Put together a cook from an old, well-loved restaurant in Intramuros, and a nutritionist who makes precise calculations, and you get delicious food that’s not only healthy but helps you lose weight at a sustainable rate of up to two pounds per week.
A new kid on the diet-delivery block is Healthylicious, the brainchild of marketing expert Jocel Adorable, whose personal advocacy is to promote healthy eating the natural and balanced way.
In barely 10 months, Healthylicious is already making waves on social media, such that among its growing clientele are celebrities Lorna Tolentino and Maritess Gutierrez.
Its secret? A well-thought-out, calorie-counted diet using all-natural ingredients.
“We don’t substitute something with another thing. What we do is control the amount, so the taste is never compromised. We use only natural ingredients,” Adorable told Inquirer Lifestyle.
The brown rice, for example, is sprinkled either with chia seeds or flaxseed.
When a recipe calls for cheese, such as its Vegetable Mini Pizza, real cheese oozes with every bite.
Its Southwestern Omelette Wrap uses whole eggs, not just egg whites, so that it remains flavorful.
The same goes for its American Meatloaf, Pineapple Grilled Pork Chop, Beef Pochero with Eggplant Salsa, Chicken Fajitas, Red Beans and Chicken Chilaquiles. These are the kind of meals that you eat at home or in a restaurant, Adorable said. (Tolentino, she added, calls Healthylicious a “happy tummy.”)
In fact, Adorable’s entire family eats Healthylicious— from her 90-year-old mother-in-law to her 11-year-old daughter, and her husband, who used to hate going on a diet. (“He has now lost 16 pounds in six weeks on Healthylicious,” she said.)
Made from scratch
Everything is made from scratch, including gravies—yes, there are meals that call for sauces with a little bit of grease—and even palitaw or sweet potato with orange syrup or cassava cake.
The menu is tasty, although serving sizes might take some getting used to. It is still, after all, a calorie-based diet—1,200-1,500 calories per meal for women and 1,800-2,000 for men, or just about the right amount for the average person to lose weight.
A 5’5” woman, for example, will need to consume 1,600-1,800 calories a day to lose weight.
“Some women will opt to get the men’s package for the first two weeks before going for 1,200 to 1,500 calories. For those more experienced in dieting, or those who’ll go straight for the lowest calorie bracket, I always tell them that if they get hungry, they can have some crackers or fruit,” Adorable said.
Healthylicious is a five-day diet meal plan that includes three meals and two snacks per day. Meals do not contain MSG and are low in fat, salt and sugar. When a recipe calls for sugar, Adorable said they use muscovado to keep it as healthy and as natural as possible.
“I’ve been into diet meals for 10 years,” she recalled. “Any sort of weight-reducing thing, I buy. But I’ve always wondered how come it’s so hard to sustain it. That’s because most of them are bland.”
At Healthylicious, she said it’s all the things you need in a meal that you should take, but balanced. There is just enough fat, salt and sugar to feed your body—nothing in excess.
Clients reported weight loss and better-regulated blood pressure and blood sugar, she pointed out.
“It’s a discipline to eat the right amount of food based on your height and medical condition. With our meal plans, preparing food will be one less thing you’ll need to worry about,” she said.
The pricing is affordable, designed for office workers, and delivered from Sunday to Thursday to cover meals from Monday to Friday. It’s P1,800 for 1,200-1,500 calories, and P1,950 for 1,800-2,000 calories. That’s P360 to P390 a day for three meals and two snacks. Delivery within Metro Manila is free.
Call 09088661105; e-mail [email protected].
Follow @Healthyliciousmnl on Facebook and Instagram.
