Should You Get Your Meals From the Gym?

Would you eat food from the same place you break a sweat? (Photo: Getty Images)

When Catherine Taylor, 25, moved to the District of Columbia over a year ago, she jumped right into the local mentality, working long hours and weekends as a registered dietitian at VIDA Fitness and Aura spa. Like many of her clients, she was left with little time to cook healthy meals for herself.

“I’m a dietitian – I like being in the kitchen, I like prepping my meals,” Taylor says. But with no downtime, “it’s another chore,” she says.

So Taylor tried a solution her workplace was promoting: Power Supply, a prepared meal service in the District and Los Angeles that delivers fresh, healthy meals made by local chefs to gyms and, in some areas, clients’ homes and workplaces.

“It was a game-changer,” says Taylor, who first ordered three dinners from the company each week and now usually eats five meals weekly. She might chow down on beef rendang with snow peas and mushrooms for dinner Monday, Moroccan chicken salad with beets, butternut squash, pistachios and greens for lunch Tuesday and horseradish almond encrusted salmon with mango sauté and kale on Wednesday night. All for about $12 a meal.

“I know all the nutrition information, I know who cooked it, I know it comes from a company with high health standards,” Taylor says. “In terms of how I feel after a meal? Definitely different than if I went out and got something – even if it was from a healthier place.”

Food Delivery 2.0

Power Supply is one of many prepared meal services that have popped up in the last few years to feed the hungry and wannabe healthy. Others include Muscle Up Paleo, which targets the paleo-devoted CrossFit crowd in the New York Tri-State area; Kettlebell Kitchen, also a paleo plan in New York and New Jersey; and Custom Fit Meals, which offers a range of options​ to fit diners along the East Coast who want to follow the company’s slogan: “Eat clean. Live better.” Out West, Mind Body Fork delivers meals free of gluten and refined sugars that are crafted from whatever founder Debbie Lee​ finds at the morning's​ farmers market.

“I’ve started a lot of restaurants and nothing has taken as quickly as this took,” says Lee, a former bacon- and butter-loving chef on the Food Network’s “Food Network Star.” After losing 30 pounds in 2013 by eating healthier, Lee launched Mind Body Fork earlier this year to help others do the same. “I started really learning and teaching myself about good, healthy eating and what that meant,” she says.

More than say, Lean Cuisine, most of the new prepared meal companies deliver fresh, sustainably-made foods that support local chefs or agriculture. ​Different from old-fashioned pizza delivery, the meals are intended to be part of a longer-term healthy meal plan rather than a last-minute dinner fix​. And unlike traditional takeout, many plans are crafted specifically for the fit, filling gym refrigerators and claiming to balance nutrients and calories for optimal performance.

“Good-for-you food ought to taste freaking great, and if you can have that be true in a service that’s really easy to access, but also modified to your tastes, that’s a recipe to not only help you eat better over time, but enjoy it,” says Robert Morton​, ​co-founder of Power Supply.

A Fit for You?​

Power Supply meals are delivered twice a week and come in three sizes.

One of Taylor’s clients is a busy lawyer who often delayed lunch so long he’d wind up famished and succumb to a greasy fix like chili cheese fries in the late afternoon. Another client spends her weekends in Philadelphia and weekdays in the District, where she rarely goes grocery shopping​. Both now use Power Supply, which helps them keep meals more structured, balanced and suitable for their lifestyles, Taylor says. “Maybe I want them to have a little bit less fat in a meal or a little bit more this, but it’s so much better than what they’d be [eating] otherwise,” she says.

Other people who can benefit from such programs include single people who aren’t motivated to cook for one; parents or workaholics who don’t have time to prepare healthy meals for themselves; athletes who need the convenient and healthy fuel; and people who simply don’t like to cook.​ “That’s what these services give us: The feeling that we created this home-cooked meal, but we didn’t have to do it,’” Taylor says.

Customers of Muscle Up Paleo​ include people with diabetes who follow a paleo diet to control their blood sugar, gymgoers aiming to lose weight and young professionals who want to bring a healthy lunch to work, says company founder Byron Carter​, whose 91-year-old grandmother also eats the meals. “[She’s] always happy to offer her reviews,” he says.

Hype and Hope ​

​But many of the plans have downsides, says ​Douglas Kalman​, a registered dietitian and director of nutrition at Miami Research Associates, where he studies pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements​. He’s been disappointed with some prepared meal companies’ customer service, as well as the food’s flavor and shelf life. While the concept is on track, Kalman worries that few companies have figured out how to meet the market’s growing demand without sacrificing quality. “Many of them sell what I would call ‘hype and hope’ – sort of like drug marketing and supplement marketing,” he says.

For clients, cost can also be a drawback – lunch and dinner most days a week can add up to $150 depending on the plan and size of your meals. Still, the prices are “fair,” Kalman says, considering how much you might spend if you were to order takeout or buy fresh produce and cook for yourself. Not all companies accommodate food allergies or preferences either, though many give clients a few options. Custom Fit Meals, for instance, offers gluten-free, dairy-free, legume-free and paleo options, while Power Supply meals are all gluten- and dairy-free, but come in vegetarian and paleo varieties, as well as middle-ground choice dubbed “mixitarian.” ​

Customers might also gain unwanted weight if they miscalculate how many calories they need or work out less because they’re eating healthier. It happens: A recent study in the Journal of Marketing Research found that people trying to watch their weight who are given “fitness-branded” foods – think those protein bars sold at your gym – actually eat more of the product and exercise less, perhaps because they believe the health food compensates for physical activity.​ For others, the plans might not supply enough fuel. Some of the mixed martial arts fighters Kalman works with as the sports nutritionist for Florida International University’s athletics department, for example, would need to eat 12 of the 400-calorie meals a day, he says.

If you’re tempted to try one of the services, Kalman recommends opting for one of the more established companies with a proven track record. Also ask whether they ​have a registered dietitian on staff and if they can share their nutrition and ingredients information and food safety protocols. “On some level, the popularity of some of these companies is faddish,” he says. “But I see the benefit for people who want convenience and comfort that they’re eating relatively clean.”
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Like any meal plan, the key is finding something that suits your body and lifestyle. “Nutrition is not a one-track system,” Taylor says. “Something that works for one person is not going to work for someone else.”

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