Dietary and nutritional content reviewed by Jasmin Gorostiza, DT, DM, DSS, CFPP.️
Prepackaged diets are very popular nowadays. A lot of serious and smart dieters have attributed their weight loss success to prepackaged meals. For them, it’s the most convenient to eat a healthy diet. It not only helps them lose weight; it also helps them keep it off.
You’ve probably noticed that more and more weight loss programs are designed to be more convenient. They are precooked, pre-portioned, prepackaged, and best of all, delivered to you.
They’re all done for you. There are only two things you need to do. You eat and wait for the results. Prepackaged diets have really made it more and more convenient for the busy dieter. Related Read: Frozen Meals From Nutrisystem Can Be Bought Online
Having precooked and pre-portioned meals delivered to you is definitely a huge plus. It’s safe to say that that’s the major advantage of going on a prepackaged diet.
You can’t doubt the convenience of prepackaged diets. Having precooked and pre-portioned meals delivered to you is definitely a huge plus. It’s safe to say that that’s the major advantage of going on a prepackaged diet.
However, not everything about prepackaged diets is good. There are disadvantages as well.
Do You See Yourself Losing … If you’re seriously considering losing weight by means of a prepackaged diet, take some time to explore the disadvantages. By looking at the disadvantages, you will see how a particular kind of prepackaged diet called Nutrisystem can actually prove some health experts wrong.
Prepackaged Diets Are Calorie-Restricted
The fact that prepackaged diets are calorie-restricted should actually be more of an advantage than a disadvantage. However, a health expert says otherwise.
He states that prepackaged diets that are calorie-restricted won’t help at all. As a matter of fact, they will even promote hunger. He further explains how the metabolism slows down when you’re hungry.
While it’s true that prepackaged diets that are calorie-restricted can make you hungry, that’s not exactly the case with Nutrisystem. On the contrary, Nutrisystem is one prepackaged diet that keeps the body satisfied throughout the day.
Nutrisystem keeps your body satisfied throughout the day by requiring you to eat frequently. This is how and why Nutrisystem has helped so many dieters become very successful with their weight loss. By the way, below is the latest promo code from Nutrisystem that you can use to get an awesome discount.
The frequent eating keeps the body full. Hence, you don’t feel deprived with your prepackaged food in spite of it being calorie-restricted. The frequent eating keeps you going even if you’re on calorie-restricted diet.
Prepackaged Diets Are Not That Healthy
Some folks may not exactly consider prepackaged diets healthy and nutritious. Why? Well, because they have already been processed at some point. The fact that they have been made to be very convenient proves that.
Well, there is some truth to that. There are some prepackaged diets that have very low food quality. They have a lot of artificial flavors and preservatives that don’t really fit well in the category of healthy food. To make it worse, they usually come in plastic containers.
According to one health expert:
“The company’s plastic containers wrapped with plastic does a lot of artificial flavors colorings preservatives CTE start with not very healthy food wrapped in plastic …”
The fact that you just have to heat up your prepackaged meal in the microwave doesn’t make it any better.
“… you take this and put it in a microwave oven and when you cook something in a microwave you really destroy any nutritional properties …”
Those are definitely critical facts to consider when looking into a prepackaged diet. That’s precisely why you need to choose your prepackaged diet very well.
Nutrisystem weighs in on this. While this particular prepackaged diet offers you a menu that spares you from all the trouble of food preparation, you are not compelled to stick to it.
As a matter of fact webmd.com states that Nutrisystem allows you to eat regular foods while you’re on the program. It provides you a good list of regular foods that you don’t have to order from the program.
In case you want to eat out, Nutrisystem also provides you a guide on how to enjoy that as well. You are not restricted to the program. As a matter of fact, you can combine your prepackaged diet with some grocery bought food items.
So you can get healthy food even while you are on Nutrisystem. The fact that you can personalize your meal plan means you can add in a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables into your diet. You just need to keep track of the regular foods you are eating. Nutrisystem provides you tools that can easily help you do that.
Sustainability Is A Problem
Another disadvantage of prepackaged diets is that it’s not sustainable. The fact that the prepackaged weight loss plans are already prepared does not empower the dieter to really transform his or her life for the better.
Again, this is a classic case of an advantage turning out to be a disadvantage. It really depends on how you look at it.
Everybody is busy these days. No one really has the time to prepare healthy meals. It really is more convenient have it done for you, isn’t it?
So if you look at it, the convenience of prepackaged diets is what makes it actually sustainable. Of course, dieters would rather stick to a program that’s more convenient, right? After all, convenience is an important factor to consider when sustaining a weight loss program.
Do You See Yourself Losing … This is how Nutrisystem weighs in on this. Nutrisystem has been helping millions of folks lose weight for the past forty years now. The fact that Nutrisystem has been in the market for four decades just proves that sustainability with this particular prepackaged diet is not a problem at all.
There’s another important component of Nutrisystem that makes it very sustainable. It’s called the 13-Week Mindset Makeover. This video explains it very well.
“This helps you … better understand your relationship with food and helps you … create the foundation for creating a healthy lifestyle so that you can continue, once …you’ve met your goal, to maintain a healthy lifestyle with or without the Nutrisystem foods.”
Now that’s sustainability at its best.
Disclosure: Compensated Affiliate
You get tons of options from Nutrisystem. You can order their prepackaged foods or simply follow their food guide to lose weight. I combine both options. That way, I don’t get bored with it and it’s really working for me.
If I’m running out of time, I just grab a Nutrisystem snack just so I have something to munch on. That way, I don’t end up buying something that’s going t screw up my diet plan. If I do have the time, I make myself a cool and healthy dish as recommended by Nutrisystem. So for me, Nutrisystem works both ways and I like it that way.
Nutrisystem is a diet that helps me eat well. It’s not like the other diets where you’re forced to follow a certain menu. There’s a lot of freedom with Nutrisystem. I can eat their food or I can cook my own as long as I follow their food guide.
To say that prepackaged diets are perfect is an exaggeration. No diet is ever perfect and that’s why it’s important to customize it. The leading prepackaged diets can be customized and that’s what makes it good for us.
In some ways, Nutrisystem resembles a prepackaged diet. Their food is delivered to you in convenient packages and you can also microwave them if want. However, you can also mix in some fresh ingredients like veggies. You can also add in more spices if you like. In that manner, Nutrisystem stands out because it is the only diet meal that I know of that can be mixed with natural food ingredients. That is what makes Nutrisystem awesome.
Thanks for sharing this insightful article on Nutrisystem. It’s quite hard to choose the right program to replace meals because to start with, there are so many of them now that are available in the market. It’s so easy to just choose one only to end up regretting it after. I don’t want that to happen to me because I am choosing a meal replacement plan for the long haul. For me, it’s not just about losing weight. For the most part of it, I want to keep the weight off and that can be the most challenging part. Out of all the programs I have seen, I think Nutrisystem is the most appropriate for me. It seems that it won’t cut me off from the real world since I can still eat some store-bought food. It definitely is a program worth trying.