Weight Loss Meal Delivery Australia

Weight Loss Meal Delivery Australia

We’ve found and compared Australian weight-loss meal delivery services that provide meals that have low energy requirements to meet your weight-loss goals. If you’re looking for the best weight loss meals delivered to your home simply compare Australian providers below or read on to learn how to find the best meal delivery service to reach your health goals.

By
Alex Hamlin

Written by

Alex Hamlin
Certified Nutritionist

Alex Joy Nutrition supports busy individuals with health goals, offering holistic nutrition guidance to reduce stress and foster balanced, healthy habits. Specialising in empowering high achievers, Alex emphasises a preventative and management-focused approach to health. As a clinical nutritionist, Alex provides individuals with tools and education for taking control of their health. She advocates for optimal nutrition as the cornerstone of wellness, employing a food-first approach complemented by holistic treatments. With evidence-based practices, Alex offers personalised guidance to help individuals reach their health goals, prioritising health at the forefront. In health content creation, Alex delivers concise, informative, and engaging material rooted in evidence-based practices, educating, inspiring and guiding others on their wellness journey.

Updated February 1, 2024
Fact checked Fully qualified and expert nutritionists have reviewed and checked this content to ensure it is as accurate as possible at the time of writing.
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What are weight loss meals?

The market is saturated with weight loss targeted meals and programs, but what are weight loss meals? Weight loss meals target weight loss, just as it sounds – typically they are very low energy which in turn creates an energy deficit promoting weight loss.

Weight loss meals usually incorporate lean proteins, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats to maintain essential nutrients while managing overall caloric content. Every dieter will require different restrictions depending on their health status, goals, physical activity levels and so on.

If you are considering a meal service that caters to weight loss, it’s important to consult with a trusted health professional first before making any major dietary changes. Start your journey by incorporating healthy recipes for weight loss at home and research the right meal provider for you!

What is the best weight loss meal delivery service in Australia?

Our experts have tried and reviewed a variety of weight loss meal delivery services in Australia and believe My Muscle Chef is the best service available.

My Muscle Chef is an affordable and highly versatile meal delivery provider option for most consumer needs whether it be losing weight, fueling, adding muscle or simply being a convenient pre-prepared meal option for busy days. Their meal plans take into consideration exercise output and gender to meet individuals’ needs.

Otherwise for those looking for a vegetarian or vegan meal option ChefGood has a variety of options that are cost-effective and well-portioned.

my muscle chef weight loss
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Weight Loss & Calories

The number of calories you need to eat to lose weight depends on various factors, including your age, gender, weight, height, activity level, and overall health. The basic principle for weight loss is to create a calorie deficit, meaning you consume fewer calories than your body needs to maintain its current weight.

Here’s a general guideline:

  1. Calculate Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Your BMR represents the number of calories your body needs at rest. There are several formulas to estimate BMR, with the Harris-Benedict equation being a commonly used one. However, keep in mind that these are estimates, and individual variations exist.

  2. Factor in Activity Level: Once you have your BMR, you need to account for your daily activity level. Multiply your BMR by an activity factor that corresponds to your level of physical activity. The result is an estimate of the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight.

  3. Create a Calorie Deficit: To lose weight, you generally need to consume fewer calories than your body expends. A common recommendation is to create a calorie deficit of 500 to 1000 calories per day, which can lead to a weight loss of about 0.5 -1 kilograms per week. However, it’s generally not recommended to go below 1200 calories per day for women and 1500 calories per day for men without medical supervision.

Remember that weight loss is a gradual process, and crash diets or extremely low-calorie intake may not be sustainable or healthy in the long term. It’s essential to prioritise nutrient-dense foods, stay hydrated, and include regular physical activity in your routine.

It’s advisable to consult with a healthcare professional or a registered dietitian to determine a personalised calorie goal based on your specific circumstances and health goals. They can provide guidance tailored to your individual needs.

The benefits of meal delivery & food boxes for weight loss

Ready-to-eat meals and food boxes can offer several benefits for weight loss in Australia, as they provide convenience, portion control, and potentially healthier meal options. Here are some of the benefits:

  1. Portion Control: Ready-to-eat meals and food boxes often come in pre-portioned servings, which can help individuals control their calorie intake. This is especially important for weight loss, as overeating can hinder progress.

  2. Convenience: Ready-to-eat meals are convenient for those with busy lifestyles or limited cooking skills. They save time on meal preparation and planning, making it easier to stick to a weight loss plan.

