Diet Chef (aka No More Mr Chunky)

This is a compendium of several posts that charted the start of my journey with Diet Chef.  Rather than make readers click through several different posts I’ve collated all the info into the one place to, for want of a better word, digest.

Once upon a Snickers ago I used to be extremely…chunky.  Alright chunky is being too polite, obese is a better and more abrupt word.  I used to weight about fifteen stone three pounds.  The correct weight for my height is just under thirteen stone, and way back in 2004 I lost almost three stone and weight around twelve and a half (which was a little too thin).  I did that primarily through exercise and a sensible diet, and wrote a post on here a few years back about sensible diets (which has remained one of the most popular posts on the site).

But since 2005 my weight has gone up and down but never back to what it should be.  A combination of bad eating, lack of exercise and not really any willpower drove me back up to over fourteen stone and I’m currently nestling bang on the fourteen mark.
Since starting to work from home my grazing nature has meant that I tend to pick even more between meals (which has always been my downfall), eat rubbish like microwave pizza for breakfast and thanks to combination of working long hours and the pitiful weather we’ve been experiencing, we can pretty much forget any form of exercise.

I can see why people go to groups such as Weight Watchers or Slimming World, as the group situation of everyone else willing each other on is a great motivator.  Indeed, when I lost all my weight I had a friend doing the same, and it helps to have a “Blubber Buddy”.

Willpower alone isn’t enough for me, and the time has come to get shot of this extra stone in weight which I believe to be an attainable goal before my 34th birthday on May 18th.
I don’t like books, videos, TV shows or any other of those faddy diet things but one of Sally’s work colleagues has been using a service called Diet Chef.  Her goal has been to lose a fair amount of weight before her sons wedding this weekend, and is a notorious snacker between meals.  So if this service can work for anyone, it would be here.  And it has done too.

Here is the blurb from the Diet Chef website:

We all know how hard it is to diet but imagine how easy it would be if you had your own personal chef who planned your meals, measured out the portions and did all the cooking for you. Well now you can!

At Diet Chef we’ll send you a hamper full of chef-prepared ready meals for dinner, soups for lunch, granola for breakfast and healthy snacks for those hungry moments. All you need to do is put the meals in your microwave, enjoy and watch the weight melt away!

We have carefully counted the calories of all the Diet Chef meals so you will be averaging less than 1200 calories a day which means that most people will be burning fat at a rate of 800 calories a day.

Now as I have already said, I don’t like fad diets or ideas that seem to be too good to be true.  Plus anyone with half a brain will tell you that 1200 calories a day for a man is plain daft.  Which is why there is a 1500 calorie a day plan designed for those of us.
I’m suspending my snobbishness and am giving it a try, so I’ve signed up for a couple of months worth of food (one week free for each month as well) and will have a go at documenting how its all going here.  It makes a change from videogame and HD stuff.

I ordered the hamper last night, and as it is a bank holiday weekend I won’t receive it until sometime next week.  So in the meantime I’m enjoying some more sinful treats until then.

Things haven’t quite gone to plan today.  Tomorrow I will be starting the Diet Chef regime for the next couple of months, and intended to wave goodbye to unhealhy eating in stellar fashion by enjoying a big burger.  Not the pathetic excuse for burgers you get at McDonald’s or Burger King, but a proper thick meaty half pounder at our favourite local cafe.

That was the plan, but unfortunately the Diet Chef food didn’t turn up this morning, and the one time I actually wanted a City Link delivery to arrive early it…well, didn’t.
So there you go, Diet Chef ALREADY saving pounds around my waistline and in my pocket.  Sorry.

The parcels were finally delivered just after half past four this afternoon, and they are certainly weighty.  Four packages representing all of my food for the next five weeks (bar fresh fruit and vegetables).  Here’s a quick look at what you get.

First up, breakfast.  A combination of porridge and granola.

Women go for the 1200 calorie a day plan, so the lunch choice is either soup or a protein shake.  As I’m a man (last time I checked) I’m on the higher calorie plan so I get a shake a day as an addition to the regular meals.

I’m not a big fan of soup, but from now on I’ll have to learn how to be, as it’s what I get for lunch.

And finally here’s dinner.

Doesn’t look particularly appetising I know, but I’ve already had a taste test.  I’m starting the diet proper tomorrow, but after going to see a customer earlier this evening I tried the chicken and mushroom in sauce and have to say it was far tastier than I was expecting.  Piled up with some vegetables it would do just fine as a main evening meal.

So tomorrow is D-Day.  It’s going to be interesting.

Two days (almost) down with Diet Chef so I thought I would record my experiences so far.  Apologies to the regular readers who are usually here for all the tech talk, I’m in a diversifying type of mood at present.

My first day started off badly, not through the fault of anyone, but I had an absolute kicker of headache when I woke up on Thursday morning.  Unfortunately it was muscular, I slept awkwardly and the back of my neck was tense and painful every time I moved.  Not exactly the best way to start but needs must..

