I am sometimes asked to share some of the tips and tricks I used along the way to lose a decent amount of weight with medifast. Sometimes people assume I have some mysterious “secret” or found a way to cheat but still make progress. These assumptions are not entirely true. I learned a few things that definitely made life easier on this diet, but there were never any major pitfalls or deep, dark secrets.
In the following article, I will discuss how you can lose weight with Medifast in what should be a relatively quick and painless process.
Understanding and accepting ketosis: Before I really investigated the meat and potatoes in this plan, I assumed that medifast was allowing you to lose weight because you were limiting your calories. This is true, but this assumption really oversimplifies things. There are actually two ways to lose weight. The former is probably what you suspected. You are eating a restricted amount of calories. But, you’ll also be restricting your sugar and carbohydrate intake while increasing your protein and fiber intake.
Now, before you think this sounds difficult, know that the company pretty much does the work for you. Foods have been modified to meet all of these criteria. You really don’t have to do anything more than educate yourself on how to prepare a “lean and green meal.” As long as you eat what’s on your order and follow the instructions, this is taken care of.
The reason this is so important is because ketosis is where your body starts activating its fat stores instead of using carbs for fuel. This makes your weight loss and fast somewhat accelerated. And this also makes some of the actions you may be tempted to engage in (like skipping meals) extremely ill-advised.
Yes, you will eat six times a day with Medifast. This is accomplished through five of the diet meals and one larger “lean and green” meal. This may seem like a lot. But, the meals are small. Although you may be tempted to eliminate one or two of these meals a day, resist this at all costs. For ketosis to occur, your body needs support through diet. Skipping this puts you in jeopardy of ketosis, which in turn means you could be losing less weight than you expected.
Understand that your “lean and green food” is very important: Sometimes I have people email me and ask if they can have one of the diet meals instead of this main meal that you make yourself. While it’s understandable how nice it is to have meals prepared, the “lean and green” is there for a reason. The doctors who developed medifast understood that it’s important to get fresh food, and they also knew that it would eventually be important for dieters to learn how to plan and prepare their own healthy meals. You may think you’re taking the easy way out by skipping this, but in the long run, it’s not the best idea.
Also, it is very important that you understand and follow the guidelines that medifast will give you to prepare this meal. Think of it this way. You have worked very hard to stick to your other five meals, and therefore you will not have any problems with ketosis. But, if you choose foods that are high in calories or carbohydrates for your main meal, then you have potentially undone all your hard work and may jeopardize your fat burning and weight loss potential. This is simply not worth risking.
There are many resources on the medifast site and also on third party blogs that provide recipes and tips to help you with this. Getting the most out of this meal doesn’t have to mean being a gourmet cook or being overly restrictive. It simply means being smart about your choices.
Don’t be too restrictive or too hard on yourself: I know it may seem like I’m being too restrictive or strict. I don’t pretend to be. I know firsthand that there is some leeway on this diet. I myself add sugar-free syrups to many of my diet foods, as well as fat-free cheese and sour cream. This has not had any negative impact on my weight loss. Also, you don’t have to be hard on yourself or overthink this. The research and counting has really been done for you. There is no need to overanalyze any part of the process. You can really limit your responsibilities to just following the plan.
It’s also important to understand that almost everyone cheats at some point. This is built into the medifast diet. It’s not a big deal unless you let it go on so long that you don’t review your goals and stick with the plan. A couple days of cheating isn’t likely to derail you too much. But if you never go back on the diet, obviously your weight loss will stop as soon as you stop following the diet.
It is my opinion that as long as you follow the medifast plan to a reasonable degree and stick with it until you see the results you want, there is no reason why you can’t be as successful as many others have been.