Delivered Diet Food: Diet Chef

By WLR's Site Manager, Laurence Beeken

Do you want your own personal chef who does all the planning, measuring and cooking?

This is the sales pitch from Diet Chef, a diet delivery service that provides a calorie counted selection of food for each day of the week.

Breakfasts consist of granola, muesli, cookies or porridge. Lunches are soups, pasta pots, shakes or bars.

Dinners are ready meals to be popped in the microwave where needed. The snacks are things like oat biscuits, rice bars and popcorn.

How much will Diet Chef delivery cost me?

(Pricing checked January 2018)

Diet Chef food delivery will cost between £6.25-£8.75 per day depending on the package chosen.

You'll need to buy fresh fruit, veg and milk from your nomal shop and some of the meals, like meatballs and pasta, don't include the pasta.

The prices below are for a female customer, the price is increased by £30 a month for a male.

Price Options (based on 1200 calories)

The Core Plan:

£245 for 28 days

£199 per month for 2 months, paid monthly

£190* per month for 3 months, paid monthly

*Special Offer

The Vegetarian Plan:

£239 for 28 days
£189 for 2 months, paid monthly
£179 for 3 months, paid monthly

The Premiuim Plan:

£279 for 28 days
£229 for 2 months, paid monthly
£219 for 3 months, paid monthly

The Weekend Flex:

£149 for 28 days

Fast Blast:

£60 for 28 days (diet meals for 2 days a week)

How does Diet Chef compare to Weight Loss Resources?

For just £11.95 per month you can use all of the tools and resources available from WLR. You’ll learn about portion control and how to change your eating habits for life. We’ll give you the freedom to make you own choices, lose weight and keep it off.

Why not take a free trial and see how you can lose weight and control your own meals.

Take our FREE trial »

How does Diet Chef delivery work?

You select the plan you would like to follow and place the order.

You will need to buy your own fruit, veg and milk to be added into the meals and some meals require extras like pasta.

What is my calorie quota for the diet foods delivered?

The site offers a free personal profile to work out your BMI and daily recommended calories. You enter your body statistics and get a report of BMI, daily calorie burn and calorie requirements to lose 1-2lbs a week.

Once you have added in the fruit, veg and milk the meals for one day come to approximately 1200 calories.

However, when we tested the personal profile, it gave a calorie deficit of 700 calories to lose 1-2lb. The deficit needed to lose 1lb is 500 calories per day and to lose 2lb is 1000 calories per day. So this major piece of information is out slightly.

If your calorie allowance to lose weight is more than 1200, the site recommends you add in some extra food. However, there is no information for people whose calorie allowance is less than 1200 to lose weight.

A point to bear in mind is that Diet Chef plans are meant to be calorie and portion controlled with no counting calories, points or syns. However, having to add in your own fruit, veg, pasta and rice could prove problematic.

What is the correct portion size to add? Or the correct weight? Especially with the rice and pasta portions as they are both calorific.

A typical menu for the delivered diet food Core Plan (3 days)

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Chocolate Porridge	Pea and Ham Soup	Sauasages in Onion Gravy	Fruit Oat Biscuits
Buttermilk Pancake Mix	Tomato & Herb Couscous Pot	Thai Red Chicken Curry	Sweet Coconut & Choc Chip Bites
Luxury Muesli	Chocolate Flavoured Protein Bar	Vegetable Curry	Oat Bar with Stawberry & Apple

There is also the option to ‘top up’ your Diet Chef delivered food with extra snacks.

What support is offered by Diet Chef?

There is a ‘support’ button at the bottom of the screen. You click on this and type in your question.

The site then searches through the FAQs for you. If it doesn’t find an FAQ that fits your question, you can then leave a message for someone to email you back.

You can also email direct but there is no phone number, forums or any kind of human contact available. Any kind of contact with Diet Chef takes a while.

Diet Chef Plans

There are 6 plans available to choose from:

The standard 3 meals and a snack a day plan - the most popular diet plan with a choice of over 70 controlled meals and snacks.
Weekend Flex – 5 days of Diet Chef meals and snacks for Monday to Friday, leaving you to sort your own food for the weekend.
Diet Now – a very low calorie diet consisting of shakes, bars and meal packs. There are 6 VLCD plans available depending on where you are on your weight loss journey.
Fast Blast – for those wanting to follow the 5:2 diet. The meals supplied are for the 2 fast days but the actual calorie count in the meals is not given.
Vegetarian Plan - a selection of delicious vegetarian meals and snacks with 50 meals and snacks to chose from. Selection of either a 4, 8 or 12 week plan.
Premium Plan - new for 2018 this plan has the largest choice of 110 meals and snacks including a new range of high-protein meals and snacks.

Can I try before I buy?

There is no longer a free trial available. However, in 2011 you could get a sample pack.

We asked for one on 05/04/11 but it was never delivered. After a few emails to Diet Chef regarding the whereabouts of the trial meal we eventually received our soup on 03/05/11.

It was from the Lunch Menu: Lentil and Vegetable Soup (300g)
The portion was quite small but it tasted like a good home-made soup.
It took 3 minutes to cook in the microwave so if you have those facilities at work it’s easy to make.
The soup was thick and therefore quite filling but the portion was just so small. Having to wait 5 hours for dinner was just impossible, and within that time you may seriously struggle to fight off the urges to snack.

Will Diet Chef Work For Me?

The DietChef home delivery diet consists of food which is calorie and portion controlled so, if followed strictly, would result in weight loss.

However, having to add your own fresh fruit and veg makes tracking what you are actually eating very difficult.

Having the option to compliment their food packages is nice, but it does make you think more about the cost of your food bill.

You'll be paying for their meals but still having to add in the extras, increasing the overall cost.

DietChef might be a good option to get the weight moving for a week or two but it would be difficult to follow the programme for much longer than that.

How much weight could I lose?

Diet Chef says that following their normal meal delivery plan would give you a healthy, sustainable weight loss of 1-2lbs a week.

Weight Loss Resources’ View

If you have enough will power to just stick to what is sent to you, then you should lose weight.

The meals are designed to give you 1200 calories once you have added in your own fruit, veg and milk, but like any restrictive plan, there will be the temptation to eat more. Without a food diary, you cannot monitor any ‘extras’.

You basically just buy the meals and add what you want to them. However there is nothing to stop you eating the meals and then eating anything else that is lying around – and if you have a family, then there is a chance that you will snack as you prepare meals for the rest of the family.

Although you can generate a personal report, it seems the information isn't quite correct.

As always, it’s a reduction in calories that will shift those pounds. Diet Chef is just another way to do this and might suit you if you can afford the cost of the meals.

Ultimately, it’s just as easy – and much cheaper – to follow a 1,200-1,400 calorie diet based on foods from the four main food groups, and eat the things that you enjoy!

Devise Your Own Diet Plan

If you'd like to devise your own diet plan (or use one of ours) why not take a 24hr free trial...

You'll get full access to the UK's largest online calorie and nutrition database, extensive recipes and plans databases, and you can calorie count your own recipes and plans.