#NSNation – The End Of My NutriSystem Fast5 Week!

Konnichiwa minna-san!

I managed to complete my NutriSystem Fast5 week and lose a bit of weight!

On the Fast5 plan you are able to lose up to 5lbs in a week if the follow the plan 100% to the letter, depending on the amount of weight you have to lose and all that jazz. I lost a total of 4.7lbs, which while it isn’t the actual full 5, is AMAZING considering I did deviate for a few reasons.

Here are the ways I ended up deviating during this week and why.

1. I could not tolerate the taste of either of the new shakes included with the Fast5 plan. The EnergiZING shakes were the worst by far for me, and I had them in a chocolate flavor. You know the burning feeling in the back of your throat and the top back of the roof of your mouth when you throw up really hard? Plus the taste and smell that lingers for hours? The EnergiZING shake for me had that effect, like I had thrown up, in reverse. I choked down most of one on the first day, but I wanted to throw in the towel and was crying (maybe a little dramatic, but throwing up does that to me!) most of the time.  What I did instead – After some time browsing the NutriSystem forums I found that you could just pick something on the ‘power-fuel’ list in order to count for the two snack shakes on the Fast5 plan. For my first shake of the day I had 1/2 cup of 1% milk (55 calories) and 1/2 serving of instant breakfast. I got the same number of calories (120) and a decent amount of protein. For my afternoon shake I had meat that matched the calories, and had far more protein than the afternoon shake.
2. On one day, I was so desperate for food that I had 100 calories of light popcorn when everyone else was snacking on popcorn.
3. Another day, while everyone was making themselves personalized pizza with all the amazing toppings and I was faced with my shelf stable cheese only pizza… I had a single Lite Salami piece. It had about 12 calories total. One piece was enough for me though, sinful as it was.
4. I had a chocolate covered almond cluster one night. Not sure the calories, but I had broken down in a hunger induced panic attack at the store while buying veggies (and surrounded by all the junk food ever, it’s everywhere, every turn of the store has something!!) and I think Cid took pity on me as he was the one who gave it to me. Sinful, yes, do I regret it? No, no I don’t. That’d been our third store visit a week (had to keep restocking veggies, and the kids ran out of things we needed…) and I was cracking under the pressure.
5. Lisi offered me a Goldfish cracker. Yes, a single goldfish, but I’m required to say about every way I deviated from the plan. So there you have it, a single goldfish cracker was one deviation.
6. One of the meals – the shelf stable Chicken Alfredo was so bad that I just couldn’t eat it, it smelled, looked, and tasted bad. I tried garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper to try and fix it. But I’d tried to have both of my shakes that day and I was still having trouble with that ‘throw up aftertaste.’ Still, from my research on the NutriSystem forums that is one of the worst shelf stable meals. I ended up going to the store and finding a frozen diet meal with the same calories (250) and protein to make things as even as possible.
7. Sunday (yesterday) I’d pretty much set myself up for failure for not having my afternoon snack before having to drive out of state to go get the kids from Ex-h’s house. On top of that I needed to do a run to the Asian market for Furikake… this run typically also includes getting snacks for everyone. This time, I withstood the desire for any snacks for me. No Pocky, Pejoy, Japanese Cheesecake, Rumune, Hello Panda, Hi Chew, Yan Yan… nothing. But I faltered when it was after 6 and I was getting shaky with hunger and needed to make the drive home. I was getting everyone else dinner, and allowed myself a single cheeseburger. No fries, no soda, no milkshake. Just the Cheeseburger. I was so hungry that I practically wept with joy at eating it. I ate nothing but vegetables the rest of the night, to make sure to get in enough vegetables and keep myself full.

I don’t have enough of a change to really go ahead and show a picture of me this week. Progress doesn’t work that fast, at least visually, but I will go ahead and do a picture at the end of the month just to see if there are any differences in my appearance by then.

My thoughts about the Fast5 week:

Overall, I am very happy with the Fast5 week! It was hard, I wont lie, I am so used to just eating whatever I want whenever I want. I got into bad habits while on Abilify, kept up those bad habits while pregnant to an extent, but once I was pregnant got back into those bad habits again. Not that long ago I ate an entire Tira Misu cake from Fred Meyer, in a span of under 24 hours. I am not proud of this fact, but it needs said.

I would do it all over again, but I wouldn’t have set myself up for failure on Sunday. I would have kept vegetables in the car with me, and lots of water.
The week was hard, and I struggled at first. I had a headache for the first four days no matter what I did, and the shakes seemed to amp that up for some reason. I am likely just sensitive to an ingredient or two and that was why I couldn’t handle them. Some people will have great success, others my struggle like I did, but there are ways around it.

I will likely attempt a ‘Fast5’ type week again sometime in the future, but it’s not recommended to do so more than once in any 4 week period of time. I may do something similar, but with more calories (I averaged 1000 a day) once every four months or so.

Veggies I ate through the week:

Spinach, Mushrooms, Brussels Sprouts and Carrots. I didn’t really count the mushrooms as far as a veggie went, but cooking up mushrooms (with no oil) and then putting in the spinach with some garlic powder and onion powder was really delicious. The steamer of Brussels Sprouts weren’t that great, but ate 2 servings of them anyway. After a few days of spinach and mushrooms I needed change, and badly. So the last few days was carrots mostly, with some spinach here and there.

Support I received:

I couldn’t have survived this week without Cid’s help. Every night he attempted to make a dinner that matched closely to what I was having. When I was having my pizza, they made pizzas. When I had chicken Alfredo they had their own. Without his support and comfort I don’t think I would have had the strength to make it through it.

 

Disclaimer: I received the NutriSystem Fast5 foods and plan materials in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was gained in writing this post or any other in regards to NutriSystem. All opinions are mine unless otherwise stated.