The box diet | Does it make sense? Advantages and disadvantages

If you are at least a little bit involved in sports and nutrition, you have probably heard of boxed diets. But is it really the right solution for healthy eating as its manufacturers declare? What are its advantages and disadvantages and how to choose the right boxed diet? We will answer all these questions in today's article.

What is a boxed diet?

The name box diet is quite catch-all, but if this fitness trend has so far eluded your attention, let's first briefly explain what it actually is and what this eating system should look like.A boxed diet is basically different meals of the day served in boxes. The aim with these meals is to create the healthiest and most varied optionpossible diet to provide you with a full day's intake of quality nutrients. Boxed diets can cover all 5 meals of the day, but with some manufacturers it is possible to choose just breakfast or lunch for example.The meals that appear in the box are usually decided by a nutritionist, who designs the menu according to the requirements for a balanced and healthy diet. The meals are then prepared in specialist kitchens, packaged and delivered to you. Delivery usually takes place a day or two in advance and is virtually never delivered every day, which is something to bear in mind.

Benefits of a boxed diet

Boxed diets have become popular primarily because of the undeniable benefits they offer. We include, for example:

• Convenience
• Usually nutritionally well-composed meals
• The ability to choose from programs to diet and volume
• Delivery directly to work/school/home

Of course, we consider convenience to be the biggest advantage. Because you don't have to spend valuable time preparing meals in advance and inventing new recipes all the time. Experienced chefs will prepare your food for you and even deliver it directly to your destination. Different manufacturers also often offer weight loss or muscle-building programmes, which is certainly a big plus. Nutritionally, there is nothing to fault with boxed diets.

Disadvantages of box diets

Does it seem to you that there is nothing wrong with a box diet? Wrong. As with everything, there are drawbacks to this style of eating. We consider the most important ones to be:

• High price
• Occasional monotony
• Not fresh food every day

Convenience comes at a price, and boxed diets are no exception. The price of individual menus rarely drops below 400 per day and is more likely to be much higher. A whole month on a boxed diet can (and probably will) cost you several thousand crowns. Another disadvantage is the fact that the meals start to repeat quickly and after a month you can easily overeat the offered meals. However, this is no longer the rule and as we have already stated in our rankingsmanufacturers are trying to create more and more varied and better quality meals. For some, the fact that the meals are brought forward so they have to be heated, which is not to everyone's taste, can be a problem.

How to choose a boxed diet?

They say that money is not everything, but before choosing a boxed diet, you canwe can only recommend that you first look at the cost of a monthly program or at least one menu. The prices often climb so ridiculously high that it's often not even worth the convenience of having food delivered. Another factor is the availability of different programs and the possibility to choose food without various allergens, i.e. if it is possible to choose a gluten-free or lactose-free diet, for example. This also entails the need to study individual menus so that they make sense from a nutritional point of view. Sure, you can fit a lot of calories into a volume, but they don't necessarily have to come from a Christmas cookie or a yam roll. So don't forget to study the menu ingredients carefully.

Last but not least, we recommend watching the reviews. Nowadays, they're practically a few clicks away and you can find everything you need to know about a given boxed diet. If you want to have all the diets neatly lined up side by side, take a look at our comparison of the best boxed diets in Brno or our ranking of the best boxed diets in Prague, which we have carefully compiled for you, taking into account all the important parameters.