I sometimes hear from people who want to tweak Nutrisystem and make it their own. Some want to try variations on the diet, but wonder if doing so will still allow them to lose weight. I heard from someone who said: "what if I only did Nutrisystem for dinner? Could I only buy the dinner meals? And, if I did that, would I still lose weight?"
If you attempt to research how many calories the average person consumes in a day, you'll see that ranges vary. But you'll generally see estimates anywhere from 2,700 - 3,500 calories per day. To make things easier, I'll use the estimates of 3,000 calories per day. Now, using this number, it's challenging to determine the average amount of calories consumed at dinner time, but I think that 800 calories for dinner would probably be a conservative number.
Now, let's look at the amount of calories in a Nutrisystem dinner. I'll take three dinners and use those averages. I've chosen the cheese ravioli (250 calories,) the sweet and sour chicken (260 calories,) and the bar-b-que beef with rice (270.) This places the average for all three at about 260. Now, they encourage you to add a fresh and healthful side to your meal. You might add a piece of fruit, a cup of yogurt, or an additional vegetable. Let's say your side is around 100 calories. This puts your total at 360 calories, which gives you a deficit of around 440 calories for each dinner that you substitute. This saves you around 3,080 calories per week. One pound is equal to about 3500 calories. Assuming you added enough additional movement, it's probably fair to say that you would have enough of a deficit to lose at least a pound a week. This is about 4 pounds a month, or around 12 pounds over three months. This is relatively decent considering that you're only altering one meal.
Now, this person didn't tell me if she also planned to try to eat in a more healthful manner for breakfast and for lunch. After all, it doesn't make a lot of sense to eat a diet dinner only to eat junk food for the remainder of your meals. If she was going to cut back even a little on her other meals, her results could have been even better. And keep in mind, I'm only using estimates. So to answer the question posed, it's my opinion that you could lose weight by replacing only one meal with Nutrisystem. Of course, your results likely wouldn't come as fast or be as dramatic as they would be if you'd replace all of your meals on the diet all of the time. But not every one wants to do this.
And yes, you can order this diet's dinners a la carte, but it works out to be a lot more expensive then if you order a package and then customize it. I often suggest that people look at the Nutrisystem flex plan as it's the smallest in terms of food and it is developed to allow you to take off two days per week. Even if you don't use the food as designed and just substitute the one meal per day. The meals would likely last you a long time and you will generally still pay less than if you went a la carte.
Want more tips on being successful on or starting Nutrisystem? Ava's Nutrisystem Information Website features articles meant to help you evaluate and help you have success with this diet. There's also a link to a free eBook and the latest coupons to help you get started. You can visit her at http://ava-alderman-weight-loss-articles.com/
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