  3. Calorie Awareness: Many ready-to-eat meals in Australia include nutritional information on their packaging, making it easier for individuals to track their calorie and nutrient intake. This transparency can aid in making healthier food choices.

  4. Balanced Nutrition: Some food box services offer balanced and nutritionally sound meal options, ensuring that you receive a variety of nutrients while controlling portion sizes. This can help prevent nutrient deficiencies often associated with restrictive diets.

  5. Customisation: Most meal delivery services allow customers to customise their meals to meet dietary preferences or restrictions, such as vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, or low-carb options which helps support individual’s weight loss journey.

  6. Learning Experience: Food boxes and Meal Kit’s with recipes can also serve as a learning experience for individuals looking to improve their cooking skills and nutritional knowledge. As they prepare meals from scratch, they gain a better understanding of the ingredients and cooking techniques.

  7. Variety: Many meal delivery services offer a wide variety of cuisines and dishes, preventing boredom and helping individuals stay on track with their weight loss goals by avoiding repetitive, unappetising meals.

  8. Accountability: Subscribing to a meal delivery service or food box program may create a sense of accountability, as individuals have invested in their health and are more likely to stick to their weight loss plan.

  9. Reduced Temptations: Having prepared, portion-controlled meals on hand can reduce the temptation to order takeout or indulge in unhealthy snacks, which can be major obstacles to weight loss.

What is the cheapest weight loss meal delivery service?

Our experts believe Be Fit Food is the best cheap weight loss meals delivered. Be Fit Food offers cheap meals catering to weight loss goals starting from $9.05/ serve.

Their meals are dietitian-approved, low calorie and low carb with a range offering gluten-free and vegetarian solutions. 

Be Fit Foods meals are a low calorie, and consumers need to be under guidance whilst following these type of diet plans. Be Fit Food Meals are high in protein, increased fat, low in sodium and have no added sugar to their meals!

Try Be Fit Food!

Best weight loss meals in Sydney

Youfoodz are currently the best weight loss meals available in Sydney. Youfoodz low calorie meal plans offer a large variety of low calorie meals that are satisfying and help you reach your weight loss goals. A Youfoodz low calorie meal delivery includes recipes that contain a maximum of 650kcal per portion. 

My Muscle Chef is another close contender for most popular pre-made meals in Sydney, if you need help deciding our experts compared Youfoodz VS My Muscle Chef.

Most tasty weight loss meals Sydney

We’ve tasted a number of meal providers and believe Chefgood’s meals are the most tasty weight loss meals in Sydney. Chefgood’s Slim & Trim meals will help you kick your weight loss goals. The Chefgood weight loss meals average 350cal/meal and are ideal for sustained weight loss and generally follow a low carb, high protein model. You can read our Nutritionist review of ChefGood here.

Healthiest weight loss meals Sydney

Our experts compared a number of weight loss meal delivery services and believe Garden Of Vegan’s Weight Loss Meals are the healthiest weight loss meals in Sydney. All of Garden of Vegan’s meals are 100% organic, gluten and oil free, fully vegan meals. The weight loss meals are low in fat and sodium and are all under 450 calories. The meals are designed to meet daily nutrient requirements whilst restricting calories to ensure weight loss. You can read our Nutritionist review of Garden of Vegan here.

Most popular weight-loss meal delivery in QLD

My Muscle Chef – These meals are nutritionist designed and chef-created calorie-controlled food plans. The consumers are prompted to select their gender and their exercise output from 1-3 times or 4 or more times a week. Once selections are made there are options based on 5-days, 6-days and 7-days. Each selection is tailored based on the individual details the consumer chooses to match their intake requirement. Meal options start as low as $9.31, and snacks as low as $4.95. Currently they deliver to NSW, VIC, ACT, QLD, SA, WA. 

Youfooz - weight loss
Check out Youfoodz here!

Which brands specialise in weight loss for vegans or vegetarians?

vegan pros and cons fresh veggies

There are quite a few weight loss meal providers that offer vegan and vegetarian options whilst meeting weight loss requirements:

What are the Pros & Cons of weight loss meal delivery?

