My Honest Review of Sakara Life.

In late January, I did what any sane person would do during a bout of insomnia: I ordered $1100 worth of a plant-based nutritional program that I had previously seen hocked all over Instagram.

I know, I know. I wish I could say I’m not a sucker for social media gimmicks, but I am. I’ve bought all kinds of things online because the ad convinced me that, yes, I *do* in fact need terrycloth wrist bands for when I wash my face so I don’t get water all over my arms & sleeves!

Side note: those wrist bands are great.

Anyway, on this very early January morning as I was unable to fall back asleep after violently tossing and turning, playing the latest Wordle and scrolling Twitter, I decided to go back to the Sakara Life site I had visited a few weeks prior when my interest was piqued after seeing posts online.

What is Sakara Life, you ask? From an article on Good Housekeeping: “Sakara Life is a wellness-based organic meal delivery service that focuses on whole foods and plant-forward eating. The service sources high-quality fresh ingredients and aims to create nutrient-dense meals, all prepared by classically trained chefs and delivered ready-to-eat to your doorstep.”

I was intrigued. NOT because I had any plan to go vegan/plant based (I love seafood and steak, sorry.) and NOT because I wanted to go on a “diet” to lose weight. Instead, I wanted to continue my year-long journey of trying to enjoy food while also being as healthy as I can — especially as a person with various hormone-related issues, some weird inexplicable bloating lately, and some funky blood test results in recent years (i.e, high cholesterol. no bueno).

I have been on a mission to really listen to my body and find what nourishes and satisfies it and makes it feel good, and of course…what does the opposite so I can avoid those things. For instance, I stopped eating Chinese food this past year because I had it twice in a row…and both times got a horrible migraine hours later. I’ve been wanting to cut carbs and dairy where I can — again, because blood tests have indicated I need to — but, it’s hard. Especially having to go out to the grocery store and figure out what to buy and meal prep when you want to make a change.

So, Sakara. I saw they were offering a program called The 30-Day Reset, and I opted to just do breakfast and lunch, just to give it a try without doing a complete 180 and also leaving my husband in the dust when it came to dinner (we actually have done HelloFresh together for many years and really enjoy it, but…that’s another post).

When I posted on Instagram that I was starting the program, a few people asked me to provide feedback and updates on it. I know that people saying “a few people asked” is cringe, but I’m not apologizing for the InfluencerSpeak™ because, well, THEY DID ASK. I’m long-winded to begin with and kind of missed writing, so I figured I’d put a post together to share my honest feedback for anyone who might be interested in checking this out — because there are a few things I personally wish I knew before going in.

Since I’ve already said a lot, I’m going to keep this quick.

THE PROS

• The food is better than you’d think, and filling. The breakfasts have been my favorite, although I would categorize them more as desserts or pastries: a lot of healthy, plant-based “donuts,” “cakes” and parfaits. The lunches are basically a big-ass bowl of greens, but they are super dense and include great dressings/toppings to spice things up. Out of everything I had during the 30 days, there are only a handful of meals I was underwhelmed by or flat-out disliked. Unlike other dietary programs, I also felt full and satisifed each day and was certainly not starving or deprived.
• The program came with a ton of perks! My first shipment not only came with my first few meals, but I got all kinds of goodies: teas, protein powders, granola, energy/protein bars, a beanie (lol) and tons of helpful books, recipes and nutrition tips.
• Shipping was reliable and always on time. On the days where my new meals were arriving, I always got them SUPER early in the morning, so I never dealt with missing shipments and having to figure out another game plan for breakfast or lunch.

THE CONS

• It ain’t cheap.
• THE BLOATING. Guys, we need to talk about the bloating. Ask my husband: I was in literal tears thinking I was in the midst of a serious medical episode, because after one week on the plan I looked like I was smuggling a small watermelon in my lower belly. I looked like I was in my second trimester. It turns out, this is a normal reaction to a severe dietary change and your body is just struggling to digest ALL of this greenery — seriously, you are eating an entire FOREST — all at once. As a result, your stomach may go absolutely berserk in the beginning as you adjust to the changes, experiencing things like severe bloat, excess gas, stomach-related discomfort/pain, etc. It is SO important that you know this can happen going in, so you don’t have an absolute shit-fit like I did.
• You can’t make any adjustments to the menu. I don’t find myself to be a picky eater and generally have a very adventurous palette, so this didn’t bother me. HOWEVER, I do hate onions and anything in the onion family (read: scallions) and so I was bummed to receive ONION SOUP as one of my lunches one day. Defffffffffinitely would have passed on that one. I’d also say, if you’re a pickier eater and don’t like a ton of flavor profiles and salads, you will likely struggle on this meal plan.
• I started to get bored. Breakfasts had pretty good variety, but at lunchtime I eventually wanted to scream when I tore open another bowl of greens.

WAS IT WORTH IT?

Meh. I would say it’s a good jump start to healthy eating and it takes the guesswork out of figuring out what to eat — so in that regard, it’s a great program. Like I said earlier, I did enjoy the food most days, but it was a lot on my body and instead of feeling light and airy and amazing, I spent a lot of time feeling bloated and uncomfortable. I think it has taught me that vegan/plant-based foods can be delicious and it’s already resulted in me making some different choices each day that I feel good about: i.e, switching from half and half to oat milk in my morning coffee (also not having coffee on an empty stomach: something I did often), and consuming…sigh…less cheese.

It’s also worth noting that I didn’t opt in for Sakara Life dinners, but I did try to eat as healthy/close to the plan as I could at dinnertime— opting for more vegetarian/vegan HelloFresh options, or just their lower calorie meals. On weekends, I did the same; avoiding going too crazy with things like dairy, sugar and meat— simply because I didn’t want to shock my body eating such drastically different things.

So should you try Sakara Life? I can’t really say. I probably wouldn’t do it again, but I do appreciate the jump-start into making some different dietary choices for a healthier me.

Have you tried Sakara? Let me know your thoughts!