What was the trigger? What sent me over the edge and set me on the path to losing those last 15 pounds?
Well, basically it was no different than a lot of people I guess: I saw a picture of myself when out at a club with friends.
I admit it - I was ashamed. I was like "Who is THAT girl? That's not me!" She was a lot bigger than I remember her.
But I don't believe in self-flagellation - too many years of that have taught me that it gets you nowhere.
And nobody else will love you until YOU love you. So while it was hard to look at that picture (and white is DEFINITELY not my color at all), I sucked it up and thought to myself "Ok, what are you going to do about it?"
I knew I had to lose weight - but how? I was no stranger to diets in the past - are any of us women really?
I had tried South Beach (ugh, way too hard!) and Fit for Life where you eat a lot of fruit and veggies (meh, ok I guess) and even a few of those magazine diets - cabbage soup anyone?
But I really hadn't committed. It was like "It would be nice if I lost a few pounds...but then again I really want some pizza right now so..." I had kind of played around, lost a few pounds, gained a few pounds and basically went nowhere. Although I definitely know that cabbage soup is not for me now.
But this time I knew I actually had to take action. I knew I wanted a diet that was a little more pre-made than just doing it myself from a book. I don't have a lot of time as I work a lot of overtime.
And cooking is not my strong suit. I guess I'll never make some man a great wife, according to my mother. But that's another story.
I also knew I couldn't do a diet that was too restrictive of different food groups, like the low carb thing or one that completely cut out sugar. My body just needs a wide range of everything, it doesn't do well with deprivation.
So I began to do some research online, look at Web MD and places like that, reviewed the diet there etc. I then narrowed it down to 4 possible options.
Some of the diets I condidered were:
Nutrisystem (of course - hence the blog)
Medifast
Jenny At Home
Bistro MD (A diet meal delivery service that delivers all over the States)
Medifast looked promising but the food options were much more limited than Nutrisystem. A lot more shakes, oatmeals, soups and mushy stuff than Nutrisystem.
And the "meals" looked a lot smaller and, dare I say it, piddly? Plus I had to make an entire meal (the lean and green portion) every day. So that kind of killed it for me - just more work to do, which I didn't want in the first place.
Jenny At home was considered because a friend of mine was doing it and had been on it for about a month. I'm not sure if she was cheating or something, but she had only lost about 3 pounds in total. So results-wise it didn't exactly sell me. Again, that might not be Jenny At Home's fault - I suspect she may be a closet snacker.
Bistro MD had some really great looking meals and I was really tempted. However their price per day was about double that of Nutrisystem. So as much as I wanted to commit to something, I really didn't have that much in my budget to commit to Bistro MD . Sigh, it would have been nice though.
That left me with Nutrisystem. I know it has been around for years and I liked that kind of history. I figured if it were a scam, someone would have outed them by now - or they would have gone out of business a long time ago.
The most "negative reviews" I could find were people complaining that the meals tasted bland or plain. They weren't complaining that they didn't lose weight.
So, because Nutrisystem has some plans where you can pre-select your own meals from your favorites, I figured I could probably get around this problem by choosing meals I liked.
I also liked the fact that they have a lot of sweet or dessert options. I'm a sweet freak. Sugar is a weakness that I'm not willing to give up. If I'm going to restrict my food, that's one sacrifice I'm willing to live with - but don't cut my sweets out too. That's just asking too much of me.
One final plus was that there were no meetings or weigh-ins. You may notice from the list above that none of these options have weekly weigh-ins. I think that would be torture.
I don't want someone knowing my weight every week and then sitting there judging me if I'm not losing it fast enough. I want to lose weight privately on my own without prying eyes, thank you very much.
So because I could do Nutrisystem at home on my own, this was a clincher for me.
So that's why I finally settled on Nutrisystem and placed my order. I'm pretty stoked to try it. In my next post I'll explain which plan I chose and why, along with what I got for my first order.
Until then friends!
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