BistroMD Review: A Dietitian’s Take

Are you struggling with losing weight due to your busy schedule, convenience foods, and eating out? Unfortunately, this is a common problem.

However, several healthy meal delivery services now exist to bring flavorful weight-loss-friendly meals straight to your door. All you have to do is reheat them in the microwave.

BistroMD is one such service. Our comprehensive BistroMD review can help you determine if it’s right for you.

What is BistroMD?

BistroMD is a prepared meal delivery service focused on helping you reach weight loss goals. It was designed by doctors and registered dietitians.

The service offers high-quality, single serving, heat-and-eat meals with optional snacks delivered to your door each week. All you have to do is reheat the meals.

This completely removes the hassle of making dinner each night.

The flash-frozen meals are made with high-quality ingredients that heat very well and taste much better than typical frozen food. It’s important to note that BistroMD doesn’t offer organic food.

In addition to the meals, BistroMD offers a weight loss program component with professional support from their team of dietitians.

They also have several other resources available in the membership area of their website called My BistroMD.

How Does the Service Work?

The first step to getting started with BistroMD is selecting your program.

They offer the following programs to choose from, all of which contain calorie-controlled meals to meet a variety of different dietary needs or dietary restrictions:

• Standard: A variety of meals
• Gluten free: Gluten free meals
• Heart healthy: Low in sodium and saturated fat
• Diabetic: Low in net carbs
• Menopause: Consistent in carbs

And, as of May 2022, the service now offers a keto specific plan. It’s called Keto Flex, and is an available choice when signing up for BistroMD.

Next, you’ll choose your plan. The Full Program plan offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can choose a five-day or seven-day option.

Keep in mind that the seven–day option comes with 20 meals for the week, so you’ll be on your own for one meal.

The Lunches & Dinners option offers just lunches and dinners for five or seven days.

After selecting your program and plan, you’re directed to enter your contact information and address. At this point, you’ll be offered an optional snack add-on that provides two snacks each day.

Once you enter i your payment details, you’ll be taken to the My BistroMD membership area. This is where you can choose your meals,

Alternatively, you can stick to their pre-filled selections.

The BistroMD menu features over 150 different dietitian-created meals to choose from.

There is also a calendar where you can skip future weeks or select meals for upcoming weeks.

BistroMD is a meal subscription-based service. When you sign up, you’re committing to weekly shipments.

Be sure to skip weeks when you won’t be home to accept your delivery or cancel if you don’t want to continue using the service. Both of these actions can be done online easily via their customer service portal.

How Much Does BistroMD Cost?

BistroMD charges a weekly fee based on the plan you choose, with the per-serving price starting at about $9.49.

During the checkout process, you’ll have the option to add extra snacks. The Women’s Snack Program offered to me during checkout provided 14 snacks per week for $28.

Shipping is $19.95 per box.

*For a limited time, Frugal Rules readers can get 40% off their first BistroMD order PLUS free shipping!

*Related: Are you looking for a more affordable diet meal plan? Take our free quiz to identify the best service for your needs.

My Experience Using the Service

My expectations are always low when it comes to frozen meals, but BistroMD was impressive.

Signing up was easy, as was canceling. However, in my opinion, the calendar and meal selection process after signing up weren’t as straightforward as they could have been.

Regardless, I was able to switch out many of the auto-assigned meals to options that sounded better to me before my order was shipped.

The meals arrived neatly packaged in an insulated box with dry ice. They were partially defrosted but still safe to go into the freezer.

I thought the packaging was as eco-friendly as possible for single-serving meals.

Some of the meals I received included:

• Turkey Breast with Herbed Brown Gravy
• Chicken with Lemon Peppercorn Sauce
• Crustless Chicken and Pepperoni Pizza
• Grilled Salmon with Creamy Pesto

I enjoyed all of the meals I tried.

While I didn’t use their web community or consult with their registered dietitian, it was easy to find these resources in the members’ area of their website.

What Are BistroMD Meals Like?

I’m not a huge fan of frozen food, so I was pleasantly surprised by BistroMD. Unlike most frozen individual prepared meals I’ve tried from the grocery store, I looked forward to eating these.

I chose the diabetes meal plan since it most closely matched my low-carb eating style, so most of the meals I selected featured one protein source (mostly salmon or chicken) and two veggies.

The protein tended to be on the small side. Fortunately, the portion sizes were perfect for keeping me full but not stuffed.

However, these prepared meals may not be big enough for men, people who have a physical job, or people who are active.

For the most part, the meals reheated very well. I stored them in the freezer, and almost every meal I tried was fully warmed through after five minutes in the microwave.

The one meal that needed an extra minute was the stuffed chicken entree, but it was a thick piece of chicken stuffed with spinach and cheese.

Fortunately, these meals didn’t have a lot of excess liquid pooled in the tray after heating like some frozen meals do. This helped make them a lot more appetizing.

