Tricks and Tips for Staying on Nutrisystem Diet

Diet Tips

What is Nutrisystem?

It’s a diet plan that is based on ready-to-eat balanced meals delivered to your house. It’s quite easy to follow and thus is very popular because no cooking, calorie counting, or measuring is required. All you have to do is heat up the meals, eat, enjoy, lose weight, and be consistent. However, even with easy going diets like Nutrisystem, extra tricks are often needed to stay on track and truly enjoy it.

This is what we recommend to implement to make sure you don’t get sidetracked and remain strong:

How can you make the diet more enjoyable?

Spread your favorite meals over an entire month

You should always do some planning for meal consumption and spread the best tasting ones over a month instead of consuming them right away. This comes with some experience because nobody knows the taste when the diet first arrives. You might be surprised how some meals sound amazing, but end up tasting not so good. This is why it is very important to leave good options for week 2, 3, and 4.

Be smart about grocery shopping

When you go to grocery store to get your veggies, fruits, and low-fat dairy supplements, get what you like and enjoy eating or drinking. This will also make your often bland diet more enjoyable.

On the days that you have to eat less than amazing food, get a serving or two of your favorite fruit. When you choose Nutrisystem meals for a month, make sure you include what you love, but don’t get just those meals or you will get bored of them too.

Variety is essential for any diet and the same goes for Nutrisystem. You can look for suggested food pairings on Nutrisystem website and various customer blogs.

Be ready for microwave usage

Yes, it seems amazing and easy at first, but heating and eating for weeks on hand can get boring. When this boredom strikes, change a few things up. Once in a while it’s OK to go out for an “approved” meal or ordering in. Cooking a couple of meals a week is also encouraged by Nutrisystem.

Try some Nutrisystem recipes

Online recipes are available for people who are getting of Nutrisystem diet after the initial weight loss or if they want to take a day off from the premade meals. Nutrisystem website has plenty of options to keep things fresh that can help you stay on the diet.

Go out on dates and enjoy

Going out doesn’t have to include falling off the diet wagon. There are plenty of tips for eating out healthy. You should plan ahead and read menus of a few restaurants to make sure there is something low calorie for you. When there, stick with water and watch your serving portions – ordering an appetizer or splitting an entrée is encouraged. Try to limit your nights out to one per week.

How can you plan for success on Nutrisystem?

Basic plans are for hands-off diet

If this is what you want, basic plans are for you, because Nutrisystem specialists will pick meals for you. If you are not very picky and don’t have time to go through all menu options, this will work great for you. You will see sample menu with basic plans, so you will know what to expect when food arrives for that first month.

Know your needs when choosing the plan

There are plans for women, men, vegetarians, and diabetics, so you should figure out what you need and then go for it.

Customized plans

There are plans that allow you to select meals that you are going to like and pick the best options for you. Core plan lets you choose your meals for the entire month. Uniquely Yours plans also let you pick your meals from even more options than Core plan.

Make sure you have enough storage space

This is one thing many people don’t do in advance and then get frustrated with all kinds of food laying around or crammed in the crowded freezer. Get some space ready in advance. You will get 28 days of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, and sometimes drinks. Most of them will need pantry space, not only freezer.

Budget for extra fresh produce

After you pay for your monthly meal plan, make sure you have some money allocated for fruit, veggies, protein, and condiments. Every day you should add 4 servings of vegetables and fruit to your frozen meals. If fresh produce is not your thing, you will still have to supplement with vitamins or vegetable juice.

Set your expectations right

You should understand that the meals will be small. You will be consuming fewer calories than you normally do and you will be feeling hunger. Some or most foods will not taste right, especially at the beginning. There will be no fatty junk foods and you will have to eat 4-5 meals per day.

How to follow Nutrisystem correctly?

Plan your weekly meals

You will get a huge box of food to your door and you might feel at a loss the first time. Nutrisystem provides some weekly sample meal plans, so it’s a good idea to follow them at first. Later you can make your own weekly plans. It helps to write down your inventory and write down your weekly menu plus fresh produce.

Plan for the end of the diet

Stopping the diet is one of the hardest things many people have to do. Nutrisystem knows the struggle and provides plenty of resources to help you with that crucial step. You can try weaning yourself slowly, one independent meal a day at first and then increase. If the weight starts creeping back up, revisit Nutrisystem suggestions.

Use online resources

Nutrisystem provides a ton of online resources both free and for purchase, so use them as much as you can. That includes suggestions, supplement tips, counselling, customer blogs, community forums, tracking tools, and recipes.