Nutrisystem

Day 3 – Balancing the Nutrisystem diet with everyday dining

This week is going to be an interesting one, as I’ll be travelling out at lot (I’ve been working ridiculous hours at my day job, so I’m taking off a few days to unwind).

On Sunday, I started the morning with a Nutrisystem Apple Granola Bar and water, which was surprisingly good (I’m saying “surprisingly good” a lot). It was chewy and full of apple flavor, but not sickeningly sweet like those “snack bars” you buy in the supermarket.

I spent the day in the wonderful New York Botanical Gardens with a wonderful person :). We did a lot of walking around the Gardens but the time flew by, so I didn’t even realize I was getting exercise (exercise which, admittedly, at the end of the day still turns out to be much better than running alone through a virtual cartoon world). I’ve decided that I’m going to stick to the diet 90% of the time, which means that 10% of the time I can still eat regular food with friends from time to time.

But interestingly, I think Nutrisystem’s brilliant way of positive brainwashing is working wonders. When it came time to choose the food to eat, while I normally would have chosen a bag of chips or a high-sugar soda, I instinctively went with an egg salad sandwich on whole-grain bread, a bowl of soup and a Coke Zero. Read: low-glycemic choices. I think this is the secret to making the Nutrisystem diet stick–it’s not Nutrisystem giving you fish, but it’s teaching you to fish. When you learn instinctively to make the right food and portion choices, that’s when you really benefit.

Oh yes, the sandwich and soup were out of this world.

I didn’t “snack properly”, which I will definitely do on more “routine” days, but for dinner I had (from the non-frozen food choices) the Cajun Style Chicken and Sausace with Rice, along with the leftover, leftover broccoli from two days ago and 15 grapes 🙂 Okay, the picture doesn’t do it justice, but surprisingly the food tasted pretty good. It was very, very much like New Orleans Jamabalaya in the taste and consistency. I admit, there’s a part of me that’s still getting used to the fact that I’m cooking vacuum-packed food, but then again, if it’s good enough for NASA and the US Army, by gum it’s good enough for me.

For dessert, I had a rich, delicious chocolate brownie, again from the non-frozen food. I’m not sure how they keep it so moist and fresh in the package, but it certainly tasted like a brownie. I washed it down with some refreshing Fiji water.

So far so good. As for the rest of the week, I think Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday I’ll be on the normal routine, but on Tuesday I’m flying to Tampa to see a friend (who owes me a Cuban sandwich after I bet him the Phillies would win the World Series last year) and I’ll be in Yankee Stadium for the home opener on Tuesday. So while I won’t be breaking the diet, I will perhaps be bending it a little. 🙂

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