BlueBrooke said:A friend of mine started on Nutri-System about three months ago. She's
diabetic, and apparently there's some kind of "lower" carb option that
she's using. I was pretty skeptical at first (frankly the stuff on
the commercials looks *nasty* and way too high carb to me -- and it's
too expensive), but she's doing great -- just had an appointment with
her endo the other day and he's pleased as punch.
I've never seen it mentioned here, so just wondered if anyone had
given it a try.
I did it 20 years ago. I lost a lot of weight on it,
but gained it back over time. I quit before I got to
maintenance, so I never went through the process where
they are supposed to wean you off of the packaged food
and teach you how to eat in the real world without the
crutches of packaged (and expensive) food and their
strict structure. Back then I was highly motivated because
I thought that losing weight would solve other problems.
After I had lost a lot of weight and looked like a
normal person, the realization that weight loss wasn't
going to solve the other problems stripped away much
of the motivation. Also, I was a receiving clerk at
the time who had to move material on a daily basis.
After awhile I noticed that I was getting physically
weaker. At that point I got back into weight lifting
and started my own research into diet and exercise.
In time I began to feel that the Nutri-System program
was geared toward sedentary women who didn't understand
or care about body composition. In other words, the
program was designed to produce maximum scale weight
loss at any cost. I stopped believing in the program
and eventually quit. The basic program, which I'm
guessing hasn't changed much, is easy to describe:
800-1200 low fat calories per day, no caffeine, a
maximum of one 12 ounce diet soda per day, a vitamin/
mineral supplement, 3 quarts of water, 30 minutes
or more of aerobic exercise daily, a weekly weigh in,
a weekly meeting with a counselor, a weekly group
session, and of course the weekly purchase of their
packaged food. I noticed that they did have equipment
for measuring ketones. I don't know exactly what
that was about. Maybe they had recently changed from
low carb to low fat, or maybe they had a low carb
option for special cases (diabetics and those weren't
losing on low fat). I do know that at the time there
was no low carb option openly offered; everyone there
that I knew of was on the same low fat/low calorie plan.
With the free resources todays dieters have at their
disposal, I wouldn't recommend Nutri-System at all.
Nutri-System is a for-profit business. You get out of
it only what you put into it, and you have to pay for
it to boot. Like any diet/lots of water/exercise plan
it depends on the dieters level of motivation. No
motivation, no success. A motivated dieter can pick up
a book and/or find their way on to one of these forums
and do just as well if not better, in my opinion.
If they need closer personal interaction with other
people, they can use diet buddy, overeaters anonymous,
or friends, relatives and co-workers. Having to show
up and stand on a scale for the counselor and tell the
group how much weight you lost that week offers some
motivation via the possibility of embarrassment, but
it's not miraculous. Many of the women in the group
sessions I attended weren't losing and were possibly
cheating. They had their go-to excuses which usually
involved simply acting stupid ("I just don't why it
isn't working"😉.
The bottom line is there's nothing special/miraculous
about Nutri-System. Your friend is motivated and would
probably do just as well by journaling and following
one of the popular diet book plans. The way I see it,
the biggest problem with Nutri-System is maintenance.
Sooner or later we all have to figure out a way of
eating that is based on grocery store and restaurant
food.
