We tried one of the most popular diet plans to see what the food is really like — and what we found was shocking

Hollis Johnson

Nutrisystem has been around for 35 years and claims to be an easy and affordable way to lose weight. The company provides prepared food and meal plans. Its diet plans are designed as portion controlled, pre-prepared meals.

The most basic meal package is $9.64 per day, or $269.99 for a 4-week package. With this plan, customers are given a variety of food selected by Nutrisystem with the potential of losing 10 pounds and 5-inches off the waist in one month. 

Nutrisystem provides a grocery guide with all the extra items allowed while on the diet plan, as well as a "My Daily 3", an activity agenda with suggested activities for exercise.

We tested out Nutrisystem's packaged meals to see what the food is really like. While our expectations were reasonable going in, we were shocked at how tiny the portions were.

Nutrisystem is a diet plan that provides customers with pre-packaged food by the day or by the week. It costs $9.64 per day, or $269.99 for a 4-week plan. We got one week's worth of food — 28 items — to see how it works.

Hollis Johnson

Dietitians at Nutrisystem designed the program to contain small portions, balanced nutrition, and frequent meals. The program encourages customers to eat every 2-3 hours. We discovered that the portions are shockingly tiny.

Nutrisystem

We began by tasting a few of the breakfast items — all of which needed to be microwaved for preparation. Here are the items we tried:

Hollis Johnson

See the rest of the story at Business Insider