www.nutrisystem.com
Happy New Year! As you age, past 28 or so I'd say, time seems to move faster. Also, according to people smarter than me, you gain an average of 16lbs of fat/decade and lose 6lbs of muscle/decade post 20s. Summer is just a few months away and those extra pounds may ALREADY BE ON YOU! And it may have been there longer than you want to think about. For me...I got down to my playing weight in 2005 (187 at age 28) and stayed there until 2006 (29). It's 2012...I'm nowhere near my playing weight (216...you'll have to do the age math). And I swear to you...6 years went by redumbulously quick. So, I decided to do something about it. Through several iterations I will introduce you to Nutrisystem, it's food, effectiveness and of course my wise-ass thoughts.
Generally, with any diet, it is self-dependent. Meaning, if you do what the plan says, it will work. If you don't...still fat. I chose Nutrisystem since I thought it provided everything you need to eat for each day of the plan (more on this later).
Lucky for me, Costco has a Nutrisystem "package" available. $199 for 28 days (cheaper than anywhere I've seen including the Nutrisystem's website). Costco sends you a card w/ ordering information. Once the card is received you must go to the nutrisystem website and select your food items. This is actually 20 days worth of food with weekends on your own. The provided food consists of (1 each/day): Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Protein shake. There's a pretty wide variety in your choices for each meal. I'd say about 20 different choices for each (except the shake) and user ratings helping you choose the better one's and avoid the cardboard-ish items. If an item you select is not available upon shipping, they will replace at their discretion. Item choice took about 10 minutes. About 1 hundred clicks or so got me through everything.
Placed the order to Costco, got the card in 3 days, then ordered on nutrisystem.com and received the shipment in 2 days. Everything came in one big box. 20 days of food has surprising volume. I started to wonder "where the hell am I putting all this? My fridge is going to be PACKED". Much of it is dry or canned (add water/nuke), but still...all those frozen lunches/dinners. Then I started reading packages..."Refrigerate after opening". On everything. On the Rotini with Meatballs, on the Thick Crust Pizza. EVERYTHING. This worried me, so I called the provided 800 number. "Nothing in your order needs to be refrigerated", to which I replied "Doesn't that scare you"? The operator laughed and said they get that question a lot, but all the items are shelf stable. I guess somehow due to flash freezing and these oxygen absorbers in each package...or everything could just be made of cardboard. I put the breakfast items in a container in our "cereal area" and put the rest in the garage.
In iteration 2 I will cover, in the immortal words of Detective David Mills, "What's in the box?",
how it works and initial impressions.
Order/Deliver process, Rated:
