I sometimes hear from people who would like a little more flexibility with their Nutrisystem meals. A common comment would be something like, “Sometimes I have a really tough day at my job and I come home at night and I’m extra hungry. What if I want to eat two of the Nutrisystem dinners? Could I just load the larger one? Skip meals and then dessert and snack for the day? I’d rather have something richer. Is that possible?”
Before I try to answer, please know that I’m not an expert. It is very easy to contact Nutrisystem and ask someone from the company about this. But here is my opinion. While I’m not sure you’d want to make this a huge habit because eating two dinners eats up more calories than two snacks or dessert, I don’t think it has to be a big deal on a given difficult day . And in my opinion, it’s certainly a lot better than cheating on a no-diet dinner. I think it makes sense to make small changes that allow you to stay on the diet from time to time, rather than just stray off and eat whatever you want.
But to take it a step further, let’s look at a concrete example. Let’s say that on that particular day, this person chose the flatbread pizza (270 calories) and macaroni and cheese and beef (240 calories), and let’s say they chose their pretzel snack and ice cream sandwich dessert skipped this day. That would have saved 100 and 130 calories, respectively, for a total calorie saving of 230. So, in reality, if you eat two dinners and skip dessert and snack, you’re only adding ten extra calories. That’s certainly not too bad. And it’s way better than just opening up the pantry and eating something else without worrying about the calorie or carb content.
But another consideration you may not have considered is that if you eat two dinners one night, you will be short of one some other time in the month. So you’ll be on your own that night and more likely to cheat or eat a lot more calories. Sure, you could always eat the snack and dessert you didn’t eat if you doubled dinner, but that’s certainly not real dinner. Not only that, but if you want to do this, you need to plan ahead and make a conscious effort to skip your snack earlier in the day. Doing this will definitely require some prior planning and will definitely require you to make adjustments later in the month. But I still find it better than the alternative of just eating something from the kitchen. Because you’re still eating a diet meal that will be low in calories and carbohydrates.
Thanks to Ava Alderman
