Why You Should Not Use NutriSystem To Lose Weight

[Anonymous]

I first encountered this product at the supermarket. It was this big box that could last 5 days. But the price was well above $50. So, you'd be eating more than $10 per day. My first impression was, "Is there really food in there?" I looked it up online and found that people were commenting about NutriSystem on YouTube. Here is my Take on the subject of caloric-low, packaged, well-preserved food.

1. NutriSystem Is Still Processed Food

NutriSystem is processed food. Like other types of processed food, it provides food packages with a lot of unknown ingredients. Take Ravioli Formaggio, for example. It has stabilizers (food additives that hold the food in place so the food looks presentable), whey protein concentrate (flavor enhancer), modified corn starch (thickener), and spices (flavor enhancer). Whatever is in the food, the ingredients suggest that the food is not fresh, so how many nutrients would you get out of it, regardless of the calories?

2. It Is Not Changing Your Palate

NutriSystem has a dessert menu that allows you to satisfy your sugar cravings. There are two things wrong in this picture. First of all, you are not changing your palate. This may be problematic down the road, when you go off the diet. Second of all, you may be receiving very little micronutrients. Take Ice Cream Sandwich, for example. It has maltodextrin (sweetener), polydextrose (sweetener), sugar, corn syrup (sweetener), whey protein concentrate (flavor enhancer), mono and diglycerides (emulsifiers that contain trans fats), guar gum (thickener and improving glycemic control in diabetics), locust bean gum (improving glycemic control in diabetics), cellulose gel (stabilizer), sucralose (sweetener), polysorbate 80 (emulsifier), natural flavor, carrageenan (thickener and emulsifier), caramel color, dextrose (sweetener), modified corn starch (thickener), and soy lecithin (emulsifier that contains pesticides and solvents from genetically modified soybeans).

So basically, if you have the Ice Cream Sandwich for dessert, you are really having milk and a ton of sweeteners, flavor enhancers, emulsifiers, and thickeners. To allow people with diabetes to consume this product safely, guar gum and locust bean gum are added, even though the long-term consequences have not really been studied. There are no useful nutrients in this food.

You may be better off with a handful of strawberries. Strawberries are naturally sweet and rich in useful nutrients and antioxidants. Much of the strawberry is water, and the rest are sugars. The strawberry also has indigestible sugar (fiber), which curbs the absorption of digestible sugars. So, it is no wonder why strawberries are extremely low in glycemic load, despite being so sweet.

In addition, sucralose and other artificial sweeteners tend to be much sweeter than table sugar, so if you adapt your palate to artificial sweeteners, you may not fully enjoy the sweetness of real fruit.

2. NutriSystem Embodies The Wrong Values: Aesthetics Matters More Than Nutrition

NutriSystem is mainly for people who want to lose weight. In order to lose weight, people must eat at a caloric deficit, so they can lose 1-2 pounds per week safely. Despite the decrease in calories, the food is loaded with who-knows-what and may not even be fresh and nutritious. Clearly, the NutriSystem diet embodies the wrong values. Aesthetics and personal vanity are considered more important than adequate nutrition. If one ever loses weight through this process, which is highly likely because it is programmed to be that way, then one should definitely go through detoxification afterwards in order to remove all the possible toxins too! This is where it really helps to eat antioxidant-rich, organic foods from your home garden that can protect the body during the detoxification process!

3. NutriSystem Is Very Expensive

Nutrisystem plans range between $274.99 and $576.91 per month. If you want the tastier frozen meals in addtion to the "shelf stable" options (sealed food pouches with no refrigeration necessary), you must opt for the pricier Nutrisystem Uniquely Yours plans. (Source: Best Diet Tips)

$274.99 - $576.91 per month for one mouth is very expensive. The high cost likely covers the manufacturing costs and professional/technical customer service support. Now, if you are very overweight and need to lose 100 pounds and the diet only seems to promise that you'll lose 1-2 pounds per week, then you should make sure that you can invest thousands of dollars in this weight loss program!

My point is, this is not a cost-effective way to lose weight. You are essentially paying a lot of money for a little bit of food for yourself, and you have to pay additional food to feed your family.

4. NutriSystem Is Not Teaching A Sustainable Lifestyle For The Next Generation

Although the idea of packaged food sounds convenient, eating packaged food is not teaching a sustainable, healthy lifestyle for the next generation. If you cook your own food in addition to cooking NutriSystem food (some of the YouTube videos have people cooking NutriSystem food and eating the food with their children, who are eating regular, high-calorie food), then it may be best to cook real food that is low in calories and high in nutrients to lose weight.

