Medifast: My opinions and review

I don't know that this would be interesting to many people, so I thought I would post it on the weekend so you could skim past if you wanted. Last year as I was enormously successful on Medifast I got a lot of questions about what the plan was like, how I felt on it, etc. Since I've embarked on it again -- and am already seeing and feeling the results -- I thought I would put together a post on Medifast so it was in one handy, linkable place.

1. What is Medifast?
Medifast is a low-carb, packaged-food diet that was created by physicians over 25 years ago. In the past it was a liquid-only (shakes) diet, but now it has expanded to many varieties of Medifast meals plus one "Lean & Green" meal per day. You order the food from the website, print out the lists of Lean, Green, Condiments, and Meatless Options, and read the FAQ. That's really all you need to get going.

2. How does it work?
The idea behind Medifast is that you eat a low enough number of carbs and calories that your body enters a fat-burning state called "ketosis". From the Medifast FAQ on the site: "This causes the body's fat stores to release free fatty acids, which are then converted by the liver into an energy source called ketones. This mild dietary fat-burning state helps the body achieve faster weight loss while helping preserve muscle tissue. The fat-burning state also helps naturally reduce appetite and hunger while still allowing you to feel sufficient levels of energy. "

It sounds like hocus-pocus witch doctor/sci-fi, but it's true. It generally takes 3-5 days for your body to reach this state as it has to consume the fat currently residing in your liver first, and during those 3-5 days you will feel hungry almost all of the time. The first time I had a minor headache and some listlessness before I hit ketosis, but this time I was just flat-out hungry. Yesterday in particular was brutal (mentally, not physically), but today I can tell I am finally in ketosis. I have tons of energy and I'm not thinking about food 24/7. I am good to go!

3. What do you eat?
The plan is called the 5+1, so you eat 5 Medifast "meals" and one regular "Lean & Green" meal per day. You are also allowed to have one extra snack if you need it.

Medifast (MF) meals are pre-packaged, often dehydrated items, including soups, shakes, hot drinks, cold drinks, crunch bars, soy crisps, pudding, oatmeal, scrambled eggs, chili, etc. You can have any combination of 5 meals per day, and you have one every couple of hours. It is a matter of trial and error finding the ones that appeal to you, but a general rule is: if you like the real version of it, try the MF one. I don't like milkshakes or pudding so I've never had the MF version. After six months on the plan, I learned the ones I liked the best and that's what I order now. They started offering crunch bars in 2009, in about 10 different flavors, and that's mostly what I eat because there is no preparation needed and I can stick them in my purse for being on the go. The other ones I like are the hot drinks (hot cocoa, cappuccino, chai latte) which need boiling water and a certain preparation so the are not lumpy, and the soups, which I put into a thermos in the morning, add boiling water, shake and take to work, and at noon I have a thick, still-warm tasty soup. A lot of newbies make the mistake of adding hot water to the dehydrated packets and then eat them immediately, which gives you essentially hot water and lumpy, crunchy clumps of powder. Let things soak for a while, and the experience is completely different.

The other meal of the day is the Lean & Green, which is real food. This is 5-7 ounces of certain meats, 0-2 servings of a healthy fat, and 3 servings of certain vegetables, prepared any healthy way you like. The vegetables not allowed are those higher in carbs, like squash, corn, carrots, Brussels sprouts, onions, etc. There are also a list of meatless options for the Lean for vegetarians/vegans, like cheese, tofu, soy burgers, etc.

Plus, you can have up to 3 condiments (from an approved list) and one snack per day, from the following list: 3 celery stalks, 1 fruit-flavored sugar-free Popsicle, 1/2 cup sugar-free gelatin dessert, such as Jello, up to 3 pieces of sugar-free gum or mints, 2 dill pickle spears, or a package of MF crackers. I have a Popsicle every night for my after-dinner snack, Hubby alternates between Popsicles or pickles.

Of course, you also need to drink tons of water. And you will want to; ketosis gives you terrible, terrible breath, and you will often feel very thirsty. Have water handy all the time.

4. How much do you lose?
MF says you generally lose between 2-5 pounds per week. In the first week or two, like with most diets, you may lose a lot more: Hubby is down 10+ pounds this week, and I am already down 8 (my official weigh-in is Mondays). We will level off after this week, no question. But the 2-5 pounds is often very accurate; I kept stats last year, and that bore out.

Caveat: in observing people's losses on the MF forum, I did notice that the weekly losses were proportionate to one's actual weight. Meaning, people who were 200-300 pounds (and there are many on MF) had much greater losses than people who only had 20-40 pounds to goal. I am actually curious to see how fast/slow it goes for me with only 25 pounds to lose compared to how it went when I had 60 to go. Because of that, and because of the intensity of the plan and the changes it creates in your body, it is not a diet I would recommend if you only have 10-20 pounds to lose. I'm not even sure if it was the right choice for me with a 25-pound goal. That's one of the things I will be paying attention to this time.

5. What is it like?
It is simple to follow, but it can be very hard emotionally, physically, and mentally. It's not a plan you can do halfway; if you don't get to ketosis, you don't lose consistent weight. I liken it to quitting smoking (which I did after a pack-a-day 20-year habit): if you still have a cigarette once a day or once in a while, you never let your body go through nicotine withdrawal, and you will always experience cravings and you will continue the addiction. With MF, if you stop and start and never let your body get to ketosis, you will always be hungry and tempted to cheat. Then you will cheat, and you will again not reach ketosis, and you will be stuck in the same hellish limbo the whole time. Not pleasant.

