Beachbody Meal Planner Review

Beachbody has just upgraded their Meal Plan that comes included with their Beachbody Club Membership. First let me say that I have personally been a club member for 5 years. Having said that, I would not be a member of something I did not see VALUE in. I believe in the Beachbody Club and what is has to offer. When I joined the Club back in 2005, the customized Meal Plan helped me lose 30 lbs in 90 days! Crazy. For those of you that have dieted before, and lost a lb or two here and there, 30 lbs in 3 months seems insane. I didn’t do anything CRAZY, I didn’t starve myself, I didn’t workout 2-3 times a day. No fancy pills, no weight loss schemes. It was quite simple. Diet and Exercise. I started back then with Power 90. I was determined to lose weight, I ordered Power 90 and started a Club Membership. It was easy enough for me to “Push Play” on the DVD player. My problem was, I had no idea WHAT to eat. I had no concept of HOW MUCH to eat, and how to combine them all TOGETHER for weight loss. Since I was committed to losing weight, I signed up for the Club Membership. After signing up, I used the meal planner to get my CUSTOMIZED meal plan, and FOLLOWED it. 90 days and 30 lbs later, I was thoroughly IMPRESSED. That was THEN, and this is NOW.

Beachbody has just released their new meal planner for their Club Members. I was so impressed and excited about the release of this new feature, I wanted to tell you about it. Even better, I wanted to take some screen shots, and post them. I wanted you to see what I was so impressed about, seeing is believing. And I wanted you to see and hear a review, before you signed up. To be honest, I haven’t ever really endorsed the Club wholeheartedly until NOW.

Diet is where you will really see results. Honestly, the diet is the ABSOLUTE HARDEST part of the whole weight loss journey. But IF you can get the nutrition part right, and IF you exercise like your supposed to, then you will LOSE WEIGHT, guaranteed! Speaking of guarantees, Beachbody offers you one too. 30 days to try it out, cancel anytime during your 30 days and get your money back. They even throw in a free $20 gift. You can’t LOSE. Actually you can, you can LOSE weight. 🙂 So stick with me, and let’s take a detailed look at the Beachbody Meal Planner.

1. Simple enough, you start the process of creating your own customized meal plan by completing the online “wizard”. A quick note about the wizard. The Meal Planner is not just for those looking to lose weight. This Meal Planner has options for those that are continuing their fitness. if you are doing P90X or Insanity, the Meal Planner has options for that too.  It’s suitable for all Beachbody programs, and you can always go back and run a new wizard to adjust your meal plan as you continue your fitness journey.

2. You will proceed through a simple set of questions to help determine what kind of meal plan is best for you, and how many calories you need per day, etc. according to the fitness goals you specify. Regardless of what the outcome is, and what the Meal Planner suggests, you have full control over the meal plan, by using adding some of your favorite foods. The picture below only shows a partial list of questions.

3. You also have the option to select a vegetarian diet plan, then you answer the last few questions and you’re all done.

4. At the completion of the questionnaire, you will be presented with a diet plan, number of calories, and an option to add extra calories, if you deem necessary. Notice below that you can get additional information about the various meal plans : Balanced Slim Down, Low-Carb, Vegetarian, and Active lifestyle. You also have the option to change the meal plan, to one of your preference. Once your decision is made, you accept the meal plan.

5. As you can see below, you have your meal plan. I show Sunday and Monday, but this continues through the week. Notice you have a pre-planned meal for Breakfast, Snack, Lunch, Snack, Dinner. You will get to eat 5 times a day. No starvation diet will be found here! This is such a time-saver. No worrying about panning your meals for the day, counting calories, crunching numbers. I can’t say it enough, Diet and Exercise. Exercise is made easy with the program you are using. The Diet is now made simple through the Meal Planner.

6. Now let’s say you want to know more information about your breakfast listed on Sunday. if you click on the link for breakfast, you will get the screen shown below. A lot of things can happen here. You can get the prep time, and total time to prepare the meal. You can click the “heart” to make it a favorite meal. You can get the average rating of the meal, and you can also personally rate the meal. You can also get the complete recipe, followed by all the nutritional information. The exchanges tab will tell you how to swap out the current meal for a comparable meal, and still stay on your Meal Plan.  For example, this meal consists of a bread/starch, fruit, and fat. (Yes, healthy fat is important even when dieting). 🙂  If you are going to swap a meal, you would want a bread/starch and some fruit.

7. You also have an option to “exclude” items from the meal plan. So if you don’t like pork or eggs for example, just exclude them, and your meal plan updates automatically.

8. Another feature I really like is the Food Analyzer. I know when I first started working out and trying to learn how to eat right, I needed a lot of “education” in this area. The Food Analyzer is great for this purpose. The example below, I typed in “tuna”. This in turn, provided me with a list of items containing the keyword “tuna”. I selected “Tuna: canned/water, 1 ounce”.

9. When we look at the details for this item, we see on the left side the Diet Exchange information. Remember up above, I stated that a meal would specify what could be “exchanged”. Below, Tuna canned in water, 1 ounce is “1 Lean Meat”. So if you had an item on your menu that was a lean meat, and you wanted to exchange, tuna would be an acceptable exchange. You also have the Nutritional Information for Tuna.  The exchange area will be a great tool for those following the P90X diet.

10. Although I currently have not set any favorite foods, if I had, it would show up in my favorite foods list below. You can also build a favorite meal, and search the recipes from here.

11. One of my most absolute FAVORITE things about the Meal Planner. The Shopping List. Once you have your meal plan, customized it, added in your favorite foods, etc, the Meal Planner will provide you with a very detailed Shopping List. Notice the “Print” option on the top right, so you can print it and take it with you to the store. You can also print almost every screen in the Meal Planner, recipes, etc. I took several screen shots of the Shopping List. It’s put together quite nicely. It also categorizes the grocery items, so you’re not running all over the grocery store. Produce is combined, Dairy is combined, etc.