In order to have a sustainable, healthy diet and lifestyle, I believe that people must learn from their ancestors. What did they eat? How did they stay thin? How much physical activity and what kind of physical activity did they do? Does my family have any traditional recipes? Answering these questions can greatly boost one's awareness and appreciation of family history, cultural heritage, and lifestyle.

For me personally, I come from a Chinese background. What I like about traditional Chinese eating habits is that two to four dishes may be placed at the center for all to share. That way, the food can become very individually customizable. If one person wants to lose weight (but the other people are trying to maintain the same weight), then that person may choose to remove the staple food source, rice, because that generates a lot of calories/energy. Instead, the person obtains carbohydrates from the vegetables and proteins and fats from the meats and soy products. Reducing portion sizes to half of what you used to eat, consuming more fiber-rich sources (vegetables) that can satiate you, eliminating all processed foods, and drinking only warm water or green tea without added sugar will help you lose weight. Furthermore, the dishes themselves are separated by high-calorie and low-calorie dishes, allowing individuals to have choice.

Steaming, baking, and boiling in soups may be healthy options too, but they take a lot of time. Stir-frying vegetables is fast; the vegetables are minimally cooked; and not much oil and salt are used for two to four dishes. However, some concerns about the nutritional benefits and deficits of stir-fry cooking may arise.

One study suggests that tempeh (soy product) would release fat content, making the stir-fry more high-calorie than expected, and another study suggests that the antioxidant activities in ginger would diminish.

One study suggests that stir-frying pine nut kernels at low heat over short time periods led to an increase of phenolics, phytosterols and hydrophiliic antioxidant capacities. However, these values decreased under the longer heating time and the higher temperature. Tocopherols and lipophilic antioxidant capacities did not show clear changes at lower heating temperatures or shorter heating times, while they had an apparent decreasing trend at higher heating temperatures or longer heating times.

One study claims cooking by steaming, microwaving and stir-fry did not produce significant loss of glucosinolates (which are found in Brassica vegetables and have been linked to decreased risk of cancer) whereas boiling showed significant losses by leaching into cooking water.

One study finds that during stir-frying, phenolics and vitamin C were more affected than glucosinolates and minerals. Stir-fry cooking with extra virgin olive, soybean, peanut, or safflower oil did not reduce the total glucosinolate content of the cooked broccoli compared with that of the uncooked sample. The vitamin C content of broccoli stir-fried with extra virgin olive or sunflower oil was similar to that of the uncooked sample, but greater than those samples stir-fried with other oils.

For Additional Reading:

Li, Y., Hong, Y., Han, Y., Wang, Y., & Xia, L. (2016). Chemical characterization and antioxidant activities comparison in fresh, dried, stir-frying and carbonized ginger. Journal Of Chromatography B: Analytical Technologies In The Biomedical & Life Sciences, 1011223-232. doi:10.1016/j.jchromb.2016.01.009

Mao, S., Zhou, F., Huang, W., Lu, B., Yang, J., He, L., & Zhao, Y. (2015). The effect of traditional stir-frying process on hydrophilic and lipophilic antioxidant capacities of pine nut kernels. International Journal Of Food Sciences & Nutrition, 66(8), 873-880. doi:10.3109/09637486.2015.1102871

Moreno, D. A., López-Berenguer, C., & García-Viguera, C. (2007). Effects of Stir-Fry Cooking with Different Edible Oils on the Phytochemical Composition of Broccoli. Journal Of Food Science, 72(1), S064-S068. doi:10.1111/j.1750-3841.2006.00213.x

Setiawan, B., Thamtam, S. K., Jati, I. P., Purwestri, R. C., Nohr, D., & Biesalski, H. K. (2016). The influence of traditional stir-frying with oil on acceptability, antioxidant activities, nutrients, and the phytic acid content of fermented soybean (tempeh). Nutrition & Food Science, 46(2), 259-271. doi:10.1108/NFS-09-2015-0105

Song, L., & Thornalley, P. J. (2007). Effect of storage, processing and cooking on glucosinolate content of Brassica vegetables. Food & Chemical Toxicology, 45(2), 216-224. doi:10.1016/j.fct.2006.07.021

[OleMissMiss]

My cousin tried this. He lost seventy pounds in eight months. Looked amazing, then started eating real food and gained it all back and more. As you said it doesn't teach a lifestyle change.
Good myTake.

[myTake Owner]

Your cousin should remove all processed food in the diet. After watching the documentary "Sugar Coated" (2016), I am convinced that an excessive amount of added sugar is toxic and is the cause of cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, cancers, and obesity. Obesity is the least of the worries; the diseases should be most concerning. By cooking real food at home without added sugar of any kind, one can stay healthy.

[RainbowFanGirl]

True. None of those diet fads really work. Wow, I also didn't know that it costed that much.