Author: John Kuczaj

After 14 weeks, I’ve lost 25.6 lbs and am down to 216.4.

It’s been 5 weeks of around 215, sometimes above a bit, sometimes under. I’ve loosened my regimen, and adding some low-cal snacks there and there (saltine crackers, popcorn, tootsie rolls), so it’s not surprising I’m plateauing again. I’m cool with that for now.

After 9 weeks, I’ve lost 27.4 lbs and am down to 214.6.

Very cool that my 3-week plateau is over, and I’m past my goal of 215 lbs. I’m going to continue on and see how much more I can lose, but I’m also going to try experimenting with non-Nutrisystem food.

My Mother-In-Law says I’ve lost my gut. It’s still there, just smaller.

After 8 weeks, I’ve lost 21.6 lbs and am down to 220.4 – I lost nothing this week.

I’m not surprised I lost nothing because I gained a pound the day after Easter. This year for Easter at my mom’s, we had Popeyes Chicken. I had 5 chicken tenders and some mashed potatoes, which I calculated at around 800 calories, and I made sure to work the rest of the day out to stay under 1,500.

Didn’t matter.

It likely was more calories than published, so I gained a pound the next day and spent the rest of the week losing that pound.

Oh, well.

After seven weeks, I’ve lost 21.6 lbs and am down to 220.4 – I lost 1.0 lbs this week.

Anyone who has eaten with me knows that I am a fast eater. One summer day, the office I worked at on Michigan Avenue walked to Su Casa Mexican Restaurant for lunch. For me, that means 3 beef enchiladas with no beans & extra rice (mmmmm….enchilaaaadaaaas!). So, everyone at the table orders and 5-10 minutes later, the servers come with the food. I was seated across from the office VP, who was having a conversation with a sales person. When my food was set in front of me, I immediately began cutting the enchiladas into pieces. Then, I went to work scooping enchiladas and alternately, rice down my gullet. I cleared the plate in less than 5 minutes, right at the time the VP was about to start eating. She look across at my plate incredulously, perhaps thinking she waited longer than she thought to eat, but when she saw that everyone else was just starting, she realized I was a freak.

So, I do not have a history of eating slow to enjoy and savor my food, just eating MORE to enjoy my food. Studies say that when you start eating, there’s a clock in your body that regulates how fast you feel “full”. the slower you eat, the quicker you feel full so the less you eat. Fast eaters can gain weight easier because they eat to “over-full”. I liken it to drinking table wine at a wedding reception. If you drink too fast, you don’t start feeling the effects until the 3rd or 4th glass, and by then you may have over-indulged.

Anyway, eating slow was never my thing. it is now – it HAS TO be now.

When the portions are small, eating fast is not helpful. I am finding myself trying to savor every bite as I eat at a slow pace. It really does help.

That said, next time I do go out for enchiladas, I know the Kobayashi in me will come out again!

After six weeks, I’ve lost 20.6 lbs and am down to 221.4 – but I gained 0.4 lbs this week.

Well, last week I was wondering when I’d plateau, and it looks like the answer is, now. To be fair, I am slightly cheating more each day to the point where it apparently matters, so I’d better roll that back. This week I did make a couple of great discoveries at my favorite fast food places that can fit my plan:

A King Turkey Sub (no mayo) from Mr. Submarine has 698 calories. I’ve been a fan of Mr. Sub since high school, and when I lived in Old Irving, I would go to the Six Corners location often. Now that I’m in Niles, the closest location is still the one at Six Corners, so it ends up being a special trip. Previously, I would order and eat a King Turkey with no problem. Now that I’m on Nutrisystem, I decided to by a King Turkey, but eat half for lunch on Saturday and half on Sunday. 349 calories is very easy to absorb in a 1,500 calorie a day plan.

A Half Pound Roast Beef Sandwich from Arby’s has 610 calories. 610 is significant, but not too bad to absorb for Dinner, and I definitely feel full after eating it.

After five weeks, I’ve lost 21.0 lbs and am down to 221.0 – I lost 4.4 lbs this week.

This is hilarious. Five weeks in and I’m already 6 lbs from my original target goal of 215 lbs. I’m expecting to plateau at some point, so we will see. My wife and mother-in-law say that the weight loss is noticeable, saying I’ve lost the 2nd chin and have a slimmer belly. Okay, I’ll take their word for it.

If all goes well, I’m probably going to shoot for 200 lbs as my new goal – why not?

After four weeks, I’ve lost 16.6 lbs and am down to 225.4 – I lost 1.4 lbs this week.

I could have lost 1.8 lbs, but Saturday I decided to try to make Giordanos thin crust sausage pizza work for lunch. I calculated that a small pizza was 2,554 calories, but though I tried eating just 1/4 of it, I couldn’t help but eat 1/2, for 1,277 calories. For dinner, I went with a Wendy’s single with cheese, which is 590 calories. I probably should have had a 200-calorie Nutrisystem dinner instead, but you can’t deprive yourself all the time. Oh, well.

