Thoughts on Diet Chef | My Mills Baby

Last night I had the pleasure of choosing my Diet Chef meal choices for the 4 weeks ahead. Obviously I expected the choice to be more varied than your average restaurant (after all they’re asking you to eat nothing but this for 4 weeks), but I hadn’t expected such an eclectic range of dishes; from traditional English fare, to Chinese to Indian.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect this to be easy. It’ll be a real shock indulging in three set meals a day. I usually skip breakfast, subsequently binge eat at 11am, hoover up Dexter’s leftovers at midday, then have a man-sized dinner portion. This is entirely my fault, I have no appetite after facing morning nappies, and leave Craig in charge of the evening meal. He’s so used to me eying up his plate and arguing the toss over who has the most roast potatoes, that he now serves us identical plates to avoid an ear-bashing.

I’m also under no illusion that the portion sizes will come as a shock (I did spot that Dief Chef’s Sausage and Onion Gravy dish only had 2x 70g sausages!). Having said that, I’ve opted for particularly wholesome breakfasts (granola, muesli and porridge of various fruity guises) and, what I hope to be, flavoursome soups for lunch, I’m hoping therefore I won’t be as ravenous come dinner time.

Pre-trial, is also a great time to explain how easy the ordering process was. Once you select the length of your trial Diet Chef will prepare a sample menu for you. It’s then a simple case of plus and minusing dishes to personalise to your taste. The entire menu will show as red if you’ve too few or too many meals selected, then turn green to inform you that you’re all set and ready to proceed to the checkout.

Whilst choosing your meals you can click into each one for a description of the dish, a list of ingredients (handy for those with allergies) and a picture (handy for managing expectations if you’re a greedy cow!).

It would be nice to have a link to customer testimonials of each meal at this review stage. Although I appreciate this could fall foul of comments from us Pampered Princesses comparing Diet Chef’s oat bars to Maryland Cookies, it would be useful given you might select 5x Vegetable Lasagnes throughout your 4 week stint and miss out on their highly commended Beef Rogan Josh.

Neatly, you can also exchange meals. So if you find you do not like some of the meals, or if you discover a dish you’d like to try, having already placed your order, you can send the meals you don’t want back within three weeks of receiving your hamper and they’ll pop the replacement items of your choice in the post for you free of charge - Genius.

If you’re new to Diet Chef, are flicking through and decide to impulse buy, you can proceed with your order without being turfed out to set up an account - this is fab if you’ve been pouring over your meal choices for a good 15 minutes and visualising what your next 28 days will look like. There’s also the option to email your draft menu to yourself to fiddle with on your iPhone on the bus on the way home from work.

Payment is via card or PayPal (major plus) so your account is secure and there are minimal clicks to finish. Delivery is free Monday to Friday and takes 2-3 days. Next day delivery (or weekend slots) will set you back £9.95.

My plan (28 days) costs £245* which isn’t cheap but you get the peace of mind of knowing that’s it’s all calorie counted for you, and each meal requires minimal preparation time. If it works, it will be worth every penny.

* You can get a plan for £195 per month or £185 per month or if you go for the 8 or 12 week plans. See more HERE. There’s also a 21 day money back guarantee, meaning customers who don’t like the diet can contact the Customer Services Team and invoke the money back guarantee. Provided they send their first hamper back to Diet Chef within three weeks of receiving it, they will get a full refund on the subscription they have paid, and no further hampers will be issued.