Busy...
My least favorite word.
And yet my favorite excuse.
I'm busy alright... I exercise like crazy! But my food intake is sloppy and inconsistent. I love, love, love healthy fresh foods (really, I do!), but my busy-as-a-bee lifestyle makes it difficult to find time for proper food prep. Add in my hatred for grocery shopping and we've got ourselves a real problem. I can go all day without eating (bad, bad, bad) and then I'm starving by late-afternoon. Typically, I end up grabbing whatever is quick and easy in the house. Several nights a week, I don't get home from the gym until late. I'm famished and looking for something quick. My track record of "choices" is not stellar. I'm not the only one who gets sucked into this routine, right?
That is exactly why I was excited when asked to review Diet-to-Go, a diet meal delivery service that was recently ranked #1 by Epicurious. A couple weeks ago, I came home to find a styrofoam box on my doorstep... packed with individually wrapped frozen meals amongst dry ice.
I selected the "Traditional" diet meals, but there is also vegetarian and low-carb options as well. I received an assortment of breakfast, lunch and dinner meals to sample. While all the food was neatly organized in packages, I would have liked to see a printed "menu", outlining what to eat each day and the nutritional totals for that day. Instead, I just grabbed whatever sounded good each day.
 |
| Cranapple Muffin with cream cheese sauce |
- Wheat French Toast Bake
- Egg with Spinach, Chicken Sausage and Asparagus
- Tomato Veggie Pie
- Chicken Salad Sandwich
- Waldorf Chicken Salad Sandwich
- Wahoo Fish Burger
- Black Been Soup & sides
- Stir Fry Chicken Dinner
- Creole Dinner
- Chicken Fajita Dinner
My favorite was the Stir Fry Chicken Dinner (pictured above). Real vegetables, chicken breast meat with sauce and brown rice. It was both yummy and filling.
My least favorite was the sandwiches in general. I'm a carb gal... I seriously know and value fresh bread. I was not a fan of the bread used with these lunch meals. With the Waldorf Chicken Salad Sandwich (pictured above), I ended up scooping out the inside "chicken mix" and eating it atop a bowl of spinach.
PROS
• The convenience of course! Instead of digging for food or tempted by the drive-thru on the way home in the evening, I knew exactly what was for dinner... with no shopping or prep work. Most meals slid straight out of the freezer into the microwave and were done in less than 6 minutes.
• I found all the dinner creations were quite tasty and filling. Several times, I added extra veggies that I had in the fridge. I just prefer an abundance of vegetables on my plate... more filling with little added calories.
• Diet-to-Go offer no cancellation fees or gimmick pricing. There is no commitment or contract, and they offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. You can pause, stop or restart your diet meal plan at any time. I like the control factor of that.
• Should you find certain meals that you don't care for (like I did with the sandwiches), Diet-to-Go's online customer tools make it easy to do meal substitutions.
• New meal flavors without wasting time searching and analyzing recipes. Diet-to-Go is like your own personal chef. Best of all, no pots and pans to wash!
CONS
• I thought the calorie counts were a bit high for a diet. The Wahoo Fish Burger was a fairly small dish that I had for lunch one day... 710 calories is a bit much for me. To see weight come off, I usually need to keep each meal under 500 calories, especially if I'm to allow for snacks. I also thought the sodium was high in most dishes... but that's coming from a girl who basically quit using salt (and doesn't miss it). Even my mom thinks I'm weird.
• The backside of each meal had ingredient information, some of which were quite long with too many words that I can't pronounce. I was kinda puzzled that only about half of my meals had nutritional information listed. How do I log this meal into my tracker without knowing the calorie count? Eeek! A dieter's nightmare.
The cost can be a PRO and a CON. When I grocery shop, I buy so much more than I'm suppose to. In the end, I spend more cashola... on things I shouldn't have. So a meal delivery service can help me in that respect. However, I still have to feed my family. Thus, I still have to make that dreaded trip to the grocery store. The Diet-to-Go meals average $6-8 per meal. Depending on your lifestyle (how much you eat out and what you're currently eating), that may be a lot or right in line. I think it varies based on your current situation and how you place value "service" in your lifestyle.
• • •
Have you ever tried a diet meal delivery service?
If you'd like to try Diet-to-Go,
use the coupon code fitfluential
and receive 20% off any meal plan.
FitFluential LLC compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.
Diet-to-Go Rating:
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Reviewed By: Jess McMullin
Reviewed By: Jess McMullin
I saw a lot of the "diet to go" posts going around and I had a feeling the ingredient list was what you had mentioned. It seems like a lot of the pre-packed foods are chocked full of chemicals and preservatives. I'm trying to be better about pre-making my meals and freezing them for on my way out the door to work. Thanks for this honest review!
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to eat frozen meals with preservatives, you might as well just go to the freezer section of your grocery store and stock up on WW breakfasts, meals and desserts. They're a lot cheaper and you know the exact calorie count of each item. With sales and coupons, they're less than $2/meal, which would be $6/day, excluding your fresh fruit, veggies and dairy products. Then you can pick out exactly what you like. Doesn't sound like a great deal, sort of like Nutrisystem!
ReplyDeleteNever tried anything like this but it sounds interesting! I can't imagine that frozen bread tasted all that good, so I don't blame you for putting chicken salad on spinach instead.
ReplyDeletesounds interesting, but I too would worry about the preservatives etc. Great review!
ReplyDeleteDon't mean to be so "bottom line" but did it help you lose weight? Thanks for the review, though. I've done Nutrisystem and it worked in so far as I lost weight, but I had a hard time transitioning back to real food and over time I gained almost all the weight back -- granted it took two years to do so, but it was discouraging this January to be about the same place I was when I started Nutrisystem. So I'm very wary of any prepacked set up as I am afraid I won't be able to make the transition to home-cooked food effectively. Now I'm just logging and using a program called "Metabolism Miracle" to help with my food choices (I have to be super careful about carbs).
ReplyDeleteloved the honesty of the review. Although you only had the wahoo fish burger as a seafood item, is there an option to put in where you have allergies or dislikes. I CANNOT do seafood, i'll gag, so i'm just curious if they take that into consideration, OR if it's ONLY those 3 options you listed above to order from
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you would like their program. Thanks for taking the time to do a write up. It probably wouldn't be for me since I'm so picky. After reading your review, I would buy freezer food instead, so I could personally pick out my favorites.
ReplyDeleteI really loved the low carb option and appreciated the no excuses approach when I open my fridge for food. :)
ReplyDeleteNice website and great information that you have shared.Really i like your website.You shared a great information about how to lose weight.Thanks for sharing your website.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your very helpful review of DTG. I ordered DTG from www.couponchief.com because they offered good discount and was so excited when the whole package arrived. The food was way better than what I had anticipated. I’m really glad that DTG is very affordable. I can finally experience a meal replacement program that consists of real food. Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed in Diet to Go. I am a veteran dieter and very accepting of diet food, but didn't care for this at all. I am baffled that this diet gets high ratings. The dishes were oddly spices and the bread was terrible, even stale. Too many of the dishes were things that I could have easily prepared on my own. The calorie count was all over the map with lunches running from 400-600 calories so it was hard to plan snacks and get into a rhythm. I did it with husband and am pretty sure they kept confusing our meals. Customer service is either lazy or untrained, I couldn't tell which. For the price, I expected much more than I received.
ReplyDelete