Nutrisystem Week 5 Update: New Foods + Tips for Thanksgiving! #NSNation

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Nutrisystem breakfast burritoWe received our month 2 food delivery from Nutrisystem last week, and got some yummy new items including a tasty and filling Breakfast Burrito! Also loving the new desserts, but more about that in a future update! One of the things I really enjoy on the Nutrisystem program is the variety. We get to stock up on our favorite foods (pizza for me and cheesy home style potatoes for the hubby) plus try new ones from the large menu of options.

While things are going really well and I’m super pleased with our progress, I have been a bit worried about staying on track as we head deep into what I like to refer to as “the holiday eating season”. That’s the time of year that starts around Halloween and runs through New Year’s.

To help, the folks over at Nutrisystem sent us some Diet-friendly Tips for Thanksgiving! That’s another thing I really like about the program…it’s not just about the food. We also get support, advice, tools and tips to help us change the habits and eating issues that led to our weight problems in the first place.

A few Thanksgiving Diet Tips and Strategies we are planning to follow (they work for everyone, not just Nutrisytem members):

  • If you’re cooking, keep your bottle of water with you in the kitchen, so you’re less tempted to snack.
  • Stay away from the appetizer table. We’ll substitute raw vegetables since those are unlimited!
  • Instead of just sitting around after dinner, take a family walk, or organize a touch-football game. We plan to take Daisy for an extra long walk!
  • Don’t skip meals in an attempt to “bank” calories. Instead, eat everything on your meal plan leading up to the holiday event to help stay on track.

Since most of us dieters will still want to indulge in some of the traditional Thanksgiving favorites, here are some portion guideline to keep in mind:

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Nutrisystem Week 4 Update: Weight Loss, BMI and Bears…Oh MY! #NSNation

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Daisy dog checking out our Nutrisystem food deliver and bear

It’s time for our weekly Nutrisystem progress update and I can’t believe 4 weeks have flown by so quickly! In case you missed it, you can catch up on last week’s post here. Woof Woof Papa and I are pretty happy after our weigh in today, and we’re both celebrating a couple of milestones to tell you about!

One milestone we’re both celebrating this week is an improvement in our BMI numbers. BMI stands for Body Mass Index, and is an approximation of body fat based on a person’s height and weight. Because Obesity is linked to numerous diseases and health conditions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends everyone know their BMI and try to stay within the Normal Range. If you’d like to learn more you can visit the CDC and use their Free BMI Calculator here.

Thanks to the tools and apps available to Nutrisystem members, we always know our BMI. Our charts update automatically each time we log our weight and this is really helping us stay motivated. Weight loss is slow and takes a long time, no question about that…if there were an instant fix, we’d have ALL heard about it by now. But being able to visualize our small victories along the way really helps us stay on track! As you can see, at the end of our first 4 weeks, we’ve both dropped from the Obese range (yikes!) to the Overweight Range. While we’re not where we need to be yet for optimal health, we think this is a great accomplishment and are thrilled!

Chart showing my BMI improvement on Nutrisysten

chart of hubby's BMI on nutrisystem

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Nutrisystem Week 3 Update Plus 4 Yummy Ways to Eat Your Veggies! #NSNation

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Veggies

Woof Woof Papa and I just completed Week 3 on Nutrisystem and even managed to stay on track during Halloween. Honestly, I’m not a candy person anyway so the yummy desserts that come with the Nutrisystem program are more than enough to satisfy my sweet tooth…and hubby used super-human will power along with lots of air popped popcorn to keep from derailing his amazing progress!

I’m so proud of him and if you want to see how much we lost, just skip ahead to the end. I thought I share some tips and ideas that we’ve been using to make sure we get all the veggies we are supposed to be eating as grocery add-ins on the program. I’ve actually found this to be more challenging than I expected and drinking V8 Juice is one solution, but we’ve come up with 4 favorites to share with you:

arugula salad on pizza
Arugula Salad on Pizza: You can use any type of salad greens you like, but I’m a big fan of arugala, and it holds up really well on a warm dish. I LOVE the tastes and textures of salad and pizza together but my hubby keeps his separate. Usually I just dump it all over the pizza but I pushed it to the side so you can see! Nutrisystem pizzas are delish, too! My dressing is red wine vinegar with a tiny bit of olive oil and fresh ground black pepper.

veggies with hummus
Raw Veggies with Hummus: Use your favorite veggies; we like carrots, celery and cukes or zucchini if we’ve got it. Have as many as you’d like since vegetables are unlimited, but stick to 1/4 Cup of hummus since that equals 1 SmartCarb! This is one of our favorite snacks to eat while watching tv…especially football games. You can add a little hot sauce to the hummus to give it a kick if you miss your buffalo wings!


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Win a Precision Plus Digital Scale from EatSmart and Join Our Weight Loss Journey!

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EatSmart Digital Scale Giveaway
We’re celebrating the 3rd week of our weight loss journey and we want you to join us! Don’t wait til January 1st to begin a weight loss program of your own…you can get started now and feel great when you ring in the New Year as a healthier, thinner YOU!

Woof Woof Papa and I have been using the EatSmart Precision Plus Digital Bathroom Scale to track our progress and you can read all about it in our recent product review here! We hope that this chance to WIN one of your own will help you get motivated, too!

Win a Precision Plus Digital Scale from EatSmart ($65 value)

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Weighing In On EatSmart Precision Plus Digital Bathroom Scale

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eatsmart scale

If you’ve been following along so far, you know that Woof Woof Papa and I are on a weight loss journey, thanks to the Nutrisytem Program. You can catch up on our updates and check on our progress by following me on Twitter and watching for the hashtag #NSNation, or by clicking Nutrisystem from the menu bar at the top of my blog!

To keep on top of our weight and measure our progress, we’ve been using a fantastic new bathroom scale from EatSmart. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve never had a healthy relationship with a bathroom scale. The last few I tried using drove me so crazy that I either returned them or threw them out. It’s bad enough to have to deal with weight issues without the extra stress of an inaccurate scale that says a different weight every time I stepped on it – even just 5 minutes later! I know that you are only supposed to weigh yourself once a week but be honest…who does that!?!

EatSmart

Anyway, the Precision Plus Digital Bathroom Scale is the scale we’re using now and I love how modern and sleek it looks! It’s also really simple to keep clean since it’s got a nice, shiny top that wipes down easily. It’s also very easy to use. Just step on and weigh in. No tapping on it or waiting for it to auto-calibrate like some other scales we’ve tried.

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