What is the Difference Between Smart Ones and Nutrisystem Meals? Is One Better Than the Other?

I often receive emails which ask me to compare Nutrisystem to diet foods that you can buy in the grocery store.  One such example are the smart ones which you can get in the frozen food aisle.  In the following article, I will show you an example of a full day's worth of food and meals on both diets and will show you how the two stack up with one another.

The Nutrisystem Sample Menu For One Day: For this example, I am going to follow the diet's recommendations that you eat five times per day. I'll be including, breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, and a dessert.  For breakfast, I have chosen the egg frittata. For lunch, we will have the cheese tortellini.  For dinner, I have chosen the Chinese pepper steak.  We get to have pound cake for dessert and nachos for our snack.  Now, I have added up the calories, carbs, and protein from each meal.  For the entire day, we have taken in 780 calories, 82 grams of carbohydrates, and 63 grams of protein.  Now, let's look at a comparable smart ones day of meals.

The Smart Ones Sample Menu For One Day:  I tried to keep the foods that I chose to be somewhat similar for comparison's sake.  For breakfast, I chose the english muffin egg sandwich. For lunch, I've chosen the three cheese ziti. For dinner, we will have beef with Asian vegetables.  There is not a lot to chose from in terms of snacks.  Basically, there is just mini pizza, quesadillas, and calzones.  I'll chose the calzone.  For dessert, let's have the strawberry shortcake. The caloric intake is 1210.  After consuming this menu, you would have taken in 173 grams of carbs and 62 grams of protein.

Do These Differences Mean That One Of These Is Better Than The Other?:  I am not sure if you know this, but Nutrisystem is designed based on a "glycemic friendly" index.  This means that the calorie to carb to protein content is very favorable to putting your body in a metabolic state called ketosis in which your body is sort of feeding on fat stores and burning through them.  The caloric, carbohydrate, and protein ratio is very important to this process.  If the calories or sugars are too high and the protein is too low, in a sense you are sort of wasting your time and money because you are going to have a hard time getting into ketosis (if you are able to get there at all.)

Obviously, Nutrisystem was much lower in both calories and carbohydrates.  In fact, the difference is approaching almost twice as much on the part of smart ones.  This is very significant in my opinion. I doubt very much that you would be able to get into fat burning mode in this way.  And if you did, it may take much longer.  Also, frozen meals such as these are known as being very high in sodium which might be a concern for you if you worry about water retention.

Many people tell me that they are interested in the grocery store alternatives as a way of saving money. Well, prices vary depending on where you shop, but smart ones generally run from about $1.75 to around $2.75 each depending on the type of meal and portion size.  This is around $ 9 -$10 per day if you're going to be eating five times.  Nutrisystem is very comparable to this and sometimes even cheaper if you can find the right coupon or package so in my opinion, you aren't saving that much money (if any.) And, even if you are, the little bit that you are saving is probably not worth the huge differences that might just keep you from having the kind of effectiveness that you are hoping for.

To get the latest Nutrisystem coupon codes discussed in this article or to see a list of or nutritional information on the foods, please check out my blog (where you can also read my free e book "Getting The Most Out Of Nutrisystem" which includes recipes, the latest specials (up to two weeks free or over $100 off), information on all of the programs, tips, support, and motivation. Check it out if you like at http://celebrity-diet-review.com/

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