Vegetables at the supermarket

Weight Loss Meal Pros

  • Transition into eating portion-controlled meals – For many that are new or struggle to eat correctly portioned meals, signing up to a meal plan or a weight loss prepared meal service provides these portions, and it can be a step in the right direction to begin weight-loss journeys (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015).
  • Can teach consumers eating behavioural basics - such as structuring a day’s eating patterns including eating 3 meals a day. Many consumers may not follow a consistent eating pattern for the day. Pre-prepared meals are constructed to provide balanced meals with nutrient focuses such as protein to ensure consumers receive consistently balanced meals without the fuss.
  • A cost-effective approach to dieting – diets often come with additional costs along the way, whether they are designed to require a book, an added supplement or plan needing continual tailoring - a meal delivery service may be a cost-effective option in comparison to other traditional methods of dieting.

Weight Loss Meal Cons

  • Satiety – A nutritionally balanced meal is essential for creating satiety. Depending on the balance of the meals created, some meals may lack nutrient density such as adequate protein or fibre which can cause fluctuating appetite and lack of satisfaction with meals (Young 2017).
  • Lack of personalisation – Many meal services don’t consider individual factors such as gender, age, pregnancy or specialised requirements around health conditions. It’s important consumers critically analyse different weight loss meals and delivery programs as they may not meet their required needs (Adela Hruby 2016)
  • Most don’t consider physical activity levels – Many of the meal services catering to weight loss targets don’t consider how physically active consumers are or any incidental energy burnt through non-structured exercise such as working, walking to work, shopping etc (Adela Hruby 2016). If your physical activity levels are higher it’s important meals are nourishing and fuelling workouts including post-workout nutrition.
  • Doesn’t educate consumers how to eat off of a meal plan – Most people, if they follow meal plans or programs correctly, can successfully lose weight, however, once they transition off of a plan the progress usually unravels. This is due to the lack of education around personal behaviours or patterns, nutrition and how to maintain weight-loss long-term (FL 2015).
  • Restrictive – Not only are weight loss plans restrictive they can also become restrictive socially. Eating off of a plan or program can be detrimental emotionally and socially for those that aren’t allowed to eat outside of their programming.
  • Compliance – Often sticking to diets is hard especially when they lack flexibility. Consumers may struggle long-term due to their restrictive nature, especially around social settings (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015). These diets are not suited beyond their initial programmed stage, nor are they safe long-term especially programs that are considered Very Low Energy Diet (VLED) (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015). They may also contribute to nutritional imbalances, it is important that before making any dietary changes always seek guidance from a health professional.
  • Potential to create nutritional deficiencies –  Often with VLED diets there are mineral and vitamin deficiencies that can arise such as water-soluble vitamins, calcium, potassium, iron, zinc and many more (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015).
  • Do not substitute the need for professional care and supervision – Despite these programs having nutritional influence whether it is created under the supervision of an accredited dietitian or nutritionist they do not substitute the need for medical monitoring and supervision. Consumers that have medical conditions or disordered eating patterns require integrative care with a therapy-based approach (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015).

Key factors when comparing weight loss meal delivery companies

When choosing the right option for you, consider the following factors:

Energy (Calories/ KJ per meal)

Depending on your health requirements and goal, your energy needs will differ from the next person. Energy requirements are based on several factors from life stages, exercise levels, pregnancy or lactation, recovery and many other influences.

Comparing weight loss prepared meals by their calculated energy per meal and their totals per day can assist you to recognise their caloric intakes from their pre-prepared meals to individual recommended intakes.

Nutritional Balance

Protein is an important component of creating satisfaction and fullness with meals, ensuring an adequate amount of protein (25-30g) is distributed between meals is essential. Although energy requirements (calories) are less during a weight-loss plan the requirements for nutrients such as protein, essential fatty acids, dietary fibre, vitamins and minerals are very similar to a normal adult recommendation (Dwyer, Melanson et al. 2015). It’s important to not sacrifice essential nutrients in meals just because energy deficits are created. 

 Compare meals based on their ingredients and nutritional panels, and if meals are lacking vegetables consider adding more to meals.

Meals per subscription

Analyse how many meals per day or week is provided and if the quantity provided meets your energy requirements, for example, if you are trying to consume 1200 calories a day are you receiving 3 main meals and 2 snacks that equate to this total? Or are you only receiving 3 main meals and no snacks?

Consider the value versus convenience.

Volume of the meal

Although energy requirements are significantly lower on a weight loss plan, this doesn’t always equate to small portioned meals. Meals can still have volume despite being lower in calories, favouring foods that are satiating such as protein, and including naturally lowering calorie foods such as fruits and vegetables allows for volume (DS, PA et al. 2005).

