Day Twenty-Four: Raiding Husband's Food Stash

The square Chocolate Chip Scone

It's Saturday, and my next box of Nutrisystem food did not arrive on Friday. Husband's box did, which is funny because they were both shipped the same day according to the UPS tracking e-mail. I'm completely out of breakfasts except for the frozen breakfast burritos (I cannot stomach beans for breakfast yet). Knowing that Husband's shipment of food contained 28 new breakfasts, I opened the box and selected the Chocolate Chip Scone for breakfast. I knew I could give him one of mine when my food arrived because I had ordered a few to try too.

I was excited to have a new breakfast food to try, but that excitement fell a few notches when I had my first taste of the square scone (I've never seen a square scone before). It tasted fine, but I could definitely taste the "diet" in this baked good. The chocolate chips were wonderful, and they were even more wonderful after I placed the scone in the microwave for 20 seconds. Needless to say, the scone did not take long to eat. Husband might not want his scone returned when my food arrives. The scone was not very filling. I had to eat lunch at 11 a.m.

Lunch was the same, but dinner was not. I went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. I ordered a dinner sized salad without cheese and with the dressing on the side. I added grilled chicken to it and counted the cranberries as my fruit since I had forgotten to eat a fruit with lunch.

Husband's New Stash of Food

The salad was enormous. It seemed like an entire bag of spinach leaves had been plopped on my plate. I did have some of the freshly baked bread dipped in olive oil (the olive oil was my fat). I did not eat as many slices as I have in the past, so I figured I did a good job.

I was very satisfied when I went home to have my approved dessert. However, if this eating out keeps up, I am going to have a hard time facing the scale Thursday.

Day Twenty-Three: The Peppermint Patty

Peppermint Cookie

It's Friday. Husband has a weekend visit with his family, and I have a night out with two good friends. Lucky for me, we selected a sushi restaurant for dinner.

During the day, my hunger was at a normal level. To keep my stomach happy, I ate my "dessert" from Nutrisystem in the afternoon. I did not want to go home starving since I knew dinner would be later than usual as I had to wait for my friends to arrive. My snack/dessert was the Peppermint Cookie, which I had enjoyed the last time I ate it. It is a cross between a Nestle Crunch candy bar and a York Peppermint Patty. The exterior is bumpy, which is the cookie taste, and the inside has peppermint in it. It's nice to have the texture in the exterior layer of chocolate. It's good to have various textures to enjoy as well as flavors on a diet. Otherwise, you miss the crunchiness of croutons or the sweetness of chocolate.

For me, dinner was easy because sushi is healthy as long as you avoid the sauces and the fried food. I had a seaweed salad, cup of green tea, 1 eel/avocado roll and 4 pieces of nigiri (2 tuna and 2 salmon). It's much less than I usually eat, and I was full at the end of dinner. As my friend said, it was good for my stomach and my wallet.

A new frozen yogurt shop (called Red Mango) opened in town, so we tried it for dessert. I had the dark chocolate frozen yogurt, which was 30 calories per ounce with no fat. It was OK tasting (a bit too bitter), but I improved it with some cookie dough bits and fudge sauce on top (but I did not overload it with toppings because there was not much room left in my cup when we got to the topping bar). I should have gotten the fruit flavored frozen yogurt and added fruit. Maybe I'll do better next time. It was a nice ending to the day though. Hopefully, tomorrow will be just as good.

Day Twenty-Two: Weigh-in Day

Steak & Cheese Melt for lunch

This last week was full of challenges for Husband, but for me it was easy because I did not feel like eating much while I was sick. Husband lost 1 pound, and I lost 3.5 pounds. I was quite excited. I have now lost 8 pounds since we started this Nutrisystem Journey.

There is not much to say about today because most of the food I had has already been mentioned in this blog. I did, however, try something new for lunch -- Steak & Cheese Melt. It's a frozen food that we had no choice in selecting. However, it was quite good. Of course, there was a lot more bread than meat and cheese, but I've gotten used to that by now. I tried to enjoy the food bite by bite so that I would not eat it too fast. It was filling, and I felt full after also eating two cucumbers and a yogurt.

