Mixed Results with Nutrisystem

by Elinor Doshier
(Knoxville, TN)

Initially, the Nutrisystem diet seemed like it was going to be a great fit for me. I loved the convenience of having the food readily available without spending hours in the grocery store, and then more time at home measuring and calculating.

Most of the food choices were quite good, although a couple were just disgusting.

I could appreciate the trial and error of finding my favorites, and after my first month's shipment of food, felt I was able to make better selections for the next month's shipment. The first couple of months went well, and I was steadily losing weight.

Then the constant "substitutions" began. Nutrisystem would "be out" of a requested item, and substitute with the item of their choice.

Remember I mentioned some of the foods were disgusting? Well, those were ALWAYS what they used as the substitutes.

Foods seemed to change fairly often too. You would find something you really liked, and suddenly they no longer carried that product. As this plan is incredibly expensive, and requires automatic shipments and payments for the discount, I became very frustrated at the lack of dedication to sending what was ordered.

When I contacted costumer service (after wading through a complicated phone tree and VERY long connection wait), they would always tell me that I could return the unopened food for something else, but that meant I had to pay return shipping besides packing it up and going to the post office.

I didn't think I should have to do that on a monthly basis -- I should have simply received what I ordered in the first place!

The plan absolutely works, if you can deal with their on again and off again customer service.

Note from Dr. Dan

Elinor,

It can be hard to stick with a diet when you don't like the recommended food.

And then you always have the problem of what to do when the diet is over. If you go back to your old way of eating you just gain the weight back.

Dr. Dan