The Nutrisystem diet isn’t just for sad middle-aged people

After three years of living the quintessential “college” lifestyle, my body was not exactly as fit as it was upon starting college as a young 18-year-old. Ignoring my bad genetics and keeping the weight off in high school was easy since I played field hockey for one half of the year and lacrosse for the other half. This meant that I was constantly working out and being pushed to my athletic limits day after day with the help of coaches and conditioning trainers. I could eat whatever I wanted and never gain a pound.

Unfortunately, this lead me into a false sense of security about what I needed to do in order to maintain my weight in college.

Furthermore, nothing  could have accurately prepared me for what the effects of going out multiple nights a week would do to my body. No longer was I in high school where one or two shots would make me feel “wasted.” After getting used to the college party scene and developing a higher alcohol tolerance, I would require much more alcohol to feel the same sort of “drunk.” Combined with the drunk food I was getting every night with my friends, my body was not capable of handling all the extra calories without gaining weight.

The nail in the coffin of my once “fit” figure was realizing that hangovers suck and pizza in bed with my boyfriend could be a solid substitution for constantly going out to different bars and parties. However, not party hopping meant that I was eating lots of pizza per usual, but now I wasn’t getting in any physical activity from walking from house to house.

After loads of complaining about my body and no changes being made, my mom decided that it was time to try something more serious and let me sign up for Nutrisystem. Nutrisystem is a diet that sends food to your home a month at a time.

There are multiple different versions, but seeing that I’m a broke college student, I decided to go with the most basic plan at around $275 a month. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for approximately six days a week for four weeks. While the price tag sounds hefty, it actually isn’t too expensive when you consider all the money that will be saved by smaller amounts of groceries needed and no more eating out from places like Chipotle.

My first box wasn’t absolutely terrible, but my second box included almost every type of food that I didn’t like. I’m a bit of a picky eater and I decided that if I wanted to make sure that I actually stuck to my new diet, I would need to choose foods that I actually somewhat enjoyed. Therefore, I paid an extra $20 a month to be able to select each and every item that would be delivered in my monthly box.

In addition, in order to do the Nutrisystem diet you need to make sure that you have plenty of kitchen storage space because storing a month’s worth of packaged food is harder than you’d think when you’re sharing space with three roommates. The food was decent, yet I would still look at my roommate’s home cooked meals with envy.

Eventually I tired of the bland food and the inability to go out to meals with my friends…but I did lose 18 pounds in 2.5 months. So while Nutrisystem may not be a permanent solution for weight loss, it definitely taught me about portion control which was the main reason for my college weight gain.