EveryPlate are a relative newcomer to the meal kit market in Australia, having been launched in late 2020. They deliver budget-friendly, simple ingredient packs that you can easily cook up for a healthy dinner at home. This article will discuss whether EveryPlate can be used for weight loss along with other alternatives that might be available in your area. Here’s an overview of my findings:
No, EveryPlate is not specifically designed for weight loss and is aimed primarily at making weeknight dinners easy to cook. However, by counting calories and managing your overall diet, EveryPlate can be used as part of a weight loss plan.
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What should you be eating to lose weight?
Losing weight is a complicated and difficult path for many, with plenty of pitfalls and ‘gurus’ who sell the latest weight loss craze. I personally track my weight very closely and regularly adjust my lifestyle to match my target weight goals, based on scientific research where possible.
The simple equation that I use to lose weight is Calories IN less than Calories BURNED. This means that you’re taking in less energy then you’re using up every day. Over time the body adjusts to this and uses fat stores to make up for the calorific gap ultimately allowing you to lose weight. Whilst this is massively oversimplified, it does point to the critical message that lowering calorie intake is the most effective way to lose weight.
To work out how many calories you need is an inexact science, however you can get a ballpark by using a simple calorie calculator. Every person has vastly different calorific needs and you need to take into account your personal circumstances. To help with some general figures, the average female requires 1,500 calories to lose 1lb each week and the average male requires 2,000 calories to lose the same amount.
So, when we question if EveryPlate is a good tool for losing weight, it’s really asking whether eating EveryPlate dinners can allow you to eat the right amount of calories each. To answer this properly, we need to have a look at what EveryPlate offers.
What does EveryPlate offer?
EveryPlate only offer a standard meal kit box, which can be delivered with either 3, 4, 5 or 6 recipes and serves 2, 4 or 6 people.
I’ve already researched the healthiest meal kits in Australia before on my blog, so I have a baseline for how many calories you’d expect to see in a meal kit. For EveryPlate, I took a random sample of 20 different dishes to identify their nutritional composition. These averages are per serving:
- Average Calories: 732
- Average Fat Content: 32g
- Average Carbohydrate Content: 66g
- Average Protein Content: 37g
The lowest calorie meals in our sample were the Barbecue Beef Bowl (510 calories) and the Garlic Pork & Couscous (547 calories), which both contrasted very heavily with the highest calorie meal. That was the Classic Beef Burger with a whopping 965 calories.
There’s a small frustration with EveryPlate that they list their calorie content in the form of KiloJoules (energy). This is a perfectly accurate way of listing calories however it’s not as accessible to most consumers. Most standard tracking/weight loss services use KiloCalories as the primary unit. In order to work out calories, the rough calculation is that it’s 25% of the KiloJoules.
On a more positive note, all recipes do come with accurate and detailed nutrition values that allow you to assess whether the meal is something you’re comfortable having in your diet.
If you’re looking for more detail on the EveryPlate service, I highly recommend checking out my full Australian EveryPlate review.
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Can I lose weight on EveryPlate?
Now we’re familiar with the two factors that influence weight loss, it’s possible to make a judgement on whether it’s possible to lose weight on EveryPlate:
- The average female needs 1500 calories to lose weight, whilst the average male requires 2000 calories.
- We need to calculate our individual requirements using a calorie calculator.
- EveryPlate offer meals that average around 732 calories per serving.
We can immediately see that 732 calories is a significant amount of your daily required calorie intake (49% for the average female!) so you’d need to be careful with your breakfast and lunch to allow yourself a full serving of your EveryPlate dinner.
However, if you were to carefully select your meals each week and plan out your other meals each day, it’s clear that EveryPlate CAN be used as part of an overall balanced diet. At the moment, EveryPlate do not offer any breakfast or lunch kits so you would need to shop for and prepare those meals yourself.
Top tips for weight loss with EveryPlate
If you want to continue your weight loss journey with EveryPlate, I have a couple of hints & tips that might help you out:
- Choose Your Meals Carefully – When selecting your meals, it’s possible to check exactly what the nutritional value is per serving. This means you can avoid picking high-calorie meals, sticking to the meals available within the 500 – 700 calorie range (7 of our sample 20 meals).
- Save Ingredients – If you have a meal that involves pasta or rice, it’s possible to only use half a portion of those ingredients to significantly reduce the carbohydrate content of those meals. You’re then able to use those ingredients in a meal at a later date.
- Split Portions – As I’m normally cooking for myself, I became a master at cooking everything and then reheating it the next day. This tactic can help weight loss as well because you can split a 2-portion meal into 3 different portions and therefore cut your calorie intake significantly. This would also save you money as you can buy less meals!
- Plan Other Meals – There’s little point in controlling your calories at dinner if your other meals aren’t supporting your goals. Make sure you plan out what you’re eating for breakfast and lunch as well to ensure your total diet is working towards your weight loss goals. To help with this, you may be interested in some of the weight loss service alternatives below.
Weight loss alternatives to EveryPlate
There are lots of weight loss services available in Australia, so I want to recommend 2 of the more highly rated services for you:
- Lite n Easy – In contrast to EveryPlate, Lite n Easy serve pre-prepared meals that just need to be cooked in the microwave for a few minutes. This makes choosing and cooking your dinner as easy as possible. They also offer plans that include every meal of the day so you have a complete diet plan ready to go from day 1.
- GoodnessMe Box – If you’re a regular ‘snacker’ like I am, GoodnessMe is absolutely revolutionary. They send a discovery box every week that includes health food products along with information about how to improve your overall health. They’ve already introduced me to numerous health snack alternatives that get me away from unhealthy chocolate bars/crisps.
I cover these and more in depth in my article about the best food boxes to help you lose weight.
EveryPlate Discount Offer
Food Box Mate readers can take advantage of a special discount off your first EveryPlate boxes! Simply click on the link below and the discount is all yours.
