Muscle Food Do The Unthinkable

Muscle Food Do The Unthinkable

By Trudi Purdy, wlr team

Muscle Food has been around a while, supplying meats, snacks, ready meals and supplements etc for those wanting to train hard and build muscle.

We featured their Live Clean ready meal range a while ago.

This was their first foray into the world of calorie counted meals aimed at those who wanted to lose weight.

Now they have launched Do The Unthinkable.

We decided to investigate and find out what it is all about. And we have a discount code for you to get £10 off!

What is Do The Unthinkable?

Muscle Food say it is a complete fitness and food system to help you get the fit, healthy body you’ve always wanted.

Basically, it’s a food and exercise plan designed to help you achieve your goals where all of your food and exercise plans are supplied for you.

How Does it Work?

When you click to get started, the site asks what you want to pick from the following goals:

  • To be slim and toned
  • To lose weight
  • To build lean muscle
  • To get ripped

It also asks you what gender you are, your age group, current weight and how many active hours you have in a week.

From here you choose which plan suits you:

  • Weekend off 5 day plan
  • Cheat day 6 day plan
  • All out 7 day plan

You then get taken through to the menu section where you choose the meals and snacks you like the sound of. There are vegan and vegetarian options available.

For each plan you select all 3 meals and 3 snacks for however many days you have chosen. You will need to add veggies, noodles, rice etc to some of the evening meals, but more on that later.

Once you have chosen your menu for your first week, you just sit back and wait for the delivery.

The idea behind the plan is that you do it for the full 90 days to become a DTU graduate. But, as there is no subscription, you can cancel at anytime.

My Delivery
My delivery

What Do You Get?

When your delivery arrives, it comes packaged with frozen bags to keep the food cool in transit.

I had mine delivered to the office and the packs kept the food cool until I got home and could put it in the fridge or freezer.

The idea behind the plan is that you do it for the full 90 days to become a DTU graduate. But, as there is no subscription, you can cancel at anytime.

Do The Unthinkable Recipe Organiser
Do The Unthinkable Recipe Organiser

In the box is all your meals and snacks, an exercise DVD for Phase 1, a recipe organiser with recipes in for the days you are not eating their prepped meals, a booklet to get your started and a ‘Transform Your Body’ wall planner to track your progress.

You also get access to the workouts and other documents like a workout tracker and meal planner through your account online.

Here you can also track your orders, change the food you have chosen, edit account details etc.

There is also some good support available.

You can join the Facebook group where you are among other Do The Unthinkable members as well as Muscle Food staff and the DTU PT, Steve.

Do The Unthinkable PT Steve
Do The Unthinkable PT Steve

You can post questions, tips, progress reports etc for other members and PT Steve to answer and comment on.

From what I saw, it was a really positive group with lots of camaraderie, encouragement and interaction with the other members as well as DTU staff. You can use FB Messenger to talk with DTU staff and PT Steve privately.

PT Steve also does live workouts and Q & A sessions in the Facebook group.

On the DTU site there is a chat facility with PT Steve from 2-4pm weekdays.

The Food

In the booklet you get with your first delivery, it tells you the benefits of the workouts and plan as well as giving you details on what to drink, what you can add to the meals, the best oils to cook with etc.

You’re supplied with breakfast, lunch, dinner as well as three snacks for morning, afternoon and evening.

Muscle Food Example Breakfasts
DTU breakfast

Breakfast examples

Protein bars, scrambled eggs, pancakes, porridge

I’m not a fan of bars for meals so I avoided those. But I did have the pancakes, the scrambled eggs and the porridge.

I tried the banana, ginger and plain porridges and liked them all. They are really easy to transport as they are in a pot and dead easy to make – just pop the kettle on and add boiling water to the pot.

The only slight disappointment with the porridge is that they didn’t really taste of the flavours they were advertised as. That said, I still enjoyed them.

They did a great job of keeping me full. So much so that I found I didn’t need the mid morning snacks quite regularly.

The pancakes were awesome!

The scramble, however, not so much. I only had this once, thankfully, but it was bland with a really bitty texture. Not at all pleasant. Again though, it was filling and kept me going for the morning.

Muscle Food Beef Lasagne
DTU lasagne

Lunch examples

Rice pots, ready meals and kits

The rice pots are brilliantly convenient for work because you just pop them in the microwave and there is no washing up afterwards. They can be frozen or kept in the fridge and can even be cooked from frozen.

Some of the rice pots I chose were flavours like chicken satay, Thai green curry, chicken chow mein and BBQ chicken.

I found some of them to be a little bit dry but really tasty and filling. The only one I wasn’t keen on was the BBQ chicken one but I can’t really explain why as I normally like the sweetness of BBQ sauce – I just didn’t like it.

I also had some of the ready meals like the Beef Lasagne with Rainbow Veg. These also go in the microwave and can be kept in the fridge or frozen. If you freeze them though, they need to be defrosted before cooking.

The lasagne tasted great and the veg was lovely. The only issue I had was the texture of the mince, it was really bitty.

The pulled pork wasn’t great – it just didn’t have any taste really.

Muscle Food Sample Dinners
DTU dinners

Dinner examples

Pizza, curry kits, stir-fries and rice pots.

I had the goat’s cheese pizza – yum!

It had caramelised red onion as one of the toppings which was lovely – could have done with a bit more of it.

Bonus Tip: spread the toppings out a little before cooking.

The curry kits and stir-fries were really easy to cook – ready in about 10 minutes.

