Overview
The difficulty people have in losing weight is something that has been capitalized on by many companies that see a huge business opportunity. They have aggressively marketed themselves as the saviors that come in times of such dire needs.
But, before you sign up for any weight loss program, and even before you look into the fine print of what is being offered, there is something you need to do. You must accept the fact that there is no magic wand out there and nothing, no program is easy, no matter what the company says. If it was that easy, you’d do it yourself.
So the first rule is self-discipline. You will need this. Without it you will not get too far, and even if you do, you will relapse very soon, possibly to a worse state than before. As long as you are willing to stay the course, you will see results. This is true whether or not you subscribe to any diet food deliver programs.
Once your mind is made up that you have to address your weight issue, you need to ask yourself what will suit you most and also what you are more inclined to do – hit the gym, go on a diet, or both. The reality is that the last option is optimal, exercise and a bit of diet control should do the trick. But unfortunately most of us cannot manage this combination. You then need to choose the next best option.
Exercise requires time and more self-determination than going on a diet, so, most people sign up for some diet program or the other in the hope of getting thinner while keeping other aspects of their life unaffected – like work, time with family, etc.
There are innumerable diet food delivery programs in the market today. Choosing the right one can be a challenge.
There is the popular Bistro MD diet which sends you high-quality, nutritionally-balanced, chef-prepared meals that add up to approximately 1200 calories a day. They don’t believe in depriving dieters of delicious meals, so they have quite a selection to choose from.
Another talked about diet is eDiets (the e is for easy). They offer similar food-to-your-door services and believe in giving you more but lighter meals during the day.
Bistro MD Recap
Bistro MD has, by far, the best tasting food of any other program, and the most recommendations. The only way a diet delivery program will be effective for you, is if you actually enjoy eating the meals they provide, and Bistro MD delivers on that.
The best part about the plan is the ‘My Night’ option. This “allows’ you to eat out or eat anything you want once a week, so you still have some semblance of normalcy in your life and don’t feel trapped into a diet. It’s an amazing feature that lets you give in to temptation, which, ironically, should be part of most diet plans since it helps cravings. This actually helps dieters stick to the plan for the rest of the week.
See our full review of Bistro MD
Diet-to-Go Recap
Diet to Go is making a concerted effort to bring high quality diet foods to as many people as possible with a reasonable price. Most of the other options out there make you choose between taste and price. You can get gourmet diet food, but be prepared to pay an arm and a leg. Or you can bargain shop, and have to eat dried out, over-processed and reconstituted foods.
With Diet to Go you get pretty fresh foods, and food without all of the harmful chemicals and preservatives that are used by other programs. This is why they got our Thumbs Up review, and why we suggest trying them out for a week, and then seeing what you want to do from there.
See our full review of Diet-to-Go
Biggest Loser Meal Plan Recap
If you’re a fan of the show you’ll probably be a fan of their diet delivery program as well. If you’ve been trying to replicate the sort of results they get on TV, a big part of that is sorting out the food you eat. Making your own food while on a diet can be killer, because portion sizes are hard to wrangle in, so having it all pre-portioned for you makes it much easier.
If you couple this meal plan with a personal trainer that will push you out of your comfort zone like they do on the Biggest Loser Show, you’re basically getting 80-90% of the system they use. This can make it really fun to lose weight, and see if you get startling results like they do.
See our full review of the Biggest Loser Meal Plan
Freshology Recap
Freshology, as the name suggests, is focused on the fresh. This can be, well, refreshing, when you size it up to other programs that rely heavily on processed foods that you have to defrost before you can even reheat it. With their meals you get your package and refrigerate everything and eat it over the next 3-4 days.
You can tell that their meals are prepared by hand by actual people, and not just thrown together on an assembly line. If you’re into spirituality, you want to know that an actual person put your meal together.
See our full review of Freshology
eDiets Recap
eDiets is another food-to-your-door program that claims to do wonders for your weight loss. It comes with a year round, 24 hour support and customized diets according to the user’s needs. In addition eDiet too has the other usual add-ons: counselor support, peer group chats, consultations with professionals etc.
