Nutrisystem Journey Week 1 Recap: I Survived the Fast 5!

Nutrisystem Fast 5 Review

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Well hello there!

Can you believe it’s already been one whole week since I started my Nutrisystem journey?  The past 7 days were tough – INCREDIBLY tough – as I plowed my way through the Fast 5 program.  The Fast 5, to refresh your memory, is a 7-day program during the first week of of Nutrisystem.  It is simple, it is basic, it is bare bones.  The idea is to shed excess water weight, to get you focused on following a plan and to kick off your weight loss with motivating results.

On Fast 5 you stick to a very strict regimen of the following: 3 Nutrisystem meals a day (NO DESSERT), unlimited non-starchy veggies (but at least 4 servings), 1 energizing shake, 1 appetite-curbing shake, lots of water (at least 64 oz is the goal).  This is the Fast 5 box and its contents.  The only thing you add is your water and produce.

Holy crap, people.  This was going to be hard.  I am not going to lie – I was hungry much of the week.  It didn’t seem to matter how many veggies I binged on, how much water I drank, I was hungry.  I woke up hungry and went to bed hungry.  But I was so determined to see this through – TO PROVE that I could do it – and I am extremely proud to tell you that I stuck to the Fast 5 program 100%.  Not a single cheat, not a single deviation.  Huge accomplishment!

So I told you about the produce that you can eat along with Fast 5.  I knew that I was going to need an insane amount of veggies on hand, so the day before I started the plan we shopped at Produce Junction for this food.

That’s a lot of veg!

The Prep

Much like many of you, we are ALWAYS on the go.  Just a normal day of Lily and Landon wrangling often leaves me deprived of precious time to do things like wash and cut veggies.  I knew that I had to make this as simple and as grab-and-go as possible in order for me to succeed.

I spent a couple of hours rinsing, cutting, peeling, portioning and bagging all of the vegetables pictured above.  I placed portioned veggie snack bags in easily accessible containers in the fridge.  This worked great for Bob too.  Even though he is not following the Nutrisystem program, he is always game for adding produce to his lunches.  We were both able to take veggies whenever we needed them.  I even caught Lily taking bags of carrots and broccoli here and there for her snack!

For our dinner veggies, I prepped them too.  They all got rinsed and cut and bagged, just in larger portions.  This made including veggies into our dinnertime incredibly easy.  I just picked whatever we wanted and sauteed, boiled, grilled, etc.  I used flavor enhancers like (measured) light salad dressing, pepper, Mrs. Dash, etc.

Lots of water

I am a coffee fiend.  You know this.  One of my goals during Fast 5 was to wean myself from multiple cups of coffee every day.  I somehow managed to stick to just one morning cup.  Then I turned to my big ‘ol water bottle.  My aim was to drink two entire bottles every day.  When I got really tired of plain water, I tried different things like adding a sliced strawberry to the water or tearing up fresh mint leaves and tossing it in the bottle.  Both options worked great.

On Day 1, I pulled out my Fast 5 food log and got ready to log every single bite that went into my mouth.  One thing that really seemed to work when it came to planning was to load up my food bin every night before heading to bed.  The next day I ate only the food that was in my bin, plus my veggies.

How were the shakes?

So there are two shakes included in the Fast 5.  There is a morning snack shake (Energi-Zing) and an afternoon appetite curbing snack shake (Craving Crusher).  I really did not care for the morning shake.  It tasted bitter to me and I didn’t like the aftertaste.  I tried adding mint leaves one day and thought that made it worse.  The next day I added a drop of vanilla extract and that improved the taste a bit.

I liked the Craving Crusher shake.  I thought that one had a richer chocolate taste and actually found myself looking forward to it.

I found that tossing the shake mix, water and a couple of ice cubes in the blender really improved the consistency and made it more “shake-like.”  I served it over ice as well.

The Meals

Let’s talk about the actual Nutrisystem meals!  Now keep in mind, the Fast 5 program comes with all shelf-stable meals.  None of the freezer meals are part of Fast 5.  I tend to like frozen entrees a lot more than shelf-stable meals, so I was really curious if I would like them or not.  I’m happy to report, the majority of the meals had a really good taste!  I played around with some of them, adding more veggies, etc.

Here are some of the meals that I had throughout the week:

Lots of muffins are available on the Nutrisystem plan.  This Cinnamon Streusel Muffin was really good.  I also loved the Double Chocolate Muffin!

Breakfast bars are always a win-win for me.  I can grab them as I race out the door to get Lily to camp or what-have-you.  They make it easier to make sure I actually eat breakfast instead of skipping.

With every lunch I added at least one veggie.  The first day I had Cheese Tortellini (REALLY tasty) and steamed some broccoli on the side.

I didn’t think I would like the Spicy Kung Pao Noodles because I don’t like spicy food… but I did!  I really liked them.  The flavor was good and they weren’t super spicy.  I had this lunch along with some tomato slices topped with fresh basil leaves and cracked pepper.

The Loaded Baked Potato (more of a MASHED Potato if ya ask me) was really good.  I sauteed up a whole load of mushrooms and had them on the side.

By dinnertime I was pretty much starving.  So I really went overboard with some of my veggies.  I ate myself silly when it came to dinner veggies.  I LOVED the Chili with Beans entree.  Delicious.  With this I enjoyed a half of a spaghetti squash.  I added cherry tomatoes, fresh cilantro and cracked pepper to the squash.  So good!

While the Italian Herb Flatbread Pizza had a lot of flavor on its own, I topped mine with a heaping serving of sauteed spinach, mushrooms and fresh basil.

Now unfortunately I can’t give gold stars across the board.  There was ONE meal out of those 7 days that I did NOT like at all. I literally had to force myself to eat it.  The Chicken Alredo left much to be desired.  I even tried to improve the taste by adding some sauteed spinach.  Didn’t help.

In a nutshell, that’s the Fast 5!

I can’t leave out the fact that my encouragement and support on the homefront has been amazing.  I can’t remember a time when Bob hasn’t supported one of my endeavors, but he has really been great.  Look what I found one morning when I came downstairs!  That made my entire day!

When I got to the night before my very last day, I cheered and yelled!  So proud that I made it to the very end without straying.

I know, we’re at the end of the post.  And you’re wondering… DID YOU LOSE ANY WEIGHT DURING FAST 5?

Indeed.

I did.

WHAT?!  YUP!  I lost 7.8 pounds on my week of the Fast 5 Program.  Now of course, I know that much of that is water weight, and it’s because I was on a very very strict very low calorie diet.  But talk about a motivational kick in the butt to keep it going!  WOOHOO!

Stay tuned for next week’s update.  I’ll be eating much more than I got to eat this week – lots of new meals to try, including DESSERTS!  YAY!  DESSERT!

Look for my posts here once a week. For a daily update on my journey, please follow me on Instagram!

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