Weight Loss Meal Delivery FAQs

Not necessarily, the energy density of the meal is lesser, however the volume of certain foods doesn’t always need to decrease to meet energy needs (DS, PA et al. 2005). Foods such as fruits and vegetables that are naturally lower in calories can be eaten in higher volumes whilst still meeting low energy targets

The truth is any type of food eaten in excess will cause weight gain (B, A et al. 2007), carbohydrates don’t need to be removed from diets to lose weight. Carbohydrates are an essential component of creating a well-balanced diet and restricting this entire food group can often do more harm than good. Low-carbohydrate diets often create risk for low fibre intakes, low nutrient intakes and in turn, many people consequently have higher fat intakes which can result in elevated intakes in saturated fat and other risks (Sacks, Bray et al. 2009).

Removing food groups or creating restrictions around certain foods or eating patterns can result in a poor relationship with food and body image. It’s important to consult with a trusted health professional before considering dietary changes.

Some meal services include all three main meal options including snacks. However, it isn’t uncommon for some providers to narrow the selection down to just ‘main meals’. Regardless of if there is a specified lunch or dinner option, the energy or calorie breakdown is usually the same.

Protein is an essential nutrient that the body requires for lots of functions from cell growth and repair, balancing hormones such as our hunger hormone ghrelin, it can assist in reducing muscle loss (and maintaining muscle) and so many more benefits! Protein is an important component of any meal, however, whilst losing weight or trying to maintain weight loss it is important to eat an adequate amount of protein throughout meals to regulate appetite and satiety between meals (Sacks, Bray et al. 2009).

Protein requirements are dependent on individual factors such as activity levels, age, gender, weight, health status etc. Most companies catering pre-prepared meal plans will include protein portions of at least 25-30g per meal, which is an adequate serve to meet recommendations whilst creating satiety between meals (HJ, PM et al. 2015).

For years this has been one of the most heavily debated topics in the health and fitness industry. With many misdirected thoughts around what restricted people from losing weight, or what contributed to weight gain. We still find the answer remains, to lose weight an energy deficit needs to be created (B, A et al. 2007). It’s important to work with a trusted professional when planning to change dietary patterns and behaviours, book a consultation with a dietitian or nutritionist before making changes.

Hellofresh meal kit has introduced their Calorie Smart option which offers a health-conscious or goal-orientated menu. Each recipe under the Calorie Smart menu serves under 650 calories per serving (including low carbohydrate options) and plan sizes are available to include a 2-person and 4-person box with 3-5 recipes.

Adela Hruby, P., MPH, JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, Lu Qi, MD, PhD, Vasanti (2016). Determinants and Consequences of Obesity, Am J Public Health. 2016 September; 106(9): 1656–1662.

B, S., et al. (2007). “Fat loss depends on energy deficit only, independently of the method for weight loss.” Annals of nutrition & metabolism 51(5).

Betterhealth (2021). “Protein – Better Health Channel.”
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/protein

Betterhealth (2021). “Weight loss and carbohydrates – Better Health Channel.”
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/weight-loss-and-carbohydrates

DS, W., et al. (2005). “A high-protein diet induces sustained reductions in appetite, ad libitum caloric intake, and body weight despite compensatory changes in diurnal plasma leptin and ghrelin concentrations.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 82(1).

Dwyer, J. T., et al. (2015). “Dietary Treatment of Obesity.”

FL, G. (2015). “Physiological adaptations to weight loss and factors favouring weight regain.” International journal of obesity (2005) 39(8).

Health, N. R. C. U. C. o. D. a. (1989). “Calories: Total Macronutrient Intake, Energy Expenditure, and Net Energy Stores.”

HJ, L., et al. (2015). “The role of protein in weight loss and maintenance.” The American journal of clinical nutrition 101(6).

Sacks, F. M., et al. (2009). “Comparison of Weight-Loss Diets with Different Compositions of Fat, Protein, and Carbohydrates.” http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0804748.

Young, D. B. a. H. A. (2017). “Reducing Calorie Intake May Not Help You Lose Body Weight.” Perspect Psychol Sci. 2017 Sep; 12(5): 703–714.

Search and compare wellness and health delivery services in Australia including meal kits, ready to eat meal delivery, vitamin subscriptions and much more at Wellhub. All content and information on this site is provided by qualified Australian nutritionists to ensure accurate representation of all products reviewed. Learn more about our expert team here.