The more I do this program, the more I can see some brilliance in it. First, they have their food, which I am convinced is engineered to be healthier than the processed foods you can get in the store. Next, they encourage adding foods you like – in moderation – as extras (PowerFuels, SmartCarbs), or as a Flex Meal. The moderation part is essential, and that was the immediate lesson when we started – it was hard not looking at the very small portions and thinking “WTF?”, but after sticking to the plan, it’s also obvious that we frequently over-eat. While some people can handle it, most have bodies that will just add the pounds.

The biggest brilliance to the plan is that it’s immediately training you how to eat without the plan. That is to say, it puts you in a mindset to think about what you eat so that when you inevitably stop buying the Nutrisystem food, you can continue maintaining or losing weight. So many diet plans are extreme, so that people may lose weight fast, but once they are off the plan, it all comes back. Nutrisystem is a great was to train people how to eat better – especially in moderation!

This is all amazing to me, since I was very skeptical of the plan before starting. I’m a believer now.

After three weeks, I’ve lost 14.8 lbs and am down to 227.2 – I lost 4.2 lbs this week.

I’m happy to be back on track, after over-indulging last week (sorry, not sorry!). It’s still crazy to know I’ve lost so much in three weeks. Every time I get on the scale in the morning, I start laughing because it keeps going down. This is annoying to my wife, who is not losing as much as I am, but doctors have said that men lose weight faster than women.

One of the keys to the program is logging your food into the NuMi App, which is free and available to anyone.

I set mine to remind me when it’s time to eat, and if I eat a non-Nutrisystem item, you can easily scan the UPC to get the nutrition info, or create custom foods. It’s very cool that restaurants must provide nutrition info, and I’ve been looking at the info for some of my favorites – Taco Bell, Wendy’s, Mr. Submarine – and plotting what items I can get and stay under the 1,500 limit. It’s not too hard, and very eye opening.

For example, on Friday nights, as we are driving home from weekly grocery shopping, I’ve gotten in the habit of getting three Beefy 5-Layer Burritos from Taco Bell – Yes, Fridays are my Taco Bell night! Problem is that each Beefy 5-layer burrito has 490 calories according to their website. Two would be a bit much, and One doesn’t seem like enough, so I have started getting 1 Beefy 5-Layer Burrito and 1 Soft Taco Supreme, which is 210 calories. 490 + 210 = 700 calories, which is almost 1/2 the calories for the day. In order to prepare for my indulgence, I make sure to keep my breakfast and lunch calories a low as possible and maybe skip the afternoon snack.

After two weeks, I’ve lost 8.4 lbs and am down to 233.6 – I only lost 0.6 lb this week (for a very good reason).

Week 2 is where the plan really kicks in. The calorie count rises to 1,500 per day as we start to add outside food to the menu. Generally, the recommended daily calorie intake is 2,000 calories a day for women and 2,500 for men, so at 1,500, I should continue losing weigh at a decent clip. here’s how the plan looks from now on:

Now we have PowerFuels, SmartCarbs and Flex meals.

The Flex meal is literally a meal on our own as we “flex” off the plan. I’m not yet confident I won’t over-indulge, so I’m holding off on Flex meals. Since we are eating the Nutrisystem food 5 days a week, we’re technically flexing every weekend anyway.

PowerFuels are lean proteins, low-fat dairy and nuts to keep you feeling full. The idea is to add them to the meals, and use it as part of the afternoon snack. Since I’m allergic to nuts, I’ve focused on 2oz of Chicken or 1 Egg. It doesn’t sound like much because it’s not much, but it really does the trick in satiating me more.

SmartCarbs are whole grains, beans and legumes, fruit and starchy vegetables. I’ve focused on potatoes – 1/2 cup of baked steak fries or a red potato. I’ve also added a wheat tortilla for my afternoon snack, which has become a fried or scrambled egg with diced green chiles in the wheat tortilla.

From the start of the plan, I make time to walk for 30 minutes a day. When the weather gets warmer, I can return to biking in the evenings as well. The funny thing is, exercise is never really the key to weight loss, it’s the food you eat, yet people still think if they go to the health club daily they can eat what they want and stay in shape.

So…why only -0.6 lbs this week? It could have been -4.2 lbs but Saturday night was a guy’s night out with friends at Giordano’s and I ate 3 pieces of Stuffed Sausage Pizza. Based on the Giordano’s website, that was 722 calories per piece for a whopping total of 2,166 calories! I hesitated with the 3rd slice, but in the end do not regret it. The next day, my weight was +3.6 lbs from Saturday morning. Oops.