Meal Delivery Program Reviews & Prices

JENNY CRAIG REVIEW:Go to Site | Back to Chart

Jenny Craig differs from the other diet services reviewed on NextAdvisor.com by emphasizing personalized consultations and face to face support. While most other meal delivery diet programs focus primarily on the food itself, perhaps also offering various tools and resources to help you reach your diet goals, Jenny Craig places equal focus on food, body and mind.

First, you will meet privately with a consultant at one of over 650 local Jenny Craig centers for a discussion of your current lifestyle and weight loss goals, as well as an initial weigh-in. Your consultant will work with you to customize the most effective plan to help you reach your goals. If you prefer more privacy and convenience, you can choose the Jenny Direct program and speak to your consultant over the phone.

Each week, you will return to your local Jenny Craig center to meet with your consultant, who will help motivate you, overcome challenges and track your progress. You will also pick up your Jenny Cuisine meals at these meetings. You'll purchase a one week supply of meals at a time, with no ongoing obligation. If you choose the Jenny Direct option, you will have weekly phone support from your consultant, and your Jenny's Cuisine meals will be shipped to you via FedEx every two or four weeks, depending on your preference. If you do choose the Jenny Direct program, there will be a shipping fee. Initially, your diet will consist of three Jenny's Cuisine meals and one snack every day, plus your own groceries, such as fresh fruit and vegetables. You can customize your weekly menus based on your preferences.

Your consultant will help you develop a personalized, staged approach to physical fitness, as well, consisting of a combination of natural, everyday activities, playful activities and planned exercise. Your physical fitness plan will intensify as you work toward your weight loss goals, in order to help you burn more calories.

As you progress through the program, your consultant will help you learn to create your own menus and meals, and you will eventually begin to gradually integrate your own meals into your diet. Your consultant will also help you learn to make healthy choices at restaurants. By the time you have reached your goal weight, you'll have developed a better relationship with food and learned to plan and prepare your own balanced meals. You can then transition to maintenance support, which will help you sustain your new, healthier lifestyle. You will still have access to online support to help keep you on track.

If you are looking for a comprehensive support system to help you establish a healthier lifestyle overall, Jenny Craig may be perfect for you.

FRESH PREPARED REVIEW:Go to Site | Back to Chart

Fresh Prepared, a food delivery plan from eDiets, is designed for those well-intentioned individuals who want to eat healthy and nutritious meals, but who simply don't have the time to plan and prepare an elaborate breakfast, lunch and dinner each day. Fresh Prepared offers customers a choice of two different plans. The seven day complete program includes breakfast, lunch, dinner and a snack or dessert every day, and is recommended for those who are serious about weight loss and prefer as much structure and convenience as possible. The five day 'weekends free' program, which only provides meals on weekdays, is more flexible and is intended for weight maintenance.

Rather than emphasizing a particular diet with restrictions and rules, Fresh Prepared focuses on supplying nutritious, gourmet meals in sensible portion sizes. Just sign in to your account and custom design your menu for the week. The meals you select will be freshly prepared to order, packed in Stay Fresh refrigerated coolers and delivered to you via FedEx. All you have to do is heat and eat your chef-prepared, personalized meals. Epicurious.com named Fresh Prepared as its top pick among diet delivery services, highlighting the many tasty meal options. When you sign up for Fresh Prepared, you also get access to the many other resources at eDiets.com, including support and motivation at community message boards, live support from registered dietitians and certified fitness trainers, a personalized fitness plan and health and fitness news, tips and motivating challenges.

If you are a picky eater or have specific dietary needs due to allergies or diabetes, this plan may not be right for you. But this program is ideal for people who prefer healthy, sensible, well-proportioned meals rather than a strict diet. Many consumers will appreciate the ease and convenience of having every meal freshly prepared and delivered to their door. For $19.95 a day, Fresh Prepared serves a fresh, chef-prepared, great tasting breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack or dessert to your front door, plus a variety of other resources designed to help you eat well, exercise effectively and lose weight.

MEDIFAST REVIEW:Go to Site | Back to Chart

[Editor's Note: Medifast is offering a $50 discount on purchases of $275 and more to NextAdvisor.com readers. To take advantage of this exclusive $50 discount on Medifast, simply enter the promo code Mar31G when prompted during checkout.]