The website, which has bikini clad before-after pictures of women, seems tacky, but when you get past that you realize that they have a comprehensive weight loss program, with umpteen diets to choose from. However, what is not clear is that though they stress on the fresh food factor, how fresh it really is? That said, if you are desperate to lose weight and cannot start doing the math on the calories, then this is something you could try, since many people did lose weight with this diet.
See our full review of eDiets
Nutrisystem Recap
The science behind Nutrisystem’s Glycemic Index principle is simple. Foods that are low on the GI index help keep your blood sugar on the lower side. These get digested slowly, keeping you fuller for longer as opposed to the bad carbs that get digested faster and set you up for cravings.
When you sign up, however, be prepared to make a lot of space in your freezer since you get a month’s supply of meals together. The portions are small and many have reported feeling hungry after they eat. This, however, is part of the slimming process, to train your stomach to eat less but more frequently. It is good for your metabolism and prevents fat storage.
In addition they have a team of counselors and dietitians as well as personalized progress charts to help you stay the course. But, all this only works if you are honest and report accurately.
See our full review of Nutrisystem
DineWise Recap
With DineWise you’re spoiled for choice. You can choose from several different kinds of meal programs, like ones for diabetics, for those that lose weight, and for those that want to build muscle. They also let you mix and match your meals right down to the side items and vegetables so you have a lot of customization available to you and you aren’t chained in to predetermined meals.
As long as you’re not a vegetarian you should be alright with DineWise, because their entrees are all meat-based, while still remaining low fat, gluten free, or low-carb depending on your goal.
See our full review of DineWise
Healthy Chef Creations Recap
Healthy Chef Creations is all about organic foods. If you recognize the importance of eating foods that are organically prepared, you should definitely check them out. A bit on the pricey side, they offer comprehensive programs that don’t require you to go shopping or prepare any additional meals or snacks in addition to what they provide.
If you’ve checked out the other diet food delivery programs out there you quickly see that there aren’t many out there that use even some organic ingredients, so Healthy Chef Creations is really in a class by itself.
See our full review of Healthy Chef Creations
Chefs Diet Recap
Think you have a little gourmet chef in you and want to help it come out? Chefs Diet is basically like having a professional chef send you meals every day. This lets you see what a finished meal would look like prepared in your own home. You can then reverse engineer the meals and give them a go on your own, knowing the proper portion sizes, and the different main ingredients.
This is a great program to go with if you are looking to eat diet foods, but feel like you’re having gourmet 5 star meals. It poses the question of whether or not you will feel like you’re on a diet at all if you aren’t eating something that tastes like diet food.
See our full review of Chefs Diet
ZEN Foods Recap
ZEN Foods stands for Zero Effort Nutrition, a promising concept and one that most of us would love to take advantage of. The effort is what kills most diets out there, because let’s face it if you’re not a chef and don’t like cooking, it can be a real drag cooking yourself diet food. It’s like making food for yourself that you don’t even like, and most people can’t stick with that.
But when fresh, vibrant, high-quality food shows up at your door every day there’s really not much of an excuse when all you have to do is heat it and eat it. If making your own food has been your stumbling block, you might want to go with ZEN as a possible solution.
See our full review of ZEN Foods
Medifast Recap
Medifast seems to be specifically for those that have a lot of weight to lose, like those whose doctors have told them to lose weight. If you’re just a bit overweight, or need to lose those last 5 or 10 pounds, you might be better suited to a different program.
By most accounts, the food that comes with this program is not very delicious. It’s no surprise, because most of it comes dry, or dehydrated, and so it’s basically lifeless and devoid of any nutrients. This is one of the more extreme diet food delivery programs you can get involved in.
See our full review of Medifast
Wonderslim Recap
Wonderslim has been credited as having tasty food at a great price, making it a serious contender in the world of diet food delivered to your door. They have fixed a few glitches found in other programs by incorporating one fresh meal per day, and encouraging you not to replace all of your meals, just enough that’s needed to reach your goal weight.
