Trend Alert: ZoneChefs Diet Delivery Service

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!

But the real questions were: Does the program work, and is the food as yummy as Gunning raves? The average person, he says, loses about two and a half pounds a week on the diet. ZoneChefs, however, also offers an Event Zone option, which has helped people lose 10 pounds in three weeks.

ZoneChefs has about 75 celebrity clients (including Kevin Costner and Liza Minnelli), many of whom choose the Event Zone option. "Whether it be the Oscars or a movie premiere, whatever it might be, it seems like everyone wants to get into that great dress or that great suit," Gunning says.

With no red-carpet soirees scheduled on my calendar for the foreseeable future, I opted for the regular three-week plan. Registering was easy. I called the number and told them when I wanted to start receiving the food, and they did a brief profile: height (5'4''), weight (116 pounds), activity level (moderate), goal (lose five pounds) and food allergies/dislikes (no pork).

For average clients, like me, the program allows 1,200 calories per day for women and 1,600 to 1,700 for men, but it is always tailored to an individual's needs.

On the Monday morning of my first week on the program, I opened the door with some trepidation. But there it was: my little black bag filled with the day's goodies. I felt horrible for the delivery person who had to run it up my six flights of stairs! When I got to work I opened the bag and found individual Tupperware-style containers, all labeled with what I should eat and when. There are no exact time requirements with ZoneChefs, but they advise you not to let more than four or five hours pass without eating a meal or snack. You're given three meals and two snacks every day, all of which can be heated in the microwave for one to three minutes if necessary.

This was the kind of cooking I could handle. With the exception of breakfast that first day, which was some kind of egg concoction, almost every other meal I had on the program was as delicious as Gunning claimed. Breakfast varied from berry crepes with ricotta cheese to chocolate banana soy muffins. Lunch usually consisted of some kind of wrap or salad, and dinner was something entirely different every day ‑- sometimes things I had never heard of!

By far, however, the best part was the dessert. I've never been on a diet before where dessert is not only allowed but actually required. I mean, honestly, who gets to eat cheesecake and lose weight?

One of the changes I noticed within the first few days on the diet was how much more I thought about food and how much less I dreaded thinking about it. I felt like I was eating constantly. Although the portions were small, I rarely got hungry, because I would always eat something every few hours. By the second week, my body had already become accustomed to eating breakfast within an hour of waking up, and my stomach would start growling the minute my feet hit the floor. Usually, I'm a breakfast skipper (gasp!).

I will say that it is much easier to eat regularly when someone else has taken away all the guesswork. I never had to remember to eat breakfast or think about where I wanted to go for lunch; it was always right there for me.

"We make the smart choices for you," Gunning says. "We're not going to give you a whole bag of cupcakes."

Most of the time, I couldn't get enough of my ZoneChefs program ‑- but I won't lie. I cheated. There, I said it: I cheated.

I couldn't give up my daily hot chocolate. I would go out with a coworker and make her carry it back into the office so no one would know that it was really me who was cheating (word about my diet had spread around like crazy). And ZoneChefs recommends drinking only water, at least eight 8-ounce glasses of it a day, but I also failed miserably at this task.

Another day, about two weeks in, someone brought homemade cupcakes to work. The frosting, the sugar... I couldn't resist.

And the weekends were a nightmare. ZoneChefs offers both a seven-day and a five-day plan. I chose the seven-day option, and besides the minor indiscretions above, I stuck to it pretty well during the week. But come Friday night, all bets were off. I'm a sucker for going out to eat, and I craved the social time with my friends. I think the five-day plan is much more doable for someone who likes to go out on weekends.

Gunning had offered some tips for dining out. If you have to go out to eat, have your meal before you leave the house, he says, and then order something off the appetizer menu that is high in protein, such as shrimp cocktail.

Besides my weekend fiascoes, the only other problem I encountered on the program was never getting to choose what I wanted to eat at a particular time. ZoneChefs has 15 gourmet chefs in New York and nine in California who prepare a 120-day cycle of meals. And while the meals never got boring, some days I just wasn't in the mood for a turkey and Swiss salad pita for lunch or beef with roasted shallots for dinner.

Gunning says that for most people, however, the surprise element is actually beneficial. "It always seems that when you don't know what you're getting but you know you're going to enjoy everything in that bag, that gets you more involved in the program," he says. "If you knew you were going to get egg whites every morning, there might be some mornings where you're not even going to open the bag because you know what's in there already."

Survey says? After 21 days on the program, I did come out losing three pounds (not bad considering I was eating more than I usually did) and also having a greater sense of portion control. And although most of my bad habits have returned, I do now always eat breakfast.

ZoneChefs is currently offered in New York City and Los Angeles. The 31-day program is $39.99 per day. Vegetarian, kosher and children's options are available. ZoneChefs also offers the FroZone program for $19.99 per day and delivers frozen Zone meals to anywhere in the United States. For more information or to sign up for the program, visit ZoneChefs.com.

Sample Menu:

Breakfast: Cinnamon and Gingered Apple Bread Pudding with Maple Cream
Chicken and Turkey Deli Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Ranch Dressing
Mixed Berries with Almond Crème Crunch
Grilled Italian Fennel Sausage with Red Pepper Polenta, Cubanelle Peppers and Vidalia Onions
Pork Teriyaki with Pineapple Rice and Kumquats