Medifast Five and One Plans include programs for women, men, teenagers, seniors and people with diabetes. The diet can help you lose weight while eating five Medifast meals and one Lean and Green Meal that you prepare yourself each day. As you consider the Medifast diet, remember to get your doctor's advice for the healthiest way to lose weight.
Daily Frustrations
Over the weeks and months that you are on Medifast, you will probably lose weight rapidly and fairly steadily, but a risk of the diet is that you may experience daily frustrations. Since the diet is so controlled and provides so few calories, there is little room for indulgences. If you go out with friends or have a meeting with colleagues at work, you will not be able to eat with them. Instead, you will have to bring your own Medifast meal or Lean and Green Meal in order to stick to your diet. This may make you feel isolated or discouraged. Another risk that you may encounter is a plateau. Medifast warns that you are likely to experience periods of little or no weight loss, and these periods can last for more than two weeks. Although the situation is probably temporary if you continue to follow the plan, you may feel frustrated by the apparent lack of progress.
Hunger
A risk of Medifast is that you will be hungry. The Medifast Five and One Plans provide about 900 calories per day from five Medifast meals and one Lean and Green Meal, and this caloric intake is probably significantly lower than what you are used to if you were gaining or maintaining your weight before starting the program. Even though you get to eat six times a day, the meals are small and may not fill you up. The Lean and Green Meal is your biggest of the day, and it has 6 to 8 oz. protein and 1.5 to 3 cups vegetables. Each Medifast meal or shake provides about 100 calories and may be as small as about 1 oz., leaving you hungry or unsatisfied.
Regaining Weight
Medifast will almost certainly help you achieve your goal weight if you follow the diet properly, because it reduces your calories to allow you to lose weight quickly. After you achieve your goal weight, you can follow the instructions for transitioning to lifetime maintenance, which takes 8 to 16 weeks depending on the amount of weight you lost. The Medifast Transition Plan guides you in gradually adding food and calories back into your meal plan, while reducing the number of Medifast meals you have each day, but even by the end of Transition, you still use Medifast products. This means that Medifast does not prepare you for maintaining your weight without Medifast meals. Whenever you choose to go off of the Medifast diet program, you risk regaining the weight that you lost, because you may not have learned how to control your calories using fresh foods instead of special Medifast diet products.
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