Standard Theodora disclosure: paid review to follow.
I work long hours, volunteer a lot, train for races and take care of my little dog. And try to have a life?
I enjoy cooking, but it usually gets shoved to the bottom of my priorities list in favor of takeout or easy-to-assemble meals.
Enter: Diet To Go. I got the opportunity to review this diet delivery service through FitFluential, and I jumped right on it. When I used to live on Wall Street, I occasionally saw diet-delivery boxes outside my neighbors’ doors, and you read about the fancy services the stars use.
I figured you had to have many leatherbound books and mahogany furniture to use a service like this, but I was wrong.
The meals showed up in this styrofoam box packed with dry ice.
Your options include: traditional meals, vegetarian meals or low-carb meals. I told them I was allergic to peanuts, and went with traditional meals.
I got several days of breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
My favorite meal was a whole wheat Monte Cristo, which was one of the breakfasts. Like most of the meals, it was really tasty. They were recently rated the #1 diet delivery company by Epicurious.
I wish there had also been a dairy-free version of the diet. I can’t handle much dairy, unfortunately. This cheesy sandwich was fine, but I knew the yogurt would be too much for me, so I had a banana instead. There was also a pretzel + broccoli cheddar soup that I had to skip because I knew the cheddar soup wouldn’t work for me.
They also have a tool to tell you how many calories you should be going for, including whether you’re exercising or not. (These are based on my own stats, so please find what works for you, etc.) Since I do exercise, I need more calories. (Exercising FTW.)
Their site allows you to make tons of substitutions and customizations to fit your needs, although they currently don’t do vegan, kosher or gluten-free. The meal plan includes three meals per day. They don’t include snacks, but for the regular low-fat plan (which is what I did), they recommend fruits and veggies as snacks; for the low-carb plan, they recommend eggs or cheeses. Since I’m not currently trying to lose weight, I had almonds and fruits for my snacks.
The meals have a 5-6 day shelf life (although I managed to squeeze a day or two more out of a few of them?) and can be frozen, too.
I really enjoyed the meatloaf dinner, too. It was served with sweet potatoes and green beans and a whole grain roll. It was filling enough that I didn’t even need to eat the roll. (Or I was sick. Whatever.)
I’m usually more of a big lunch/smaller dinner girl since I get home late, so I had this stir-fry dinner for lunch like a rebel. It was tasty–but its sodium content was 50%+, and I felt bloated and thirsty for the rest of the afternoon.
For real, not-frozen food, the pricing is relatively reasonable (as in, for what it is: it’s still a lot of money): $95.99 for 5 lunches and 5 dinners, or a little less than $10/meal. Definitely less than eating NYC takeout for every meal. They’re also offering 20% off through 1/31 and giving away 1,000 meals on Facebook.
FitFluential LLC compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.
Have you/would you ever do a meal delivery service? What would be your dream meals in your magic meal delivery box? My magic meal delivery box would definitely include some lobster.
Reviewed By:Theodora Blanchfield
I don’t think I’d be able to do one of these kinds of services but I definitely know some people these would probably be perfect for. Personally I have too many dietary restrictions or easily upset tummy and if I’m not personally making the food, it’s questionable how my body responds.
@Katie @ Talk Less, Say More: I liked the idea and convenience of it a lot, but I’d definitely need a dairy-free version if I were to ever do it again.
“Since I do exercise, I need more calories. (Exercising FTW.)” That made me LOL. I love the way you write, it’s just so exactly the way you converse, just very direct and blunt (in a good way).
Anyways, I don’t think I’d ever do a meal delivery service. Maybe I’m just saying that because I still live at home and my mom makes awesome meals. But packaged food creeps me out. I have never ever been a frozen meal person, not even in college. I don’t like buying packaged meals out. I just don’t like picking up a meal that’s sealed up in a container. I’m weird that way. I did not sign up for this campaign, obviously haha. But I’ve been enjoying watching people post their Diet to Go pics on Instagram after all the meals are plated. Have to say when they are I can’t tell it’s a delivery packaged meal at all!
I got their lunches delivered for a few weeks. Lunches are the hardest for me, I can plan dinner and breakfast and then I’m standing in the middle of the store thinking, but what am I going to take to work every day for lunch?
It’s definitely convenient, but I wasn’t thrilled with their lunch options. It was very sandwich heavy. They were delicious (hello french toast for bread) but I just didn’t think they were totally balanced. I felt like I didn’t get much for veggies in the lunch options and the calories for each meal were kind of all over the place which was hard since I wasn’t doing the whole plan. I think if I were to try it again I might just order the dinners for lunches, but that also ups the price. Sigh.
The food looked surprisingly good.