MACROS Review (2023) – Healthy Prepared Meal Delivery

MACROS is a prepared meal service that delivers fresh lunches and dinners designed to meet your fitness goals. The convenience factor is hard to ignore, throwing a single portion into the microwave and be eating within five minutes.

However, I personally always doubt how healthy/tasty these can actually be. In this review of MACROS, I discover whether MACROS can live up to their reputation.

If you want to learn more about how prepared meals work, I have a detailed prepared meals guide to help you out. Looking for other services, check out all my prepared meals reviews.

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With MACROS, you can choose from 7 different plans. These are split between everyday and fitness plans.

Everyday Options

• Balanced – 350g meals for one person.
• Family – 700g meals to serve two people.
• Weight Loss – 300g portions that are all under 350 calories.
• Plant-Based – A no-meat plan to serve one person.

Fitness Options

• Sculpt – 300g portions for looking ‘lean and defined’
• Performance – 350g portions that are ‘protein packed’
• Muscle Gain – 450g portions that are ‘high calorie, and carb loaded’

This easily guides you down to the right portion size based on your fitness goals. However, I would recommend you check the MACROS against your own personal targets as these definitions won’t match everyone.

I was impressed that the meal changes weren’t just increased portion sizes, it does appear some thought has gone into increasing the right ingredients to match the Sculpt, Performance and Muscle Gain targets. For example, the Sri Lankan curry has 2.4x the calories in Muscle Gain vs Sculpt but only 1.8x Protein, 4x Carbs and 2.4x Fat. Definitely carb-loaded!

2022 Update

Since this review was written, MACROS have expanded their offering to include Family, Weight Loss, Plant-Based and Sculpt plans. This allows you much more flexibility on the types of meal that arrive and is an exciting innovation. The fitness meal plans have also had their portion sizes increased.

They’ve also massively expanded the meal options available so it’s easier to find meals you’ll love.

2023 Update

MACROS have increased the pricing of their “Gain” plan, although the pricing of all other plans has remained the same. Prices have been raised by 5-10%.

Getting Started with my MACROS Review

Registering is super simple, either provide an email and password or connect in with your Facebook account. Once you have an account, it asks you to pick between an everyday or a fitness plan before asking for how many portions you want to be delivered (minimum of 7).

I was impressed with the simplicity of their website and had no trouble getting to the menus. They also have a detailed FAQ section that answers most questions you might have.

Meal Options Available

The food options are very similar across each offering, the only difference being portion sizes and a small cost increase for those bigger portions. Each meal has a clear picture and the Calories, Protein, Carbs and Fat making it really easy to measure against your dietary goals. Clicking on any of the meals gives you a clear ingredient list and a full set of nutritional values.

Some of the options available when I ordered included:

• Beef Burrito Bowl
• Sri Lankan Curry
• Sirloin Steak & Greens
• Tofu Thai Curry
• Loaded Veggie Stew

It’s easy to be drawn in by these meals, they all sound delicious. You have the choice of nearly 50 different meals and you can easily select multiple of the same meal. Unlike many other sites, MACROS asks you to pick the meals yourself rather than providing a standard/suggested box. This means that you’ll automatically get the same meals each week unless you actively go and edit your selections.

Delivery Options

Whilst MACROS don’t explicitly state their delivery areas, they do cover most metropolitan areas including Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane. They have a handy delivery checker on their site for you to see if they deliver in your area.

You need to have confirmed your order at least 4 days before their delivery dates (usually twice a week) which is fairly standard practice for food boxes – usually a good sign that the food is made to order. They send you an email on the cut-off date so it’s hard to miss the opportunity to adjust your order.

Deliveries are made between 8am – 6pm and the boxes can be left in a safe space all day. Each box is chilled and will keep the meals at the right temperature all day.

Delivery costs vary per postcode and size of the box, between $10 and $15 per delivery which is confirmed at checkout.

How much does MACROS cost?

MACROS comes in at a mid-range price point, providing options for 7, 10, 15, 18, 21 or 24 meals which aligns with the single-portion fitness driven approach that’s perfect for solo eaters but less suited to families/couples. It’s a bit disappointing that 7 is the minimum order as well, which is challenging if you might be away for a couple of days in a week and would need to freeze spare meals.

With the introduction of their 700g family plan, MACROS now has a great option for couples who want to explore prepared meals.

Here are the prices for each plan, with a range of prices based on a 7-meal or 24-meal subscription:

Everyday Meals

• Balanced – 350g portions at $12.00 – $9.90 per meal.
• Family – 700g portions at $19.86 – $16.71 per meal ($9.88 – $8.35 per portion).
• Weight Loss – 300g portions at $11.60 – $9.65 per meal.
• Plant-Based– 350g portions at $12.00 – $9.90 per meal.

