Food In A Box

Yeah, OK, long story less long:  I'm trying TheFreshDiet.com (there was a groupon) -- I get two weeks of their "premium" food delivery plan.  Hoping to kick-start a bit of weight loss.  I've been basically keeping to my food plan from a few years ago, which has resulted (more or less) in maintaining my current weight.  Which is all well and good, until I go on vacation or something -- next thing I know, I've put on a couple pounds, and then I can't lose them, because all I seem to do is maintain -- whether I exercise or not (which is currently not, thanks to tweaking my back).  So I figured one of the things I could do to improve things isn't so much to mess with calorie count, but to eat less processed foods -- enter TheFreshDiet, which delivers freshly made food to your door on a daily basis.

(OK, maybe that was the long version.)

So, there will be regular reports on the food.  First:  the baseline.  My weight is ... let's just say 5.6 pounds above where I'd really like it to be.

Report on Today's Food:
We need a little more truth in advertising from the FreshDiet people.  My breakfast was advertised as "multi-grain pancakes with strawberries."  My breakfast was actually "multi-grain pancake with strawberry."  You see the difference, yes?  One four-inch diameter pancake and four strawberry slices.  To be fair to the pancake, it was surprisingly tasty.  And, considering its multi-grain-ness, it wasn't what you'd call light and fluffy, which pretty much meant it was fairly filling, and you wouldn't want to eat a whole lot of them.  So, despite the small quantity, breakfast was edible, tasty, and filling.  A solid B.

Lunch was "Asian Flank Steak on Whole Wheat Roll" with peanut sauce.  Here, the surprise was how fatty the meat was.  I mean, when I'm buying my own food, I wouldn't buy meat this marbled.  It was, again, edible and tasty (except a particularly fatty bit), but I definitely expected lean meat from these folks.  That's a C.

My snack was billed as a "Grilled Shrimp Skewer" which was actually ... guesses, anyone? ... two grilled shrimp in a box.  (All the food was in plastic reheatable boxes -- and there was a note to not reheat sauce and dressing containers.  There was no note not to reheat the shrimp box.  There should have been.  In the microwave, the plastic box deflated and started melting around the shrimp.  Had I not acted quickly, I would've been left with shrink-wrapped shrimp.)  Edible, bland, poorly packaged, not all that filling.  C-.


Dinner was a pleasant surprise quantity-wise.  Considering the itty bitty quantities of everything else, I thought they'd actually made a mistake when I saw three sizeable pieces of chicken breast in there.  My normal diet includes keeping my protein portions at about 4 ounces per meal -- given the vast amount of chicken for dinner (and teeny amount of flank steak at lunch), I thought I might consider moving some dinner meat to lunch in future.  The chicken was allegedly in "Orange Tea Leaf Sauce," which I could politely describe as "delicate" and rather more honestly describe as "tasteless."  Edible, though.  Filling.  C.


Dessert was a chocolate chip muffin, reasonably-sized (although not what you'd get from a muffin store or anything).  Tasty.  B+.


Interesting note from tomorrow's delivery (just received):  FreshDiet's premium plan lets you select an unlimited amount of foods you WON'T eat -- they promise that if none of their menu choices are appetizing, they'll prepare something for you that doesn't include any of your dislikes.  Yeah.  So today's lunch is "Sloppy Joe Sub on Whole Wheat Bun with Crunchy Asparagus."  I am not an asparagus fan, so was curious to see what I'd get instead.  What I got was "Sloppy Joe no Asparagus."  I am not amused.  No substitution (not even a carrot or something).  I simply get LESS food.  And tomorrow's dinner includes a veggie I won't eat (I thought I put it on my dislike list, but apparently not).  Result being I'm going to have to go the store to buy some fresh fruit or veggies to supplement the FreshDiet food I'm getting, because they're either just omitting disliked veggies, or giving me veggies I don't like.  I am a bit ticked about this.  (I'd be a lot more ticked if I wasn't getting this on a discount groupon.)  But this is an expensive food plan -- the idea is that they deliver fresh food to you every morning so you don't have to buy ANYTHING to go with it.  And I have to buy something to go with it.


So, basically, so far I am pretty disappointed in my food in a box.  


Of course, if I start dropping weight on this plan, my opinion may turn around.