The evening was a challenge because we dined at a friend's house. On the menu: oven baked rosemary chicken, asparagus, and yellow rice with almond slivers. The meal was delicious, and Husband and I both enjoyed eating real food. I had one piece of bread with dinner and another piece of bread during the appetizer portion of the evening to be nice. The appetizer was baked brief with French bread. I only had one slice of bread with some brie. Husband had a few. He was excited to see yummy food, and of course we could not be impolite so we had to eat some of it. I had a very nice glass of white wine that paired well with the chicken.

The challenging part of the evening was the dessert. We all had a slice of homemade Oreo cookie ice cream pie (with a chocolate crust). It was very good. I restricted myself to one slice (our hostess cut the pie into 12 slices so they were not huge). It was a nice ending to the day. On the ride home,we talked about how healthy the food was and how we were both happy with a small slice of dessert. Full but not stuffed. It did help that the host and hostess are absolutely rail thin. We did not want to be pigs as we are already plump enough in comparison to them.

Now we have to both be very good the rest of the week. We'll see how it goes. The weekend will be an even greater challenge for both of us.

Day Twenty-One: Veggie Variety

Pale chicken in matching alfredo sauce

This morning, I noticed that we were out of green beans (darn) and we only had three choices left for vegetables -- salad, cucumbers, and corn. Husband likes corn and salad but hates cucumbers. I love cucumbers, but I am sick of salad. I do not eat corn because the calories and carbs are not worth it to me. Since vegetables and fruits make up a huge part of our daily diet, we had to stop at the grocery store after work to re-stock our supply.

We later left with cabbage, cilantro, butternut squash, cucumbers, bananas, bean sprouts, and sweet potatoes. I had enjoyed the two cucumbers I ate with my lunch, so I figured a few more would not turn me off them completely. For dinner, I put cubed butternut squash in the oven after sprinkling Lowry's Seasoned Salt on them. I bake them in the oven at 425 degrees until they are somewhat crispy (Usually it's about 30-40 minutes, and I always flip them 15 minutes into the baking process).

Since we were both starved, we ate our Nutrisystem dinners first. We both chose to eat Nutrisystem's Penne Pasta & Chicken in Alfredo Sauce. It is not a frozen meal, so you only warm it in the microwave for one minute and 30 seconds. Perhaps that is why the meal is so pale? Aside from the pasty appearance of the food, the meal tasted fine. It was WAY better than the chicken alfredo frozen meal we were sent -- mostly because there was more chicken and no carrots. I ordered this meal in our second order because it was filling and good.

The squash was done just as I'd finished salivating over Husband's toast. I ate more squash than he did because Husband ate lunch at a restaurant where he had (or so he tells me) a huge grilled chicken salad. The squash was the best ever! I only say that because I was so sick of all green vegetables that the orange veggie was a welcomed site on the plate.

After eating all these vegetables and getting sick this week, I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised by tomorrow's weigh-in. That thought keeps me motivated to stick to the diet, especially at 9:55 p.m. when Husband and I are famished. What else can one do but go to bed and sleep through the hunger?

Day Twenty: Chewy Chocolate Bar Makes my Day

Lasagna with meat sauce

Today was definitely a good food day. I was excited because Husband traded lunch meals with me. He did not want his veggie pizza, so I had his for lunch. Delicious! Crunchy! Sadly, I had to supplement the meal with two servings of green beans, which took me an hour and a half to eat. I've grown very tired of green beans, but not a lot of fresh vegetables (that we both like) are in season so we're kind of stuck.

For dinner, I tried the lasagna with meat sauce. It doesn't look so great in the photo here, but I can assure you that it tasted fine. Even on my salad plate, the lasagna took up a lot of space. I felt like I had a "real meal" for once. Husband was more than horrified by the lasagna as he, like Garfield, is an aficionado of lasagna. I believe he has a lasagna meal too so we'll see what he thinks when he tries it.

Another delightful moment during my day was when I ate my Nutrisystem dessert. I chose the Milk Chocolate Delight Bar, which proved to be quite the delight. It was very chewy. I would say it was as chewy as taffy. The bar has a soft chocolate shell that surrounds the chewy chocolate center, which tastes like Hershey's Chocolate Syrup. I thought it was going to be something like a 3 MUSKETEERS® bar, but there was no fluffy chocolate beyond the exterior shell.

Although I would prefer eating fine chocolate, I was sufficiently happy with this bar. One reason I really liked it was that the extra chewing made me take much longer than normal to eat dessert. On the down side, the chewy chocolate center stuck to my teeth and fingers, which created a sticky mess. What a delight!

