As someone who loves to work out but can’t seem to find the time to cook a healthy meal to balance out a healthy lifestyle, Kcal Healthy Fast Food’s meal plan seemed like an excellent option to try. Originally launched in Dubai, the service now also delivers to Abu Dhabi.
Signing up for the programme was easy. However, because there is not an office in Abu Dhabi, the rest of the process was a little more tricky.
I talked to a nutritionist over the phone to discuss what my main goals were for starting the plan. I told her weight loss was my aim and explained my fitness habits but I was not asked for my weight or height – or even how much weight I wanted to lose – which seems like vital information to include before starting such a programme. Instead it appeared as if they would rather you enter the information online yourself, which can be difficult without a proper weight composition measurement.
The next step was figuring out where to have the food delivered. The company offers a delivery service direct to your home or your place of work if that is easier.
Since it is recommended you eat breakfast within an hour of waking up, I chose to get my food delivered to my home. Reflecting perhaps that the company is still fairly new to the streets of Abu Dhabi, they had some difficulty in delivering to me for the first couple of days.
On the first day, the delivery driver was completely unable to find my home address, which ended up delaying the delivery by two and a half hours and it had to go to my work address instead.
On the second day, he was able to find my home – but called me at 5.15am which was not unacceptable. Fortunately, the rest of the week went smoothly and every morning at about 8am, I found my food waiting for me at my door.
As for the menu, there are quite a few tasty-sounding options to choose from.
I was put on the “success” meal plan, which consisted of between 1000 and 1300 calories a day in five pre-cooked meals: breakfast, morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack and dinner.
As an example of what to expect, one day’s meal plan consisted of: cottage cheese pancakes with mango sauce, Hawaiian mini pizza, Kcal pasta-free lasagne, choconut treats and Thai green chicken curry with mixed vegetables.
I was quite impressed with the overall quality and taste of the food. Even though the portions were small – because of course, how much food can you really get for 1300 calories – it was very tasty.
Overall, Kcal healthy fast food is a good option for those interested in healthy eating and if you can properly stick to the plan, you will lose weight.
However, you might want to wait a little while before jumping in because the delivery service in Abu Dhabi clearly still needs a little bit of work.
elau@thenational.ae