So, I returned home to New York yesterday from Florida. Thus endeth the string of business trips to warm, temperate climates.
Now, over the last week, I’ve been saying that I was going to start the Nutrisystem. So it became a running gag that each meal I had was going to be the “next to last meal before the diet starts”. There was that breakfast in the Holiday Inn Express in Scottsdale I told you about. And the gourmet lunch at the resort in Florida. And the burger and fries at Darryl Strawberry’s Sports Grill. You get the idea.
Well, today the diet officially begins…again (it’s been almost 2 years since the last time I tried this diet). As I mentioned, prior to my trips I totally cleared out my fridge except for the Nutrisystem shipments that came in a few weeks ago.
So today for breakfast, I had this:
For lunch, I had the “meatball parmesian sub”.
For dinner, I had the stuffed shells (also a delicious-but-small entree from their frozen collection) and I also enjoyed a coconut almond bar and crunchy nacho crisps for my “snack” and “dessert”.
A far cry from the sumptuous meals on Marie Osmond’s infomercials, eh?
Both of these are from Nutrisystem’s frozen foods, which are a standard option in the plan nowadays. The frozen foods taste much better than their non-frozen foods, but the portions are much smaller. I did supplement my meals with a banana and apples (I bought a huge bag of apples and a huge bag of oranges to prepare for the diet–with Nutrisystem, you are supposed to supplement their meals with fruits and veggies).
It was a big contrast to the all-you can eat buffets in Florida I was enjoying only a short time ago. Although after a week of pigging out, it actually feels kind of good to “reset” my body again.
I don’t plan on staying on Nutrisystem forever, and I won’t make the mistake again of forcing myself to fanatically adhere to the diet day in and day out. I did that last time, and because the habits never became part of my lifestyle, once the diet ended the old habits reverted and I regained most of the weight I’d lost.
So this time, If I’m out at a ball game or on a date or whatever, I’ll still eat “real” food. But for the rest of the time I’ll use the Nutrisystem to try to force myself to get used to eating smaller portions and lower glycemic foods.
And of course, there’s the exercise. One thing I’ve found after three weeks of EA Sports Active 2–weight loss will not come if you don’t mind BOTH diet and exercise. What I found myself doing was, the more I exercised, the more subconsciously I felt I could indulge when eating (it was so easy to justify that extra dessert knowing I’d work it off).
Speaking of EA Sports Active, I have fallen behind a bit–I couldn’t bring the Wii to Florida with me, which meant I couldn’t work out for the whole week. So today (a rest day), I made up two missed exercises, and on the next few rest days I’ll plan to make up the remainder of them. I’m up to 11 total, which still puts me behind dbqhams (with an impressive 25), holythorn, DancingLaura, and dianska…but I will catch up!! 🙂 For the others in the group–chop chop!! 🙂