Meal delivery plans are a big deal Stateside, and now they’re beginning to creep into the UK. The new age-sounding Zenergy is a weight loss meal plan which subscribes to the little and often rule, offering five meals a day.
The meals come in handy containers that can go in the microwave. My menu has a total calorie content of 1300; given that on average a woman needs 2000 calories a day this suggests serious weight loss.
There is an apple to be eaten before breakfast, which I have at around 8.30 am. 15 minutes later I tuck into a parsnip hash brown with smoked salmon. The salmon is clearly good quality and the hash brown is nicely peppered, it’s a great start to the day.
By 11 am I’m starting to feel peckish, so I tuck into the morning snack. It’s a salad with sugar snap peas, raspberries and blueberries. The crunchy sugar snaps are nice, but blueberries are not an ideal pairing, plus the vinaigrette is so sharp it stings.
At around 1.30 pm I eat lunch, which is a Pan Asian-style beef salad. There are heaps of rocket leaf, crunchy broccoli, and a rather dense cut of beef, along with a tasty sauce made with parsley, ginger and chilli which there isn’t enough of. After the meal I feel full but alert, lacking my usual post-lunch sleepiness, however despite the obvious benefits of lean beef and fresh vegetables I can’t say I’ve enjoyed eating it.
The afternoon snack is yet another salad, unfortunately a rather bland combination of chopped tomato, spring onion, green pepper, pumpkin seeds and cubes of white bread in place of croutons. The sweet chilli dressing doesn’t add much flavour either.
I eat dinner at 7pm, which is chicken saltimbocca with basil-infused mash. This fares much better than the two previous meals, as the chicken is lean, very tender and tastes great.
Onto the practicalities. The meals are delivered to your door during the week, between 6 and 8 am, on a daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis. My Zenergy don’t operate at weekends, as they believe this is when you should eat what you want. Additionally, you’re provided with an eating out guide and an online personal trainer. The price varies according to how long you want the service for, but it’s not cheap: a five day service is £22 per day, 10 days is £20, and 20 days is £18. While the plan is suitable if you want to lose weight fast and have zero time for food preparation, you’ll need to be disciplined to avoid comfort eating at the weekends.