11. Shopping List continued. Notice that each item has a red X. If you already have the item, click the red X and it’s gone from the list, and won’t be printed on the shopping list. Let’s say your Meal Plan shows your diet to use Peanut Butter. But you only need 2 Tablespoons. You obviously have a whole jar, so X it from the list, you don’t need it this week. Same goes for everything on your list.

11. Shopping List continued. Dry goods, Canned goods, Spices, Meat, Poultry, it’s all on the list. Very detailed and very thorough.

11. Shopping List continued. My last shopping list picture is below.  I took several pictures of the Shopping List, I wanted to show you how detailed this is. Can you see what a time saver this would be? Before the Club Membership you would have to figure out your meals, then figure out what you need to prepare those meals, then make a Shopping List. This is also a BIG upgrade to the Meal Planner. The last Meal Planner from Beachbody had a shopping list, but it was not customizable like this one. The list was static, no changes could be made.

11. Shopping List continued. Even though this a detailed list, you may have customized your plan with a food item not on the list. This portion allows you to add your customized item. Nice.

12. This section of the Meal Planner is more “educational” than anything. This page provides you with information on various items you might find on a label. Low Fat, Sodium Free, Fat Free, Reduced Sodium, etc. What does this mean? This page can help.

13.Another educational area of the Meal Planner. This section breaks down a food label, and defines each section down below the label itself. This area is easily accessible on the Meal Planner for quick and easy reference.

14. The Beachbody website is PACKED with recipes. There is a nice search utility to find that certain food you like. Search by keyword, food category, type of cuisine, or by meal type.

15. As you progress through your meal plan, you can always flip to this screen, which tracks your progress. On the image below, you can see the green numbers on the right. This means that you are within your target range. As you get close to being borderline, it changes to blue, then red for, well… you slipped. But that’s okay, that’s why tracking your progress is so important. Those that track their calories, are mindful of their diet and nutrition, have a greater chance of SUCCESS, than any other. On the left hand side of the picture, you can see the various categories. At any time, you can click on a category for details on calories, fat, carbs, protein, sodium, etc.

16. You can also go from a week view, to the daily view shown below. Then if you want, you can select the appropriate “tab” for breakfast, snack, lunch, etc. You can also see that on the right hand side, you can designate meals as favorites, swap out meals for something of your choosing, or delete the item all together.

17. At the bottom of the daily view and meal view, you can get your daily target information. Notice the nice graphs at the bottom. The green yellow, orange, blue and purple graphs are represented for calories, protein, total fat, and carbs. If you eat the meal plan as shown, you are exactly as you should be, and are full speed ahead to making progress towards your goals. If you skip a meal, add to a meal, or substitute meals, you’ll want to see how that affects your daily progress.

18. As I mentioned above, just like your shopping list, you can change your meal plan “on the fly”. As you scroll down your daily (or weekly) view, and see a food item or meal that you want to replace, just look to the right (shown above) and click on the two small blue arrows. This will pull up a list of substitutions, shown in the screen shot below. So let’s say you want to swap a food item. Click on the blue arrows, select a new item, and it automatically refreshes your main screen.

19. I also took a screen shot of the easy to navigate menu. Everything we discussed, is just to the left of the Meal Planner for quick and easy access. You’ll also see some other items that are a part of the Club Membership. I haven’t discussed them here, but will discuss them briefly in my summary.

20. Family Upsize Feature. This is a great feature for the entire family. You can upsize your meal recipes to serve as a single serving, or as a serving of 4. Easy to feed the entire family!

Summary. I spent quite a bit of time speaking with customers about diet and nutrition, and will always continue to do so.  I can sympathize with every single one of them, as they struggle to find “what works”. I was exactly the same way when I first started. I felt like I had a 1,000 piece puzzle, and was missing pieces. I didn’t have the first clue with where to start. Beachbody truly was the “missing puzzle pieces”. Once I started Power 90, and started my custom meal plan, I was well on my way to getting the puzzle completed. This took the mystery out of how to lose weight, when to eat, how much should I exercise. I got my customize plan, printed my shopping list, bought ONLY what was on my list, and put the meal plan on the refrigerator. I was on auto pilot from that moment on. I know there is a cost involved. $2.99 per week, billed quarterly. Let’s get past the dollars, and move towards your weight loss goals. That’s 3 items off the McDonald’s dollar menu every week. I know everyone can do that, and you don’t need the dollar menu anyway! You get a free run at this for 30 days, just to check it out.

After seeing Beachbody’s NEW Meal Planner, I’m now whole heartedly endorsing the club membership based on the Meal Planner alone. But all the other items are still available. Such as:

You get 10% off all Beachbody products, and I mean ALL products, supplements, fitness programs, equipment etc.

You also get access to a community message board, where you can connect with others doing the exact same program as you, access to chat rooms where you favorite trainers chat from time to time, the super cool WOWY gym, where you can play every day to win cash and prizes. I know this works, I won $300 just for playing!

Plus you get access to nutritional tools, calculators information etc. Let me say again, I have been a member for over 5 years. I’m not suggesting anything I do not use personally. Last of all, when you sign up, it will show RTHARDEN as your personal Beachbody coach, that’s me. As always, I provide support, encouragement, motivation, and answer questions all the time, every day, and will continue to do that for you too.

As my last thought, please forward this on to a friend, share it on your social networks, or email. I appreciate your support, as I do my best to support you. I hope you have enjoyed this review on Beachbody’s Meal Planner!