TEAM SKINNY 03/01/08 (March Madness) (Page 21)

Since a couple of you have asked... the Lowdown on Medifast.

(1) It's calorie controlled.  If you're following the regular plan somewhere between 800-1000 per day.

(2) It's carb controlled.  You're supposed to be getting in somewhere between 80-100 grams of carbs per day.  (The rest is balanced between fat and protein)

(3) You buy THEIR food.  Costing me 300+ per month (but then I'm not buying a lot of groceries so it kinda evens out.)

Basically, it's not recommended for people with a small amount of weight to lose.  I think less than 20 pounds, they don't recommend it.  Since I've got a lot more to go than that... I'm good.

You eat 5 of their meal packets per day.  (variety: they have soup/oatmeal/shakes/puddings, etc.)  It doesn't matter what you eat, just that you eat 5 servings.  Each packet is around 100 calories.  Some a little more, some a little less.  So about 500 calories per day from their food.  They fortify the packets with vitamins, and each is balanced with carbs/protein/fat.  They use soy protein.  Some people complain about the aftertaste, but it tastes fine to me.  Some of the food is a little bland, and there's some I don't like, and you can spice it up a bit, but I'm not really doing this for the gourmet flavors.  Then one meal, you have veggies and protein.  There's the rest of your calories.  No starch, no starchy veggies, no bread, no fruit, certainly no "sweet treats."  It's simple, but not easy.

The first week sucked for me.  I was tired, hungry, cranky, I had a headache day 3, and did I mention hungry?  You have to go through this to get to the "fat-burning" state.  Basically, the idea is if you don't have enough carbs in the system for energy, your body will be FORCED to burn the fat instead.  If you're going to do it, you really need to stick to the plan, cause one thing off plan (say a cookie) can throw the whole thing off.  You HAVE to keep the carbs in the range in order to get the benefit. 

Energy?  Well, people report a "burst of energy" didn't happen for me and still not really happening.  Some days are good some days I'm just TIRED.  Obviously, the low calories plays into this.  You're not supposed to workout over 45 min per day, because (again) seriously lo-cal.  I think the people that have MORE energy are people who had sucky nutrition, and since the plan is nutritious, obviously, they feel better. 

Why am I doing this?  Because I've been trying to lose weight for approx. 10 years, and doing triathlons for 7 and I'm still way overweight.  Maintaining, sure, but not losing, and I will NOT do the surgery.  I think it's dangerous and long term doesn't work.  For whatever reason, I haven't been able to find that magical balance to actually convince my body to let go of all this extra padding. So, I made a major trade-off for THIS YEAR.  Weight for workouts.  So far, so good.

What's that quote?  If you keep doing the same thing, you'll get the same results.

I decided to do something different. 

Exactly.

I don't just want to be thin, I want to be HEALTHY. 

Yeah, you do.  Well, at least I'm planning too.  Obviously, things might change down the road, but I'm planning on staying on it until the end of this year, and then re-evaluating where I'm at.  I am losing weight fast though, so the re-evaluation point might come sooner, which would be great - cause I'm definitely not planning on doing this forever. 

Welcome Andrea!

Josh, you can do it.....keep those darn scale numbers down!!!