The Medifast diet is a very popular diet that has been successfully used to lose weight by many people. Looking over the Medifast site they have quite a few testimonials and blogs from people who have used the diet, some have even lost 170 pounds or more on it. Actress Kristy Swanson even used the Medifast diet plan to lose 30 pounds and get down to a size 4. Medifast claims you can lose up to 20 pounds in the first month and should lose 2-5 pounds a week.
How Does Medifast Work?
The basic concept of the Medifast diet is based on sound scientific principles of a low calorie, low carbohydrate and low fat diet that will make you lose weight. On the Medifast diet plan you will be eating 6 times a day, every few hours. Each meal will be small but since they are spaced close together it will help greatly in keeping your energy levels and metabolism up and your hunger down. The Medifast plan is a very structured plan in which for 5 of the meals each day you will eat one of the Medifast products either a shake, a bar type treat, or other food they provide like chili, cream of chicken soup, oatmeal or eggs. For your other meal each day you eat “lean and green” meaning a 5-7 ounce portion of lean meat along with some cooked vegetables or a salad and they’ll provide recipes and meal ideas to help you out with ideas for this meal as well.
There is a fair amount of choice in the food provided by Medifast and you can design your own menu. You get to choose between 5 different flavors of shakes, 10 types of bars, 3 types of puddings, 4 types of oatmeal, 8 types of soups, eggs and a few other types of snacks. Medifast is also a good diet if you have any special needs such as diabetes, vegetarian or kosher, since they have specific choices to help you out.
Is Medifast Healthy for Me?
One thing you should definitely know about Medifast is that most of all it is a low calorie diet and the amount of calories you will be taking can be rather low. Typically this could cause problems through lack of nutrition and hunger. However there are a few qualities that will help this situation. First, Medifast was designed by a physician and they have specifically made sure that all of the meals they provide are balanced and provide a good balanced amount of all the vital nutrients your body needs. Secondly, the spacing of the meals is very important, there are a couple of important reasons for eating 6 times a day on the Medifast diet; one is that by eating so frequently you let your body know that you are not starving and it does not need to lower your metabolism to survive, secondly you help prevent a lot of hunger since whenever you get hungry you’ll be pretty close to time to eat again.
Another thing to note is that Medifast is very helpful once you reach your goals. They provide you with a well structured transition phase that will get you back to eating an appropriate amount for your body. They provide tips and instructions that progress you to this maintenance phase and help you determine how many calories your new body will need each day so that you can enjoy your new body and keep the weight off.
My main concern with the Medifast diet is that it is not the easiest diet to follow because of the very specific meal replacements and meals you must eat that you buy from Medifast. However, because of the nature of the diet being a low calorie diet based on good nutrition and science if you do stick to it you will lose weight. There is pretty much no way to fail if you are good at sticking to the diet because your body will definitely be burning more calories that it is taking in and ultimately that is the only way to lose weight.
Should I Try Medifast?
Ultimately I suggest that if you feel good about being able to consistently eat their meal replacements and you have a decent amount of weight ot lose then you should give Medifast a try. They offer a good 30 day return policy that will allow you to return any products you don’t plan on using and they also will allow you to do exchanges if you end up with a product or flavor that you end up not liking.
Right now if you join Medifast you can save over $200 with their autoship program. They’ll give you free shipping, 2 weeks of free meals, 5% discount on your future orders and a bunch of other free stuff. This makes trying the diet out really cheap overall especially when you consider all the food you’d have to buy otherwsie, so I’d recommend giving it a try.
Pros
- No counting calories
- No special cooking
- Works for vegetarians, diabetics and kosher
- Good for losing a lot of weight
Cons
- Buy most of your food from them
- Not very flexible if you want to eat out a lot
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