  I only wanted to become a NutriSystem member because they were going to provide the meals for me.  I thought this meant I would only meal plan for my picky kids and husband rather than cooking as much as I do when I'm trying to eat all the stuff they don't want to.  It didn't quite turn out that way. (There's quite a bit of prep in all the do-it-yourself participation involved.)

The food arrived and I accepted the introductory package, a little bit of everything, to taste it all and decide what I wanted from there.

When I opened the box, I was actually very insulted at what was inside.They had given me chocolate bars for breakfast, lunch, and dinner covered in chocolate, things like donuts and muffins for breakfast, and a ton of chocolate, cookies, and chips for the dessert/end-of-the-day snack.  I was offended because it made me feel like so many others have made me feel...that I must hole up in a corner of my house eating crap day in and day out and I therefore needed a daily dessert or chocolate every day.

I decided to turn the other cheek, as they say, and just go with it.  The following day I started only to discover that I was suddenly starving for the first time in my life, and with a raging headache.  I found it ironic that I was absolutely N-E-V-E-R hungry pre-NutriSystem and I start it and find myself ready to rip somebody's head off for food.  Food was all I could think about all day.  It didn't help that I was unprepared and that the sales rep wasn't totally forthcoming despite my interrogation.

I followed the directions in the journal they provide which goes like this:  [NS Breakfast Entree and NS shake], [PowerFuel], [NS Lunch Entree and PowerFuel], [SmartCarb], [NS Dinner Entree and SmartCarb], then [NS dessert entree].  NS = NutriSystem, PowerFuel=Lean Proteins from a very limited list provided in the journal, and SmartCarb=Starchy Veggies & other items from a very small list in the journal. You are also to take in 8 glasses of water daily, 4 non-starchy vegetable servings, and are allowed 3 what they call Extras from a limited list in the journal.

I found myself just fine in the morning since I had never eaten breakfast, snack, then lunch anyway, but I did question what on earth I was doing as I licked peanut butter from a 1-Tbsp measuring spoon. I thought to myself, "Am I really licking peanut butter from a tablespoon right now and calling it a power fuel?"

I'm guessing actual hunger kicked in because eating smaller portions and more frequently every few hours turned on a switch in my body.

Also, as I reached for the very small container of instant mashed potatoes with broccoli to rehydrate for my lunch (about 3/4 cup only), I asked myself "Really? This is the whole lunch?"

Since one of the very reasons I find myself Fat was being chained to a computer virtually every spare minute of my life for the past 12 years, I was very disappointed to learn that it was practically a requirement I join their online community and dig and search for answers to what was sure to ruin the NutriSystem experience for me.

It turned out there was a much larger list of these extras, powerfuels, and smart carbs to be found online to supplement the 4 entrees they provide and it turned out there is a recipe section there to turn some of these little things they give you into actual filling meals, i.e. some people turn the instant potatoes into potato pancakes, etc.

It also turned out that I did not like a lot of what they provided to me, but I stuck it out to figure out what I did and did not like to personalize my next order.  While you couldn't get me anywhere near that sloppy joe mix again, not even for a million dollars, there is quite a bit I absolutely adore, especially after I learned how to jazz it up, i.e. turning the burger patty into a gyro, or the very dry grilled chicken breast chunk into some chicken fajitas.

So, I do recommend NutriSystem to people, but I think you need to get real honest at what is holding you back before deciding if it is the right plan for you.

Personal Pros:

• Not having to fret about what I'm going to eat each meal with what family is going to eat. 
• Losing weight even when things are hectic. 
• A lot of it actually tastes good when spruced up a bit into recipes.
• I do not suffer from heartburn at all when following the plan. 
• I eat more veggies than I ever have. 
• I drink more water than I ever have. 
• It helped me to give up pop/soda.
• I've learned a bit about portion control.

Personal Cons:

• The headache I get after a few days off when restarting. 
• An automatic weight gain when I run out the door leaving my packed food behind (regardless how much I eat or what I choose). 
• I sometimes get tired off the shelf-stable food and stray to the fresh homemade version. 
• I get all veggies out and therefore do not get in my whole 4 servings of veggies daily. 
• They don't exactly have the nicest, most compassionate or patient people around in the chat rooms for support.
• I can't stand nor have time for automated answering services and therefore avoid calling their always available counselors.
• While my plan with joining was to cut down on my food prep for myself (cuz I'm prepping other things for family), I find myself in the kitchen 6 times a day now prepping little things for myself. 
• The expense. 

So, as of right now, my pros equal the cons in number, so I stick with it the best I can.