If lack of time is the biggest reason you don't enjoy healthy meals every night, you may consider diet meal delivery services as a shortcut to weight loss. Most big cities now have at least one company delivering fresh diet food to customers on a daily basis, and you can always order your food online.
If you need to take a nutritious lunch to work so that you avoid eating fast food, delivered meals come ready to heat and eat. Most services allow you to select from a menu of diet food, and complete meal services include snacks. Delivery meals are clearly convenient, but are they worth the financial investment? For some people they are, but not necessarily in all cases.
The Cost of Diet Delivery
There is one problem that you may run into: meal delivery services can be pricey. Prices can run from $120 to well over $300 to feed just one person for one week. The lower end of that cost range may not seem too expensive, but keep in mind that you may still need to purchase fresh fruits or vegetables to supplement your diet and snacks aren't always included.
If you are single or aren't responsible for feeding other members of your family, you may already spend $100 or more at the grocery store each week, especially purchase higher-priced convenience foods instead of cooking. If you are responsible for feeding other members of your family, you'll still need to factor in the cost of their groceries.
Meals at the lower end of that price range are typically from internet-based companies delivering frozen foods to customers around the country. If you want to order your meals fresh from a local company and have them delivered to your doorstep daily, expect to pay no less than $200 for a full week of meals.
Will You Lose Weight with Diet Delivery Meals?
When determining whether it's worth the expense to have diet foods delivered to your home, you have to consider how effective they are at helping you lose weight. You may really want them to work, but there are two things to keep in mind:
- No diet plan will work if you don't stick to the plan consistently. You can't eat your delivered meal plus other foods and expect to lose weight.
- You can't use diet delivery services forever. At some point, you will need to start preparing your own foods. You are at risk of regaining the weight if you don't know how to cook healthy meals at home.
If you believe that you can follow the delivery diet over a long period of time, you may find that they are worth the investment. Just prepare to take over the cooking if your service is ever unavailable or your financial situation changes and you can no longer pay for this service. Keep notes on the foods you like from the program! Then, when you're ready to start cooking, you can look up a few similar recipes and get on the right track.