Day Nineteen: Saucy Shells and Crunchy Bars

Stuffed Shells (yes, only two shells)

As we near the end of our first month on Nutrisystem, Husband and I find we still have meals and desserts that we have yet to try. Today, I tried the Crunch Bar, which is somewhat similar to the Nestle Crunch Bar. It was very good, and it took some time to eat because it was so crunchy. Husband also liked this bar.

For dinner, I tried Spinach & Cheese Stuffed Shells. I had only ordered one of these meals. The stuffed shells had a nice flavor -- it was seasoned just right with basil and oregano. The cheese texture and flavor was spot on as well.

Mentally, I felt "cheated" because there were only two shells in the meal. The shells were large, and when I ate the meal out of the dish rather than putting it on a plate, the small dish tricked me into thinking I had a lot to eat (and I swear it was mocking me the entire time).

There was plenty of sauce in the dish -- as usual -- so to get all my calories in I used a spatula to get ever last drop of sauce.

Saucy shells!

I cannot fault Nutrisystem for making the meals so tiny, of course. Like many other meals, this one is small but tastes great. But look at the photo of the meal on the box. How does it compare to the meal I received?

I was not starving at all today, so I don't have any desperate "status updates" to give. I was extremely tired from having my sleep interrupted by a tornado warning around 1:15 a.m., and I believe my appetite shrank considerably due to my "Influenza Diet." There was a silver lining to being sick this time!

Day Eighteen: Lots of Dough AND Yes, we Re-ordered!

Nutrisystem's Ham and Cheese Omelet

Sunday was the first day since Tuesday that I felt hungry enough to eat everything required of me for the day.

Breakfast was a Nutrisystem Ham and Cheese Omelet, which I had before and enjoyed for the most part. I took a photo of the omelet on my plate and then a photo of the inside of it (Husband said I shouldn't have looked inside). It tastes really good, and the photos don't do the omelet justice.

It is made with egg whites, so it is healthy for those who have high cholesterol. It's not enough to keep me full all morning, even after I drank a glass of milk and ate a half cup of strawberries. However, it was a nice break from cereal.

Inside the Ham and Cheese Omelet

For lunch, I had the Nutrisystem Meatball Parmesan Melt, which was another freezer item. Husband also had it for lunch. It smelled delicious warming up in the microwave. The dough smell was wonderful. I am always eyeing Husband's bagel thins and English muffins at breakfast and dinner, so having a bit of bread was the highlight of my day.

As I said, the dough smelled wonderful warming in the microwave. But as you can see in the photo, there's a lot of dough. Unfortunately, that meant that there was not much filling to compensate for the calories that the dough consumed.

As far as taste goes, I enjoyed the melt. I could taste the Parmesan cheese in it, and the meat was full of flavor. Husband liked his meatball melt too, although he said the same thing about the dough.

Nutrisystem Meatball Parmesan Melt

It wasn't long after lunch that I was ready for a PB2 and banana snack!

Dinner was another new treat -- Chicken Pasta Parmesan. It was much better than my Saturday night dinner, so I was happy. It's definitely a meal I'd order again because the flavor was delicious (a good mix of Parmesan, meat, and sauce), and I wasn't starving later. Nutrisystem is not stingy on the sauce with any of the meals we've had so far

After almost a month of the Nutrisystem plan, we've decide to renew for March. However, we downgraded to the plan without the frozen foods because we have no control over what we receive, and we were not too thrilled with several of the frozen food options. It's just not food we'd pick to eat. So instead we went with 28 days of "ready-to-go" meals and snacks. It was a challenge for Husband because he gets 56 snack items per order (I get just 28). He was having a hard time finding all 56 items because there aren't dozens and dozens of items in the snack section.

Chicken Pasta Parmesan -- Yum!

We are trying several items as well as getting a few we've already tasted. I am increasing the number of pizzas I ordered because I miss bread, and they keep me full. I was surprised I was not starving an hour after eating the first Nutrisystem pizza last week. It was definitely a good surprise! I ordered more cereal and less oatmeal, and Husband and I will both be trying the scones. I'm nervous about the scones, and I think he is too.

Since we did not order the frozen meals, we had to pick more of the ready-to-go meals so we'll see how the next month goes. If nothing else, there will be more entertainment on this well-read (ha!) blog.