If you want to buy individual meals too they also allow you to buy in bulk anything from a 6 pack to a 24 pack of nutritious calorie counted meals.
I have been doing the 5:2 diet for a few weeks and when the company offered to send me some meals to try, I thought this would slot in with my diet plan. I was sent the 7 day evening meal bundle to try and also a selection of breakfast and snack options.
All these ready meals are storable at room temperature and you do not have to refrigerate them. This has its benefits, for example office workers could keep them in their drawer at work for example, or students could keep them in their room.
Prices range from just £2.86 a day for the 600 calorie Very Low Calorie Diet Plan to around £6.25 a day for the 1200 calorie Complete Personalised Diet Plan.
The food on the whole was tasty. The chicken sweet and sour had a decent amount of chicken, the rice was not sticky and perfectly cooked and the sauce had the right amount of sweetness balancing the sour flavour. Another favourite was the chicken satay. This meal had a good peanut flavour and the sauce was authentic tasting, I would however, have liked to have seen some vegetables in this dish. My son rated the chicken tikka marsala highly, which he thought was on parr with refrigerated ready meals from our local supermarket. This dish was mild in heat with a good amount of chicken in a creamy sauce. It certainly didn't taste like a diet meal.
Out of the the other dishes I was sent, the skinny bites sweet chilli was a resounding hit. These spicy snacks were really yummy and you would never know that they are a low calorie snack. I also thought the chocolate caramel meal replacement muesli was totally delicious. It was gorgeous with milk added and it had a lovely sweet caramel flavour. The only thing that was a little disappointing was the size of the portion which I thought was small.
There are pros and cons to using the Saints and Slimmers meals. I thought they were good value for money for a ready meal and are useful to keep in the cupboard when you want a calorie counted meal in a jiffy. Most of the meals were tasty especially the chicken dishes and the size of portion of the meals were good, although the breakfast options slightly small.
Different meal options including chocolate caramel muesli and chicken tikka marsala
I used these as part of the 5:2 diet, which is a diet based on intermittent fasting, where you eat normally 5 days a week and restrict your calories to 500 on 2 days a week. For this diet some of the meals are a little higher in calories than I would have chosen myself. On this diet I have been eating meals around 300-350 calories in the night whilst some of these meals were nearer 500 calories. Perfect of course for a normal calorie counting diet where you can eat between 1000-1500 calories a day. Most of the meals did not have many vegetables included in the recipe so you would need to take this in consideration when serving a balanced meal. I would serve a portion of vegetables on the side to provide extra nutrients and a balanced diet.
All in all I lost a pound in weight in a week on the diet. Considering I didn't take any exercise other than walking, I was fairly pleased with this. Saints and Slimmers also offer other options to the ready meals, such as meal replacement shakes and bars. If you are interested in losing weight it's also worth checking out the website and the special offers they have at any time.
Tell me, have you ever used calorie controlled meals?
