Meal Prep Time

If you are into fitness the chances are at some point you will have given meal prep a go.

During the week I leave the house around 6am most days and return around around 9/10pm so having food with me is vital if i don’t want to live off a diet of McDonalds and junk. So i tend to meal prep twice a week -Sunday and Wednesday.

Now I a) hate cooking and b) am not very good at it so meal prep companies that deliver food to your door to pop in the microwave always sounded appealing. It also has the added bonus of variety (when you cook yourself its cheaper and more efficient to make many portions of the same meal). It is however expensive which has always put me off. Last week, however, I got an offer for 10 meals for £2.90 per meal from Nutribox Meals so I gave it a go and placed an order to see if it is in fact worth the money.

I placed my order via email and the customer service was brilliant. My first 6 meals arrived on Monday and the last 4 arrived Thursday so they were all fresh. The food was well packaged, so far so good.

Nutribox offer a variety of options from 1 meal a day upwards. I selected 2 meals a day. You have the option of picking from set meals (of which I picked five) or building your own meal from a list of proteins, carbs, veg and sauces (I selected the option to substitute my carb for a second veg on the five meals I ordered from this option). Normal prices are around £4 per meal depending on volume ordered.

Every day I made my own breakfast and snacks and then had a Nutribox meal for lunch and dinner. The food was tasty, portions for me felt small (but i eat a lot so this doesn’t actually mean they are small) but flavours were nice. On a couple of meals one of the veg portions ordered were missing but overall I enjoyed all the meals.

My take on the good and bad moments from my week on meal prep delivery:

Pros

• Reduces cooking time
• Plenty of variety
• Flexibility on what meals contain
• Decent amounts of protein in each meal
• Variety of vegetables available
• Plenty of flavour
• Great taste
• Portions are controlled
• Can get delivered anywhere – i got mine delivered to the office for ease!
• UK wide delivery

Cons

• Unless you can afford to order ALL your food online you will still have to do some meal prep
• Expensive
• Need fridge space!
• If you eat a lot like me the meals may feel small!
• Human error means you may get the odd ‘wrong’ meal
• The sauces are a bit on the small side

My takeout after a week- if i had more disposable income I would order meals every week to take away having to meal prep and to know I was eating sensible portions and good quality meals. Plus I would order from this company – their service was great. However given that i eat around 3,000- 3,500 calories daily the amount of additional food I would still need to buy mean it isn’t financially viable for me right now.

So for now I will stick to making my own meals but I won’t say that I won’t revisit the idea of meal prep delivery again in the future. If you are interested in the idea of using a meal prep company I would suggest you check out this site! http://www.nutriboxmeals.com

I should note that this review is independant of Nutribox Meals. I purchased the meals as a customer using a general offer and not in return for a review.