Special Report on eDiets Deliciously Yours
The history: Mr. Peanut and I began our meal delivery journey with eDiets in late January 2008. In February 2008, Deliciously Yours underwent a website upgrade that caused a lot of problems for almost everyone on the plan. In our case, we were going along just fine until we randomly didn’t get a delivery, and it was all downhill from there; ultimately, we cancelled our service. It was such a nightmare – no one could get in touch with customer service, people got double billed, no one could use the website to make meal selections… the list goes on and on. I am still hearing horror stories with eDiets now (late May 2008) as a result of that website upgrade! But anyway, as a disclaimer, I can only comment on the food and content of the diet from when Mr. Peanut and I were actually on it, and that’s what I’m basing the information I’m going to provide in this post on. They may have made changes, etc., since then, but I can’t speak to that.
Diet details: eDiets Deliciously Yours provides 3 meals and one snack per day for a total caloric value of around 950-1000 calories per day. On top of that, they ask you to add 3 servings of fresh fruit and 2 servings of low-fat dairy to bring in around an extra 300-500 or so calories. The food is provided by PurFoods (though DY will not tell you that, but it’s true) and is “fresh-locked” so it will supposedly last 14 days in the refrigerator (we did occasionally have things go bad on us within the week).
Plan options: When we were on it, they offered a “regular” plan (which is what we had) and a “signature” plan (which was more high-end, expensive food and included dessert). I can’t tell you anything at all about the signature plan, and I’ve heard it’s no longer offered. With the “regular” plan, there are no options for getting more calories. You do have a choice of doing 5 days per week or 7 days. I ate the plan food and the recommended fruit & dairy (but I used full-fat dairy so had slightly higher intake). Mr. Peanut had to add a lot of extra snacks to get his caloric intake into the correct range. (For Mr. Peanut, that meant adding, like, 7-8 snacks a day or something. Crazy!) They automatically make a random menu for you, but you can substitute out other meals if something comes up that you don’t like. Breakfasts include muffins, cereals, egg dishes, granola/yogurt; lunches were usually a cold or hot salad, soup, chicken dish; dinner involved a hot dish, pasta, casserole, lasagna, burrito, etc.
Favorites: Mr. Peanut loved the muffins for breakfast (I was not as much of a fan). We really loved the Rio Grande Burrito and Italian Lasagna, too.
Packaging: The meals are packed in individual plastic microwave-safe containers inside a Styrofoam cooler box with frozen gel-packs; all of that is placed in a larger over-cooler box and shipped via FedEx once per week.
Food review: Most of the food we tried on DY was really yummy. We quite enjoyed it. They have LOTS of options, which is really nice. We have many, many photos and food reviews on the blog. Click here to see all posts tagged eDiets Deliciously Yours. I did NOT find the meals to be particularly balanced. There were very few fresh veggies (or any veggies) and not a lot of whole grains that I recall. Portion size is small, but you do kind of expect that if you’re dieting. The food was really delicious and rich-tasting and did not taste like bland diet food.
Support: There was supposed to be an eDiets forum, but it didn’t work most of the time we were on the plan due to web issues. You also got access to eDiets’ dietitians via phone (if you could get through) or email (again… if you could get through and get an answer). They had an unusually high volume of service/help requests when we were using them due to the web debacle.
Customer service: Again, we may have been around during a time of extenuating circumstances, but nonetheless, the (lack of) customer service we received was absolutely inexcusable. Because of it, although I think DY is a pretty good plan and I like their variety, I am really loathe to go back to them ever. Someone on our Yahoo group unearthed a report that the CEO of eDiets was offered a huge bonus if he was able to have the company set up a new website in the first quarter of 2008; it seems like the customers really got shafted because of this deal and that eDiets put up a website that was totally not ready for prime time and everything got screwed up. I just never want to deal again with a company that treats its customers that way. I would love to see them improve, but I would really, really hesitate to get involved with them again! It’s tragic because the plan is great!
Effectiveness: We had great results until they decided to stop sending us our food! 
Why we changed: Customer service and website issues.
Bottom line: eDiets Deliciously Yours did work for us, but we had such a horrific customer service nightmare with them that we can’t recommend them. If you do try them, we hope you are issue-free and get to enjoy the great food and wonderful results it can provide you! If you’ve never tried any PurFoods companies before and want to see if you like the food, you can order the 3-day sampler from Pure Foods Fresh Start. They use the same meal manufacturer as DY, so you can get a taste of the DY food that way.
UPDATE: As of November 2008, according to one eDieter, the situation over there has greatly improved. I haven’t tried them again myself, but I may consider it now! If you’ve given eDiets a second (or first) chance, let me know how it’s going!