There are 50 different products you can choose from for each of your meals. One thing we didn’t like is how many times they have you eating per day. Find out how many times it is and if we recommend them or not.
See our full review of Wonderslim
Things To Avoid
When looking for a diet be vary of anything that promises to make you lose too much weight in too little time. If you do this, then you’ll see the effects of it in something else. For instance, some diet programs do not balance the protein too well and people experience hair loss.
Also, before you sign up, read the fine print. For instance, some dieters complained that after signing up for the auto-delivery plan with Nutrisystem they could not cancel if they were not happy with the meals. It’s a good idea to do a trial first and then decide if you want to continue. Lastly, never, ever, take any pills as part of a diet program without consulting your doctor.
A Note on Preservatives
Although the meals are generally healthy, being low in sodium and saturated and trans-fats, what’s a little worrisome is that the food, which, just by the fact that it has to keep for a month, could not be free of preservatives. Eating large amounts of preservatives is not good for the body, especially if you plan on sticking to these types of diet programs for the long term. You’re basically bombarding your body daily with unnatural chemicals and synthetic substances, which will have a taxing effect on your body’s major operating systems.
To Pay More of Not, That is the Question
Should you pay more for meals are well thought out and that are not heavily processed, which is a huge drawback when it comes to pre-packed meals. Since you’ll be eating this for a while, it is important to eat healthier food. This is why some programs are a bit more expensive than others, but the money is worth it in the long run. Also, a lot of dieters seemed happy about the fact that while they were on a diet, they could still eat things like beef, tuna, turkey etc. so it can be a good thing to pay more for foods you’ll actually enjoy, instead of paying less for food that could throw you off track and off the program.
What to Expect
Do not expect miracles. If you stay the course, you will lose weight, but don’t expect this to happen overnight. The problem with most dieters is that they give up too soon. It’s not easy, of course, but if you need to shape up, you’ll have to try hard.
Having said that, once you are on a diet program and have accepted the fact that you will eat the meals that are delivered to you and not cheat, you will definitely see results. The fact that you are having smaller-sized, balanced-meals is good enough to kick start your metabolism into action.
Yes, they do. The systems are in place and do work, you’ll get food delivered to your door that will help you lose weight if you follow the plan to the letter.
There are enough people out there who’ve seen results, including some dramatic ones, where people lost 100 pounds and changed their lives. So, be positive and tell yourself that you can do it. Asking if something works reveals that you have a lot of doubt and skepticism, but you have to believe in what you’re doing to get any results.
Remember there’s no gain without pain, so if you are giving up something, you are getting thinner in exchange for that, which is worth it. This will make you feel better and it is not an exaggeration to say that your relationships with everyone will improve once you feel better about yourself.
What we are going to say to you is that if you have it in you to lose weight without a diet program, then you should go with that. If you can exercise, you will be even healthier. This of course has to be combined with a bit of diet too, because it’s not as if you can hit the gym and eat whatever you want afterward. So before you sign up for a program that makes you eat out of a box, try taking out the time to exercise. Or, see a dietitian and get them to give you a meal plan, so you can prepare your own meals fresh, in your own kitchen.
Not only will you have personalized support, which diet programs claim to give you but fall short, you’ll also have far superior meals in terms of nutrition and quality. Think about being healthy and thin, not just thin.
However, if you do not have the time for the gym or to make your own meals, which, increasingly, is the case with a lot of people, then go with one of the diet food delivery programs that seems right for you. But remember that sustainability is the key. You must not get overambitious, so try a meal plan that you can keep up with. The worst thing you can do is to pump money into something that you can’t carry on with.
More difficult than losing weight, is keeping it off. Train yourself to eat less, because once your stomach is used to less food, you will get full on smaller portions. Last, don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow yourself that treat once in a while, no matter which of the diet food delivery programs you go with because if you don’t, chances are you’ll just give it all up one day and go back to being to that fat person in the mirror.