I'll be the first to admit that dieting can be so not fun. I do it, of course; the dream of losing those last five pounds gets the better of me fairly regularly. But my problem with most diets isn't the lack of carbs or the tiny portions ‑- it's the sheer effort that goes into thinking about eating right.

I barely have enough time to remember to eat lunch, let alone the hours it takes to prepare healthy snacks and low-calorie meals.

Arthur Gunning had the same thought in mind when he founded the ZoneChefs delivery diet service in August 2003.

ZoneChefs touts itself as being the only five-star diet program in the country, which means fresh, gourmet meals are delivered to your door each morning before 5am in a black insulated lunch bag (very discreet). And as the name suggests, all of the food in the bag adheres to the 40 percent carbs, 30 percent fat and 30 percent protein breakdown of the original Zone Diet.

"It's really a no-brainer," Gunning says. "No guessing, no cooking, no shopping, no counting calories. People don't have enough time to sit there and go through all of this. Who has time to make a quiche in the morning? So to have this done for you, so you just open that door, you open that bag and put a big smile on your face because you know you're going to enjoy what's in the bag, and within two and half minutes, you could be sitting down ready to have your breakfast."

The program sounded a bit like having my own personal chef. Sign me up!