Prepared Diet Meals Reviews
There are many options when it comes to prepared diet meals for weight loss. These include the Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem diet plans. Food is delivered right to your doorstep so that you won’t have a hard time choosing foods that fit your caloric intake.
The downside is that you won’t learn how to select healthy foods yourself and the price of the meals are costly. If however, you want to learn about correctly sized portions or want to understand the basic appearance of a diet plan, prepared diet meals may be useful to you.
As with any diet or fitness plan, it is a good idea to talk to your doctor about your specific needs. Every person’s body is different, and every person’s fitness goals vary. Some people want to shed a few pounds, others seek life-long health or a diet necessary due to disease.
Depending on your needs, your doctor can tell you whether a prepared diet meal plan would be helpful for you and if you should also consider an exercise routine. Dieting and exercising in combination are proven to promote weight loss.
Nutrisystem Review
Nutrisystem is a diet plan with multiple programs for different types of dieters. They include the Women’s Program, the Men’s Program, the Silver Program (for senior dieters), and the Vegetarian Program. Though it has changed over the years, Nutrisystem has been around for more than 35 years and became a publicly traded company in 1999 (NASDAQ: NTRI).
The main program from Nutrisystem is called “Nutrisystem Advanced”. It contains prepared diet meals that occur 28 days at a time. It provides a daily meal planner, the Nutrisystem food itself, weight loss counseling, an exercise video, and a handful of online tools available through their website. They advertise over 150 options on their food menu, allowing the user to select whatever food they want throughout the 28 days as long as they apply to the specific Nutrisystem program that is being used.
By pre-planning the meals and proving the specific foods and quantities, this can be a good program for dieting for the first time or when previous diets have failed. The foods in the Nutrisystem menu blend the concept of low-fat with adequate protein and minimal carbohydrates. The Glycemic Index is central to the design of Nutrisystem foods and meal plans. This allows Nutrisystem to avoid using pills while still providing the right macronutrient balance. Participants in this diet plan can order 28 days or more of their planned meals ahead of time in the hope of losing weight.
Nutrisystem Advantages
The benefit of this prepared diet meals program is that there are several plans for the different types of dieter. There is no “one size fits all” meal plan. Furthermore, the program is highly convenient. Information is available on a large website and both the program and the food can be ordered online. Prescriptions are not required for this program, though they recommended that you consult a doctor before beginning this or any other weight loss effort.
Nutrisystem Disadvantages
The disadvantages of this program are that it costs between $300 to $400 per month, which can become rather expensive, especially over time. There is no guarantee from Nutrisystem that the program will work for any of its customers. Though 150 different menu items may sound like a large number, this includes mains, sides, desserts, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Also, not all items apply to every program, so things may become tiresome, especially if personal taste further limits the list.
Dieters who enjoy a large amount of variety in their foods may find this a struggle. The portion sizes are fixed, so hunger is sometimes an issue among Nutrisystem diets. There have been some reviews calling some of the foods horrible.
Nutrisystem Review Summary
Though the Nutrisystem diet is an interesting concept that makes food preparation very easy every day, it is very costly and quite restrictive when compared to other diet plans. Dieters who want all of their meals planned for them every day will benefit from this program, while those who prefer more flexibility will struggle. Dieters who are single will have greater luck than those who have a family as it can be challenging to prepare two meals (the Nutrisystem meal and the “family meal”) every day.
What I did like about this diet was that there was no measuring, weighing or planning involved. I think this would be a good diet to try if you are very busy and don’t have time to be bothered with shopping, cooking and planning.
What I did not like is that the prepared foods that you will be eating are high in chemicals. The taste of the food is “ok” but there is a definite artificial element to it. For me, for the price I was hoping it would taste better then a TV dinner but not really. I think this is a good diet if you are young and single and have no time to meal plan and don’t want to cook and don’t really think about or care what you are eating. If you have a family you are going to have to prepare their meals aside from yours, and that is just a pain in the butt and asking for temptation and failure.
I also think for a lot of people it is too hard to stick to eating TV dinners day in and day out. It gets old pretty quick. At the end of the day, I think some will stick to it and succeed, but I more so will fail. Regardless, it’s a very short term plan.
I did the men’s program on Nutrisystem, and it was just not for me. It felt like I’d gone back in a time warp to the 80’s when I was watching commercials for it during the shows I watched after school. Nothing appears to have changed since then.
It doesn’t seem to have applied any of the knowledge that has been gained over the years about dieting, like about macronutrients such as carbohydrates. It just seems to be exclusively calorie/starvation based. There’s no technique to it at all, and I don’t find that their exercise expectations are helpful.
The menu is huge, but it still somehow seems limiting. Especially when you consider how expensive it is every month. For that price, I have far higher expectations.