Marie Osmond is a spokesperson for Nutrisystem, which I confuse with Jenny Craig often. It’s one of those prepackaged meal weight loss systems that works because you’re eating less calories overall. This is similarly why Weight Watchers and every diet works, although WW allows much more flexibility than other programs and doesn’t require you to eat their food. Marie is so convinced that her way is the right way that she’s mildly shading Oprah for drinking wine in her latest Weight Watchers commercial. For the love of God you shouldn’t have to give up wine, bread, cheese or whatever else you love to lose weight! It’s all about moderation. This happened during an interview with Marie and the CEO of Nutrisystem on Yahoo! finance, which you can watch on their site. It came across more like an infomercial than a legit interview. Plus Marie’s face is fascinating. She’s had so much work done that she looks like one of those dolls she makes. Marie has lost 50 pounds and she’s kept it off for ten years. Good for her. She thinks Oprah’s way is too complicated though because it’s not Nutrisystem.
Marie Osmond seems to be winning the battle of the bulge. The 57-year-old singer and entertainer says she’s lost 50 pounds using Nutrisystem and has been able to keep the weight off during her 10 years as a spokesperson for the weight-loss product company.
“Nutrisystem taught me how to eat, so my body loved me back,” Osmond tells me in the video above. She still eats foods she loves like pasta and chocolate, but says she’s learned portion control and eats smaller meals more often, about six times a day. “I’m not desperately running to have a candy bar,” she says…
“When you’re overweight, you’re overwhelmed,” explains Osmond, who says she’s had success with Nutrisystem because she doesn’t have to weigh in, measure food or count points.
That seems to be a direct jab at Weight Watchers, the rival diet-plan company that Osmond’s friend Oprah Winfrey bought 10% of in 2015. Winfrey has been seen in advertisements flaunting her 42-pound weight loss on Weight Watchers, while toasting a glass of wine.
“Everybody’s trying to get into whatever works for whomever,” Osmond says of Winfrey’s Weight Watchers connection. But, she adds, “To me, toasting a glass of wine, there’s a lot of sugar in that glass. That’s the other thing about counting points. It didn’t work for me. My points were shallow points like ice cream and things like that. Whereas what Nutrisystem does is that glycemic index, that’s the key to me.”
While Winfrey’s involvement with Weight Watchers has helped fatten the company’s flailing stock price, Nutrisystem continues to outperform its rival. Over the past 12 months, Weight Watchers stock is down more than 50%, while Nutrisystem’s stock is up more than 60% during the same period.
Osmond says she was a customer of Nutrisystem long before becoming a spokesperson for the brand. “I actually bought it and started losing my weight. Nutrisystem found out about it and asked if I would endorse [the product].”
Well, get ready to see a lot more of Osmond. She’s currently featured in Nutrisystem’s new ad campaign called Lean 13, which promises customers they’ll lose up to 7 inches and 13 pounds in their first month.
“The best predictor of long term weight loss is short term weight loss, so the program allows people to have fast success, and they tend to continue on,” Nutrisystem CEO Dawn Zier says.
Zier says the trend towards locally sourced, whole grain, unprocessed foods has resulted in changes at the company. “Over the past 18 months, we’ve eliminated artificial flavors, sweeteners and colors from our products, and most of our foods don’t have artificial preservatives.”
I disagree with Osmond and the Nutrisystem CEO of course. Whatever weight loss system works for you for both the initial loss and maintenance is the one you should use. I generally eat “healthy” whole foods overall but I personally don’t stress about gluten, diary, sugar, artificial colors or preservatives, etc. So many people lose the forest for the trees and think you have to eat only whole foods or give up carbs or entire food groups to lose weight. As I often mention (I try not to be preachy about it but it’s changed my life), I use MyFitnessPal and a food scale to count calories. It’s free and you eat whatever you want. These prepackaged meal programs take all the work out of it, but if you want to keep the weight off, how does that work once you’re no longer paying for their food? They claim you don’t have to stay on the program after losing the weight and just continue “eating healthy,” but if you don’t know how to prepare your own foods or how much to eat how does that work exactly? If you’re going to spend over $300 a month on premade food and you don’t want to have to cook or pay attention to portion sizes, why not just buy ready made meals and microwave them at home? That would require doing some basic math though and Marie thinks that’s too hard.
photos credit: WENN and FameFlynet
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