Why I Quit Nutrisystem

Last year I partnered with Nutrisystem to do a weight loss series. I was super excited. I couldn’t wait to start. Losing the extra weight has been a huge goal of mine but I always find it hard to achieve. So when the opportunity arrived to work with Nutrisystem I jumped on it. I was so excited to have a counselor to work with one on one to help get over the hurdles or roadblocks that I may encounter.  The food was to be shipped right to my door. All I needed to do was supplement with a few things here and there and I would be all set.  We would be on contract for 3-month blocks of time and renewed if we were adhering to the agreement.

In exchange for the food, counseling, and education I was to provide 1 blog post a week about my experience and show a steady decrease in my weight while providing pictures as proof. I was ok with all this. I was doing great over the summer. I was losing an average of 2 lbs a week. It was awesome! But I didn’t have the support I thought I would from the program. My counselor changed a few times and emails would frequently go unanswered for days or not at all.

As the time on the program progressed I found it to be more stressful. There were constant issues with my food deliveries. And those were not Nutrisystem’s fault they were the delivery service’s fault. My frozen food sat on trucks for days when they missed the delivery time or there was a delay. That happened twice. I never knew when my food was going to be delivered so it was extremely stressful knowing I had to wait around the house or be available because it may come. There would be like a 10-day window of its arrival until I would get a shipping notification that tomorrow it would arrive. Right there that was stressful. Would I run out of food? Would I be home? And because of the issues with deliveries, there were several times I ran out of food.  There were even times I was out of town when food was delivered even though I had notified my coach that I was out on a press trip and would not be available. That was extremely stressful! Being halfway across the country knowing there is frozen food sitting on my front doorstep and trying to arrange for someone to run by my house and put it away. Let me just say, total nightmare.

There was also an issue with the quality or freshness of the food on the program. Frequently I would get items that were to expire in a short amount of time so I had to be careful when putting the food away and making sure it was put away with the food expiring first in front. There were also a few times I received food that was open, for example, the frozen chicken breast did not get sealed properly or when the machine sealed it they cut the breast in half so I had only a partial chicken breast. That’s a pretty big deal when you are on a strict program and that chicken is your protein.  Or there would be mold inside the packaged food. This happened more than once and again when you are on a program and are supposed to eat this specific food to have to go without is not fun.

Then I hit a huge roadblock. It was September and school had just started for Peyton. We were having issues. I was at the school nearly on a daily basis having meetings with teachers, counselors, administration and more.  It was like that for all of 2nd grade. I was at the peak of stress with no one to talk to. And Nutrisystem was stressing me out too. They also decided to make a contract change, we were now month to month if we would be renewed. There were no set guidelines on how we knew if we had been renewed or why we would not be renewed.  I instantly hit a plateau and was not losing weight. I was overwhelmed. I was stressed. Would I be cut from the program because I was not losing? My articles were getting repetitive because I was rushing to get them done on time because of all the chaos that was going on at school. It was sucking the life out of me.  This was the time I needed my coach/counselor to be there for me the most. To help encourage me that I could do this. Instead, crickets. That’s what I heard.

This went on for about 2 months. I hadn’t lost any weight but I had maintained so I was feeling pretty good about myself. With ZERO support from the program, I was still staying on track just not losing. But then my order sheet for the next month didn’t arrive. I inquired, no response. I had been dropped from the program. Just like that. I had been writing my articles, I had been doing my best during one of the most stressful times of my life and staying on track with no support from my coach. I just had not been losing any weight. I held up my end of the program when it came to following it and posting requirements. But I had hit a plateau. They did not hold up their end of the agreement. I had NO support throughout the whole program. The only time I ever heard anything is if I had emailed a picture of a moldy muffin. Then I would get a response in seconds. But if I asked for help I never heard a response.

I did not continue the program on my on. I was so frustrated and mad at the whole situation I just needed a break. I quit posting about my weight loss journey. I quit trying to lose weight because my life was out of control and I needed to get in back in line first.  Now fast forward, it’s nearly the end of summer. Life is getting somewhat back in control. Things with Peyton are more on track. She is getting the support she needs and I finally have answers. Peyton has sensory integration disorder and ADHD. We are in occupational therapy and are starting a medication tomorrow to see if we can get the ADHD under control. I feel like I have control of our world again.  I no longer feel like I am chasing my tail and never getting anywhere.

But I did feel like I should explain why the Nutrisystem posts abruptly quit appearing. And why I quit writing about my weight loss. To be honest, I can’t do this alone. I know that. I need help when it comes to this weight loss journey. Nutrisystem is a great program but I needed more than they gave me. I need a coach/counselor to help me on my way. And I need to do it without this giant weight over my head every month that if I don’t lose weight I’m cut from a program. That’s unfair.  And counterproductive in my opinion.

Would I use Nutrisystem again? Possibly. It did work and the food did taste fairly good.  Would I ever do it for the blog again? Probably not. It was too stressful and felt like I was under a microscope at all times. Like there were judgy little eyes that were only seeing a brief snippet of what was going on and basing my whole worth on that little snippet of if we should continue working together. I was not treated like a person I was just a number that needed to produce a result they wanted. I was disposable. That is not healthy. That is not designed for me to be successful.

Bottom line is I wanted to share with all of you what had happened. Am I still trying to lose weight? YES! But I’m doing it alone. I don’t have a fancy trainer or program that I am doing. I am trying to eat healthy and move more. I’ll start posting about it when I want to but I won’t be doing weekly posts. And I won’t be sharing every detail of my weight loss. But if I have a great week or find something that is really working for me, I’ll share. I’m not saying Nutrisystem does not work because it does. But it was not a good fit for me due to the way the program was run.