Journal: My Journey Begins

4 days ago I went to Walmart and purchased a Nutrisystem 5 Day Kit.  Today  I'm on my 4th day, so I went back to Walmart and bought a second kit, as I want to be prepared to continue with the diet.  In the past I've found that not being prepared is death to any diet, which is also one of the strong points of Nutrisystem, always having a portable, portion controlled meal, ready when you need it.

I've learned a lot in these 4 short days.  I have never been a sweets eater for breakfast.  I've always preferred savory dishes such as omelets or a bagel with ham or smoked salmon.  These home kits are heavy on the cereal and muffins.  The only breakfast item in the kit I liked was the bagel, but I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, because there was a lot I did like.

Can you say Jimmy Dean Delights?  Yes, it's an extra purchase, but at $2.25 per meal for the kit items, I think I can afford it.  My Jimmy Dean Delights cost me $4.97 for 4 sandwiches.  That is actually  a buck cheaper per item than the breakfast items in the kit (taking an average price based on number of items divided by the price of the kit).  In a couple of weeks I plan on packaging up all the items I didn't like and selling them as a lot on Ebay.  I should recover enough to come out even with my extra purchases.

To make sure I didn't stray too far from the diet I did a side by side comparison with a similar item from the Nutrasystem website.  I compared the Nutrisystem Turkey Sausage and Egg Muffin with the Jimmy Dean DeLight Canadian Bacon, Eggwhite and Cheese Muffin.   Both are on a whole grain muffin with Jimmy Dean stating theirs had 10g of whole grains.  Calories were almost the same 200 for Nutrisytem and 210 for Jimmy Dean.  Jimmy Dean had a little more protein and a little less fat, but unfortunately, had nearly double the sodium. I guess that is something I won't eat every day because of the extra sodium.

With that in mind I decided to round out my breakfasts with Lender's Little Bagels.  2 of these minis have 130 calories vs. Nutrisystem's Honey Wheat Bagel with 170 calories, with the protein and sodium nearly the same.  The Nutrisystem had 9 more grams of carbs.  Here is the ta da thing, Lender's gave me 5 breakfast servings for $1.98 vs. $2.25 for just one Nutrasystem bagel.

For now, my go to source for Nutrisystem food is Walmart.  Later I may explore what Ebay has to offer or even look at purchasing some things from the Nutrasystem site a la carte.  I plan to take the things I don't like from the kit and sell them as a lot on Ebay.

So here is my plan.  5 days a week I will eat from the Nutrisystem kits I purchase at Walmart.  Day number 6 will be my learning to eat Nutrisystem on my own day.  I plan on cloning my favorite Nutrisystem dishes using supermarket foods and build a quick and easy collection of portion controlled easy to make recipes.


Day number 7 will be a free day to enjoy meals with family and friends.  I don't plan on going hog wild, but there may be some restaurant food involved.  A cheat day is good for the soul and also the metabolism, as it let's the body know it's not starving.

My next post will be my first clone dish.  Stay tuned!!

This is the program I'm following. I like it because if I want a dinner roll I can split my afternoon snack and eat only a power fuel and add the smartcarb (dinner roll) to my evening meal (see Day 5 dinner).  Since Nutrisystem has come out with some new shakes the new 5 day meal plan will not show this option.