So I made a fruit tea to begin with, left the Nespresso machine looking rather forlorn and had strawberry porridge for breakfast.  It was reasonably tasty and filled me up straight away.  By 8:30 I was caffeine free after usually having two espressos (at least) by that time.

We headed out into Bournemouth and at that point the “don’t drink coffee” mantra that Diet Chef kept saying went out the window. I thought it might help get rid of my kicking headache (it didn’t), but I had one strong cup in the M&S cafe before being brutally plied the new Coffee Republic Flat White (damn you Homer!).

When we got home I opted for my first mistake.  I have soup for lunch each day with this diet and I must confess I really dislike soup.  But I haven’t had that many so I am prepared to really make the effort, and these DC soups are thick and more meal-like.  My first attempt was with thai chicken soup and it was DISGUSTING.  It tasted like someone had tipped a pot of pepper into the container.  I managed three quarters of the bowl before having to admit defeat (and I’ve got four more of these little bleeders) and was then repeating the unpleasant taste for several hours afterwards. Apologies for the unpleasant image, but you get the idea.

By now the headache was getting steadily worse, so I took some strong tablets and had my milkshake.  I get this extra shake as I am on the 1500 calorie diet plan, and fortunately the chocolate shake was extremely tasty and helped to wash away the taste of the soup!

At this point I must reveal I had shot myself in the foot a little bit, not reading the rules properly I should have had a wholemeal brown roll or a slice of wholemeal bread with the soup.  Because come about five o’clock I was completely devoid of energy and feeling very unhappy.
Then dinner rolled around, I had sausage casserole with a big stack of vegetables and that was tasty (if not overwhelmingly delicious).  We went out for a reasonably lengthy walk and I had my snack for the day later in the evening (a crisp style substitute) which was alright.

The very helpful folks on the Diet Chef forums were very insistent that I must eat all of the allowed calories each day otherwise the body goes into starvation mode and the weight loss will stop.  Clearly I mad a bit of a rookie mistake on day one, but fortunately it got much better today.

I gave the “don’t drink coffee” rule the metaphorical middle finger and went back to my morning espresso today (my neck is still hurting but not enough to give me a headache today) and had Belgian chocolate granola for breakfast (very nice), pea and ham soup for lunch (I ate the bowl, it was pretty good) with a slice of wholemeal bread, a latte milkshake, snack bar and then chicken tikka with a small amount of rice for dinner.  The chicken tikka was an absolute revelation, it was amazingly tasty, creamy and to be perfectly honest tastier than shop bought ones I’ve had.

The other mistake I made yesterday was not having any fruit either, so I’m saving that up for when I get hungry later in the evening.
So far aside from the few early teething problems I have to say I’m pretty impressed.  I was a bit concerned after the bad start yesterday with the soup and was left thinking “this has cost me £200″ but today I’ve been much more impressed.
The biggest challenge has been to avoid the hunger pangs and cravings.  Usually in the evening I pick and food which is always my downfall, but not being able to now is quite a challenge.

But despite that, the food is filling and the weather is so good here at the moment I’m able to get out and about rather than be stuck in looking at the rain.
So far so good, it may only be two days but after getting over the usual “3 Day Hump” of making a change I think things will work out fine.

Would I recommend Diet Chef to other people?  Not just yet, I need to sample a fuller range of the food before giving it the thumbs up.  But so far they are looking good.

Alright so strictly speaking it has only been six days and this is day seven or being on Diet Chef but I’ve already done my first week weigh in, and I have a busy day planned for tomorrow.

This is also the last time I will write about my diet and will soon return to the usual round of tech gubbins.  Promise.  Until I reach my goal weight.
So after a slightly shaky start I must say I wholehartedly recommend Diet Chef IF you can afford it!  At £210 for a months worth of food it isn’t cheap but it certainly is working for me.
When most people go on diets they usually find a ton of weight flies off in the first week which is primarily fluid weight (so I’m told) and getting on the scales this morning I found half a stone (that’s seven pounds) gone already.  I’m told this is quite normal, and in the next couple of weeks it should drop to the proper rate of a couple of pounds a week.  So if everything pans out as it should I should be done in about a months time.

The food has continued to surprise me, and the only bad soup so far has been the first thai chicken one I had.  Mushoom, spicy beef and tomato, parsnip and chilli, all very tasty and I’ve still got new ones to try.
Main meals are the same, the only one so far I haven’t been overly impressed with has been the tortelinni but only because the sauce was mildly unpleasant.  One of the things you learn very quickly is it these meals are the correct portion sizes an adult should be eating to stay healthy, it’s no wonder we are all so overweight!  And these aren’t paltry amounts either, after a portion of chicken tikka I’m full and that lasts for the rest of the evening.

So long story short, it’s great, it works and I’m slimmer already.  Looking for a hackneyed and cliched sign off?  It’s taken pounds out of my wallet AND OFF MY WAISTLINE!!!!!  I’ll leave now.

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Category: Diet Chef, General, Personal