These do need you to add to them. Rice, noodles, jacket potato etc. Not because there isn’t enough in the meal but to finish the meal off.

My favourite was the Chinese style pork stir fry – really tasty!

Muscle Food Sample Snacks
DTU snacks

Snack examples

Popcorn, protein bars, pork scratchings, Malt Loaf bars, protein balls, Yumm protein crunchers, cheese snacks, nuts, puffs, beef jerky, soups, chicken on a stick.

I have a bit of a sweet tooth in the afternoons and evenings so I went for the sweeter snacks on the whole.

The protein crunchers were great. Individual crunchy bites of either milk or white chocolate made into chocolate rice crispie style balls.

The mint Hi Lo bar was very chewy, making it very satisfying to eat but it did have a bit of a chemical taste.

The sweet protein popcorn tasted good and you get a large portion but it had a strange powder all over it making eating it a little strange. That said, I had that as my evening snack quite a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it – especially sat on the Friday night watching a film.

Do The Unthinkable Chinese Chicken on a Stick
Do The Unthinkable Chinese Chicken on a Stick

The Chinese chicken on a stick looked really unappetising but tasted a-maz-ing!

I tried the Teriyaki chicken noodle soup and wasn’t overly impressed. It looked like dishwater. It tasted nice though. The noodles were a little thin and disappointing but, for a snack, very filling.

The cheese combos were lovely. I really enjoyed the Combo Cheese Snack Power Ultimate Boost. The spicy Chorizo bites were good!

I’ve had Hippeas puffs before so I knew I was going to enjoy those and the pork scratching were tasty. Not like pork scratchings as you know them but an excellent ‘diet’ version.

I regularly missed out the morning snack because breakfast was keeping me full. I’m also a bit of an evening snacker so I saved them for the evening and had them if I felt I needed them.

Overall, I enjoyed the food. I did find I got a little fed up with curries and stir-fries or rice-based meals so, maybe, I should have chosen a wider variety of the ready meals and pizzas.

I was on the 7 day plan and went to London on one of the days. It was impossible to follow the food on the plan as I didn’t have access to a microwave etc.

Do The Unthinkable don’t give you a calorie allowance but I logged my food in my wlr food diary so I could see what was happening with cals, carbs, fats and protein.

Although DTU isn’t ‘low carb, high protein’ per se, I did see that my carb intake was a little lower and protein was a little higher than normal.

On average, my carb intake was 43.1%, protein was 32.5% and fats were 23.6%.

Cals for 5 Days

Day Daily Cals + Exercise Consumed Difference
Mon 1973 1587 -386
Tues 1562 1560 -2
Weds 2006 1781 -226
Thurs 1544 1712 168
Fri 1884 1864 -20

The Workouts

Along with the food, you also get access to DTU workouts via a DVD or through your online account.

You start with the fitness test on Day 1 which is an HIIT session.

Do The Unthinkable PT & Team
Do The Unthinkable PT & Team

PT Steve leads a team to show you what to do and you log how many of each exercise you manage to do in the time allotted.

The idea is that you do the same fitness test at the end of each 30 days to see how far you have come fitness-wise.

There are also workouts to follow during the 30 days. DTU create an exercise planner for you in your account, based on the info you gave at the beginning. It tells you what workouts to do on what days, incorporating rest days.

The workouts are definitely designed to work you hard! They are circuit based and include HIIT type sessions with Tabata and Plyometric workouts included too.

You also have access to bonus workouts like Yoga and Stretching and Low Intensity Workouts.

PT Steve also does live workouts on the Facebook page for you to join in with if you like.

What I liked about the workouts was that the team behind PT Steve were at all different levels of fitness and you can see them struggling at times to execute the exercises – made me feel a bit of camaraderie with them! And, these workouts are definitely hard. Some people may find them too much, especially if they have been pretty inactive up til now.

How Much Will DTU Cost?

You can choose between 5, 6 or 7 day plans but each plan includes all the meals and 3 snacks for each day.

You will want to add some things like fruit, veg, noodles and rice to some of the meals like the curry kits etc but, the bulk of your food is sorted.

  • 7 day plan £79 (£1.88 per meal time)
  • 6 day plan £69 (£1.91 per meal time)
  • 5 day plan £60 (£2 per meal time)

This does seem reasonably expensive, especially if you have a family to feed too.

The upside for some though is that it takes all of the thought out of meal prep for you plus you get access to some really great workouts and support.

DTU – The Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Pretty convenient on the whole, although days out are a little more difficult
  • Because of the high protein content and the 6 meals a day, you shouldn’t feel hungry
  • Takes away the effort of thinking about and planning what to eat and what exercises to do
  • Great support system
  • New foods being launched to keep the menu interesting

Cons

  • Reasonably expensive
  • Eating 6 meals a day when they are prepped for you could make it difficult to manage when you’re doing it for yourself. It could lead to overeating if you get used to eating 3 meals and 3 snacks every day.
  • Doesn’t educate you when it comes to preparing your own healthy meals
  • Boredom with rice or noodle-based meals
  • Some products tasted a little strange
  • Not very convenient for days away from the home or office

Ultimately, if you prefer a lot of variety in your food and being able to choose your own diet plan, DTU is probably not for you.

However, if you like the idea of someone else doing the meal prep and having a virtual PT on hand then DTU might be what you are looking for and you may feel the cost is justified as an investment into the new you.

Discount Code

If you like the idea of giving Do The Unthinkable a try, we have secured £10 off for you. All you need to do is go to Do The Unthinkable and use the code WEIGHTLOSS10 and the £10 will be deducted for you.

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