I had to keep that in mind yesterday; I felt like I was "starving" all day, and thinking about the burgers at Meatheads obsessively. Every two hours, when I ate my MF meal I would make a deal with myself: I would eat my bar and see if I could get through the next two hours, and if I did, I would eat another bar and reset the mental clock. I didn't have to get through the whole day, or the whole program until I lost all the weight, I only needed to get through the next 120 minutes. Even after our super-delicious Lean & Green meal for dinner (ground pork, shredded cabbage and mushrooms, sauteed in a skillet with tons of Polish spices), I was still making mental deals with myself. But I stuck with it, and this morning I woke up and realized I wasn't hungry at all. Ketosis has been reached.

That said, once you are in ketosis and you've got a daily rhythm going, it can become pretty mindless. The best thing about MF is that you can forget about food for a while; the really tempting foods are verboten, so you can concentrate instead on how your body is changing as the weight comes off, and how to deal with developing and accepting a whole new mental and physical image of yourself. For a lot of MF members, myself included, this may be the first time you have ever seen yourself this thin; how are you going to deal with that? How do you deal with other people's reactions? Who are you if you're not the fattest one in the room anymore? You need time to learn to accept those kinds of things, and this break from being consumed with food can often give you that space and time.

You can even start to tackle the emotional issues you have that tie into food. Why are holiday goodies so important? Why do you overeat? Why are certain foods triggers? When food is out of arm's reach you can think more clearly about your relationship with it, and what you want it to be like when you are eating it again. Many people on MF swear by the Beck Diet Book, which I did not read. I am going to have to work harder on this part, obviously (see: the constant gains I experienced post-MF). I definitely did the first part, learning to accept myself thin, but the second part needs work this time. :)

6. How much does it cost?
Approximately $300/month. MF meals are sold in boxes of 7 meals/box, and you need 5 boxes per week; boxes are about $16 each. The FAQ says it comes to $11/day. That does not include the L&G meal you would buy in the grocery store, but you also have to remember you are no longer buying any other foods for yourself and you will likely be eating out or on-the-go much less. Hubby and I used to eat out 3-4 times a week, and we often bought lunches out and had a fully-stocked fridge. When we did MF (at $600/month for our food combined), our food bills stayed the same and even went down some months.

There are also tons of ways to get it cheaper. I use Ebates, which is a shopping site that I use for all my online shopping. You sign up for Ebates and start off any shopping experience from their site, then look up the site you want to buy from, and go to it from the link on Ebates, then order what you want through the actual website. Ebates simply tracks what you purchase and sends you a check quarterly for a percentage of what you spent. I just got a $50 check from them this week. For doing nothing but using their site as a portal. (If you are interested, post your email and I will send you a friends link. I get an extra $5 on my check for referrals.) Retailmenot also often has coupons for discounts on the MF food too. Or you can sign up for the VIP ordering (which is free) on MF itself, and you get two weeks of free food, free shipping, and 5% off all future orders. We had VIP the last time, and it was nice.

There is also a related website to MF that has "MF coaches" to help you through the program and you can order the food cheaper from them, but I avoided all of that because it felt hinky to me. My sister did it that way and she loved it, though.

7. How do I connect with other MF dieters?
On the main MF site there is a link to My Medifast, which allows you to set up your own tracking page and links you to MF forums and blogs of other MF members. It is largely self-run by the members. There are groups that band together and have weight-loss challenges, others who just want to encourage each other, forums for plan questions and tips, places for people to set up their own blogs, etc. I spent a lot of time on My Medifast last year, but I am less interested this time. Like all online communities, the conversations go in cycles and members weave in and out; I feel like it's given me everything it can and now it's up to me to get this done. Also, the group of women I befriended on the challenges have all moved over to Facebook, and we keep in touch there. I don't need the support system on My Medifast like I did before. But it is a great place when you are getting started, and as you succeed on your journey. I wouldn't have done as well without it.

8. What is your eating schedule like?
Like I said earlier, I already know what my favorite MF foods are so I tend to stick with the same things. I did a lot of experimenting to get here, though, and I might order some non-regular ones once in a while to shake things up as the months go on. But generally this is a typical day for me (time ranges indicate I eat sometime between them):

4:30: wake up, have 2 cups of coffee with one packet of Sweet-n-Low and an ice cube
7-8am: cinnamon-roll bar or hot drink
9-10am: hot drink or bar
12n: soup
2pm: bar
4pm: bar
6pm: L&G meal
8pm: popsicle
9-10pm: zzzzzzzz

I do switch it up and have my L&G for lunch if my co-workers want to go out to eat. I enjoy that, and it's super-easy to find acceptable meals at many of the places we go (Panera's salads are excellent options). On the weekends I tend to eat mostly bars because I am out running errands and I just keep a sandwich baggie with the 5 of them in my purse.

9. Should I do it?
I do not recommend Medifast as a diet, in general. It requires extreme discipline, is expensive, and like I said, I think it only works when you have a significant amount of weight to lose. For someone needed only 5-10 pounds, or even up to 20-30, I think there are better options, like Weight Watchers or South Beach, etc.

That said, if you are obese and you need rigid structure and can afford it, it might be for you. Read the FAQ thoroughly, check out the forum, and decide for yourself. It's got to be your choice or it won't work. I couldn't possibly decide for you. There are days I'm not even sure if it's right for me! :)

10. Does it really work?
See for yourself! :)


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Whew. This got long. Thanks for sticking with the whole thing! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask; I'm not afraid to be honest about my experiences with MF or with weight loss overall.