Fitness Meals

• Sculpt – 300g portions at $11.60 – $9.65 per meal.
• Performance – 350g portions at $12.00 – $9.90 per meal.
• Muscle Gain – 450g portions at $13.71 – $11.67 per meal.

MACROS have improved their pricing over time, starting to offer good discounts when buying larger subscriptions. I put a benchmark around the $10 mark for most prepared meals services, so it’s good to see MACROS is available for as low as $9.65 per meal.

It’s definitely worth considering ordering meals in bulk to save some money, especially if you’re planning to order from the more costly family plan. MACROS meals can be frozen easily and without losing any flavour. Here’s a quick example based on the Performance plan and including the cost of delivery:

Order Method	Cost Per Serving	Total Cost
7 Meals for 3 weeks	$13.71	$288.00
21 Meals in 1 week	$10.82	$227.25

In this example, you can save a massive $60.75 from ordering your meals in bulk and freezing them. Along with our exclusive discount link, you can make some considerable savings.

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My MACROS Review box

The box was delivered for me on a Sunday afternoon and was left on the front porch for me to collect. As you can see below, the packaging was rather inconspicuous with nothing to clearly identify it was from MACROS. The silver box was lined with insulating material and had 2 massive gel ice blocks inside. I’m quite confident this fulfils the promise of keeping your meals cool all day.

Inside the box were the 10 meals I had ordered, packaged separately and ready to be eaten. I was disappointed not to receive any further information or details about the meals I had ordered. However, this is probably positive from an environmental standpoint. There were no issues with the packaging as the meals promptly got stacked in the fridge and the box went out for recycling.

Is MACROS Food Tasty?

One reason I dislike ‘ready meals’ in general is that they can be packed full of sugar and preservatives in order to preserve their shelf life and retain flavour. MACROS have totally changed my perspective with their food, proving that you can deliver healthy, tasty food that just takes 2 minutes to cook in a microwave (you will need a microwave!).

That being said, my overall impression continues to be that freshly cooked food will always taste better than microwave meals. The reheating process does often take away from the texture and flavour of a dish, with sauces becoming watery and meat becoming tougher. Arguably this is a small price to pay for the convenience of not cooking!

I was mainly impressed by the dishes containing fish that all managed to retain a huge amount of flavour.

MACROS is fantastic once you know which dishes are your personal favourites and can order multiple of them each week to help you hit your consumption goals.

Anything Else?

MACROS provides a barcode on the front of each meal that can be scanned into MyFitnessPal and includes all the nutritional information, making it really quick and easy to track your intake. This is absolutely perfect for anyone who’s looking to take control of their diet and I absolutely loved this feature.

I wanted to understand a little more about their ‘muscle gain’ vs ‘sculpt’ programmes and how they contribute to your goals. Based on an average male weight of 80kg and female weight of 70kg, with someone who goes to the gym 3-4 times a week this makes your daily needs as follows:

Note that the above are very generic numbers and aren’t necessarily representative of your dietary needs.

Starting with muscle gain, 2 MACROS meals a day give you around 1200 calories and 120g of protein. That’s only 36% (Men) or 42% (Women) of your daily calories – you’ll really need to eat additional meals to get even close to your target. This is why MACROS offer a 24 meal pack that covers 3 meals a day for 7 days. Even then, 1800 calories are just over half the calorific needs for men.

On to weight loss, 2 MACROS meals a day give you around 600 calories and 70g of protein. That’s really positive reading, leaving nearly 2/3rds of your calorie needs left over for other food. Again, this does need to be matched against your own individual goals (and exercise regime) but I do believe that the Sculpt plan will be far more effective at achieving your goals than the Muscle Gain plan.

Conclusions

I absolutely loved how easy it was to throw my lunch/dinner in the microwave for 2 minutes and have a filling, healthy meal at the end of it. On that basis, I would recommend MACROS to anyone who values their time at an absolute premium. MACROS meals could (and should) easily replace any ‘ready-meal’ habits without breaking the bank.

The nature of single-portions means that a MACROS subscription is rather better for solo eaters than it is for couples/families. The super clear nutritional information means that these meals are also perfect for anyone who’s tracking their food intake either for dieting or weight gain.

The trade-off for all this convenience is that you occasionally find that either flavour or texture are really lacking in a dish, although this can be overcome by only ordering your favourites from their range of meals. I’d like to see them reward customers for ordering higher quantities as well by reducing that cost per meal to make it more competitive.

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Ultimately, I value my time enough to accept those trade-offs and find myself being a MACROS convert! Do you think it’s worth switching to prepared meals? Let me know in the comments below.