Hope this is helpful. If you’re deciding on meal plans, please check out our report section for our take on each plan we’ve tried!
May 27, 2008 at 7:15 pm |
Thanks for giving your thoughts. I had the same experience–loved the food but hated the lack of support. And when the food didn’t come, I got no apology or explanation. I felt I had no choice but to cancel. I was hoping they’d want me back but nothing. So now I’m looking for something else to continue the weight loss.
July 2, 2008 at 8:31 pm |
I had the same problem and was heart broken when after 2 great weeks it simply didn’t deliver, customer service was horrible. I am trying it again though because it worked so well. Wish me luck, delivery is expected to start July 10.
August 6, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Ediets with Alli has worked for me. The customer service is terrible and all of the support they promise is not the case is reality.
I tried several times to get responses to questions and corrections when substitutions were made when one of my menu items was not available. They seem to substitute “goulash” for anything that they do not have at the time of food delivery and the goulash is goulish! Absolutely terrible.
I also had the experience of food not being delivered and customer service acting as though they were doing me a favor to even talk about it.
Bottom line, buy Alli at your drugstore , stick to a lower fat diet with calories suitable for you and your results will be the same.
The home delivery service was not as it is represented and is costly.
December 1, 2008 at 4:40 pm |
Just had an experience with e-diets (deliciously yours mealplan) which I hope you will post. The way their cut-off cancellation policy is set up (at least in my case) does not let you even taste the food before ordering again. I have some food allergy issues, so I talked to one of the nutritionists beforehand. I received my food on Friday and had to make my menu selections by that evening (or early the next morning)for the next weeks’s order which left me no time to even try the food first. Several of the dishes were too spicy for me. 2 dishes were left out. I know some people find the food delicious, but the few I tried were disgusting. The pork was beyond tiny and tasted like shoe leather (I did not overcook). But the most important thing was that I was misinformed by a nutritonist about the oatmeal. She had send me a complete list of all food containing diary so I would know what to avoid. She did not have the oatmeal on the list. It turns out the oatmeal has DIARY in it…yes, egg whites. So, I cannot even eat this. This would leave me with only one breakfast to choose from…a half a bagel with my own soy cream cheese. I called to cancel my order for the next week and was told they would not do it because I didn’t cancel before the cut-off date. Even with these extenuating circumstances, they are telling me that I have to pay another $150.00 for my next order for food I cannot even eat. This to me is completely unethical and outrageous. So, now it looks like I am spending $300.00 for food that I am going to throw away. Please be aware of this companies practices. Nutrisystem (my husband uses it) will refund your first order (minus any foods you have eaten) if you are not happy. It appears as if E-diets is deliberately manipulating things so they get at least the first 2 orders from you. They do state in their policies that you have to cancel before your next cut-off date, but what reasonable mind is going to be able to infer that this could be before you even had a chance to taste the food… Thanks, Dr. Teri Dourmashkin
December 2, 2008 at 6:17 am |
Hi Teri,
Ugh. Sounds like you had a disaster of an experience. That sucks. I just want to correct one thing in your comment, though, regarding egg whites. Eggs are not dairy products, so it sounds like that part of your situation may have been a communication snafu. Dairy products are things that involve milk and milk by-products, not eggs (although eggs are sold in the dairy case at grocery stores). Eggs are common allergens, too, so maybe you also have that allergy and communicated that to eDiets and they still screwed up (which wouldn’t be surprising).
Just wanted to put that out there in case any subsequent readers get confused. There certainly seems to be plenty to complain about with eDiets (unfortunately) without having to add anything extra in! Of course, it’s possible that oatmeal has actual dairy in it. I don’t remember now since it’s been so long since I was on eDiets!
Good luck with your weight loss, and I hope you get this mess straightened out with eDiets. Oy vey!
-NB
December 25, 2008 at 4:59 am |
Hi NB:
Thanks for your reply and the correction on the egg whites. I did however tell the nutritionist that I could not have egg whites either. Here is an update just to be fair: I did get a follow-up call from a manager at e-diets. I did persuade her to at least compromise with me, and they did refund half of my money back for the second order. I gave several meals away to a friend and she was thrilled to be getting free food:).
BTW, Amy’s Kitchen…those frozen foods which you can find at any health food store has devised one of their own diet plans. They did it because so many people were incorporating them into other diet plans (non-meal delivery services). They have no preservatives and they are ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS! Many of the meals are in the same calorie range as e-diets, and some are Dairy Free which is so hard to find. So, here is a very affordable option and the food is healthy…Happy holidays to all!
Teri