I usually transfer frozen meals to a different plate so they look a bit nicer, but I didn’t have to do that with these.

I also thought they were nicely seasoned. The veggies had just the right amount of salt to keep them from being bland, and the proteins were consistently flavorful as well.

Better yet, the proteins weren’t too dry even after being microwaved.

Overall, I was impressed with the taste and quality of the meals.

Who Should Use BistroMD?

Here’s who may get their money’s worth from BistroMD.

People Who Want Structure

If you’re trying to lose weight and you don’t want to worry about meal planning, prepping, shopping, or rules, BistroMD’s weight loss program is perfect for you.

Their Full Program offers every meal you’ll need for a full week except for one dinner. Additionally, the meals are calorie-controlled.

This means that if you’re only eating their food, you won’t need to worry about tracking.

*Related: Are you looking for other options to get fit? Read our guide on the top Nutrisystem alternatives to learn more about the best choices.

From there, you can make it as easy or as involved as you’d like.

You can use their online tools for more accountability, meet with their dietitians as much as you need, or keep it simple and uninvolved.

Picky Eaters

Picky eaters will appreciate BistroMD’s simple meals and huge array of substitutions. If you don’t like a meal, you can easily switch it out for something you prefer.

If you do like a certain food, you can make that the highlight of your box.

For example, my box contained four or five different salmon dishes because I love salmon.

People Who Want Convenience

You can’t beat the convenience of BistroMD. Even if you store the meals in the freezer, they’re ready to eat after just five minutes in the microwave.

They’re ideal for work lunches, dinners for busy nights, or meals for an individual who doesn’t want to cook every night for one.

Who Shouldn’t Use the Service?

If you eat a plant-based diet or if you’re on a budget, BistroMD may not be a good fit.

Vegans/Vegetarians

Unfortunately, BistroMD doesn’t currently offer a dedicated vegan or vegetarian meal plan or other options for special diet needs.

A better alternative for vegetarians may be Diet-To-Go, which offers a plant-based plan featuring dairy, eggs, beans, and soy protein.

For vegans, options like Splendid Spoon or Daily Harvest may be better choices. Additionally, a plant-based meal delivery service like Purple Carrot may be worth looking into.

Read our Purple Carrot review to learn more about that program.

Budget Conscious People

BistroMD is also on the expensive side, with meals starting at $9.49 per serving if you buy the seven-day Full Program.

This can add up quickly, with a full month of the Full Program costing about $800-$1,000 for one person after shipping fees are added.

To save money, it’s probably a better idea to go grocery shopping and do meal prep.

You could also purchase less expensive frozen meals at the grocery store, although the quality likely won’t be comparable to BistroMD.

Alternatively, you can look into inexpensive and healthy meal kit services. These options deliver fresh ingredients to you. Then you cook the meals.

Meal kits are usually less expensive than premade meals but require more prep time. Healthy meal delivery kits include Hello Fresh and Blue Apron.

Other inexpensive meal delivery kits include Dinnerly and Every Plate. Prices vary based on the number of recipes per week you choose.

Pros and Cons

Here are some of the pros and cons of the service.

Pros:

• Convenient microwavable meals
• Variety of meal plans and meal options
• Meals reheat well
• Calorie-controlled for sustainable weight loss

Cons:

• Expensive
• Small portion sizes
• No plant-based option
• Shipping costs $19.95 per week

If you like the convenience of heat and eat meals, BistroMD is a good option to get fit.

The Competition

Here’s how BistroMD stacks up against some of the other subscription meal delivery services.

Nutrisystem

Nutrisystem is popular and has been around for a while. Like BistroMD, they offer frozen meals and snacks designed to promote healthy weight loss.

They have plans for men, women, and diabetics.

Nutrisystem’s plans start at $9.99 per day, but they include five full days of meals per week (plus snacks).

*Related: Read our analysis of Nutrisystem vs. Jenny Craig to learn how the two companies compare. 

Comparatively, the diet meal plan is slightly more affordable than BistroMD.

However, Nutrisystem food is more highly processed than BistroMD and made from lower-quality ingredients.

Read our Nutrisystem review to learn more.

Diet-to-Go

Diet-to-Go is remarkably similar to BistroMD, offering frozen meals designed for weight loss. However, their weekly menu options include keto and vegetarian recipes in addition to the standard plan.

Diet-to-Go features similar pricing to BistroMD, even down to the shipping fee.

However, they don’t offer gluten-free, heart-healthy, or menopause options.

Read our Diet-to-Go review to learn more.

Bottom Line

BistroMD is a weight loss meal service offering high-quality individual meals that are quick, easy, and convenient. However, you will pay for the simplicity as the meals start at nearly $10 per serving.

Regardless, BistroMD may be right for you if you’re trying to lose weight but need the convenience of premade meals.

What do you look for in a diet meal service?