Medifast offers a meal delivery program that is considerably more rigorous than most of the other programs reviewed by NextAdvisor.com. Medifast is focused on helping those who are obese or seriously overweight improve their health. All Medifast meal packages are based on their 5 & 1 plan, which means that you eat five prepackaged Medifast meals and one 'lean and green meal,' which should consist of lean meat plus salad or vegetables. Your 'lean and green meal' adds some flexibility to this diet plan, since you can prepare it yourself or eat at a restaurant. The five Medifast meals are not actually full meals comparable to those offered by other meal delivery services. Meal options include shakes and other beverages, soups, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, puddings and bars. Many of these items come in powder packets that you mix with water and microwave or refrigerate. Meals are formulated with low-fat protein and fiber and fortified with vitamins and nutrients. Dieters using the Medifast 5 & 1 plan eat once every two to three hours, for a total of six small meals each day. The Medifast 5 & 1 plan promotes rapid weight loss by restricting dieters' daily calorie intake to between 800 and 1000. For this reason, customers who already have an exercise program in place are advised to cut their routine in half for the first couple of weeks, and customers who do not already exercise should wait two to three weeks before beginning an exercise program. Once you have reached your weight loss goals with the 5 & 1 plan, the Medifast Transition, Maintenance and Exercise plans are designed to help you maintain your weight loss.

A four week supply of Medifast meals costs $299.50, plus shipping and handling, which varies depending on your location and the weight of the package. A two week supply is $154.50. Customers ordering the four week package receive 50% off the cost of shipping, plus 3 extra meals and a shaker jar, used for mixing powdered meals with water. These meal packages are not customizable, but individual meals and snacks are available for purchase from the Medifast website. Medifast also offers a meal package specifically designed for those with type 2 diabetes, which is available for the same prices. Enhanced packages are available, which include Super Omega-3, a nutritional supplement that promises to boost your weight-loss program, for an additional $28. The Momentum packages, which cost $169.50 for a 28 day supply or $353.50 for a 60 day supply, include flavor infusers meant to be added to water, as well as liquid Medifast meals. These products contain caffeine and green tea antioxidant EGCG, and promise to help dieters burn calories more efficiently, break through a weight loss plateau and maintain a new, healthier weight. They are designed to complement the Medifast 5 & 1 plan, with the liquid meals replacing normal Medifast meals and the flavor infusers used in addition to the normal 6 meals per day. Customers are advised to consume up to three Momentum products daily.

Medifast is an intense diet plan designed to promote rapid, significant weight loss and improved health. Because this plan works, in part, by drastically reducing calorie intake, people with unique caloric requirements or health conditions should check with their doctors before beginning the Medifast 5 & 1 diet.

DIET-TO-GO REVIEW:Go to Site | Back to Chart

[Editor's Note: Diet-to-go is offering a $25 discount on your first full meal plan purchase. To take advantage of this exclusive $25 discount on Diet-to-go, simply enter the promo code HH1109 when prompted during checkout.]

Diet-to-go provides a three meal per day plan for those seeking low fat, low carb, or vegetarian diets. You can choose from a full plan (all three meals delivered, seven days a week), lunch and dinner (two meals delivered, seven days a week), or an action plan (two meals per day, five days per week). They also offer between-meal snacks on their website. The meal plan is created by a counselor when you start the plan, based on your nutritional needs and preferences. Diet-to-go has physical locations in Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco for pick-up, but you can have your meals shipped to you anywhere in the US. (Demonstrations and food sampling are also available at the pick-up locations.) The meals follow the guidelines from the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association. Their website has an 'Ask the Dietitian' feature where you can e-mail your questions to their resident dietitian for answers. They also offer various tools like a BMI calculator (to tell you your current body mass index) and a diet analysis (to help you decide which Diet-to-go plan is best for you). For support, the website offers a community bulletin board which can be accessed by anyone, regardless if they are on the plan or not. In addition to the delivered meals, Diet-to-go sells a variety of prepackaged snacks through the website. Diet-to-go seems to lack in an exercise component as well as strong support in weight loss, but it does offer convenient, fresh and healthy foods as compared to prepackaged foods plans. It is important to read the fine print on this diet (as well as any meal delivery plan), as the plan will auto-bill your credit card for the duration of your diet contract.