Posts Tagged ‘medifast tips’

Medifast and Eating Out – Restaurant Tips for the Medifast Diet

October 5th, 2010 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

Many people fear dieting plans because they don’t know how to incorporate eating out in restaurants while on them. With Medifast, eating out doesn’t need to be a difficult issue. You can easily do the Medifast plan and still enjoy eating out at a nice restaurant for the occasional meal. All you need to do is switch the timing on your lean and green meals while making good choices.

Now, when you’re doing Medifast, you are to eat 6 small meals. Five of them will be the packaged diet meals that are shipped to you. They require hardly any work on your part. However, while they’re convenient, it’s not recommended that you only eat these prepackaged meals. Instead, you’re asked to prepare a “lean and green meal” made up of fresh vegetables and proteins once daily.
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Medifast and Exercise – How Much Exercise Should You Do with the Medifast Diet?

September 29th, 2010 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

Whatever diet plan you’re using to drop excess weight, exercise is always an important part of it all, and it’s no different with Medifast and exercise.

Any time you incorporate a regular exercise program with your Medifast program, you significantly increase your chances of reaching your weight loss goals in a reasonable time.

However, if you’re a rather sedentary person at the moment, they recommend that you wait at least three weeks after you begin the Medifast 5 and 1 Plan before you start a regular exercise regimen. If you’re already exercising, it’s recommended that you cut back on your current regimen by half during the first three weeks on the 5 and 1 Plan. Then you can build it back to where you were gradually.
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Can I use frozen dinners for my Medifast lean & green meal?

September 1st, 2010 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

Not a big fan of cooking? You might wonder if you can use frozen dinners for your Medifast lean & green meal. I wish I could say the answer is yes, but in the long run, that solution isn’t really ideal. Let me explain why and then offer a few alternative suggestions.

The main reason that frozen dinners aren’t really appropriate for use as a lean and green meal is because of the way most frozen dinners are processed, they have too much sodium. Often, they don’t have enough protein either. But sodium aside, I thin even if you were to look long and hard at every frozen meal at your grocery store, you would have a hard time finding something suitable to match the ingredients of your lean and green.
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Allowable Foods on Medifast

January 10th, 2010 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

One of the primary questions of anyone who is just starting to diet with Medifast is usually, “what are the allowable foods on Medifast?” Medifast does a pretty good job of explaining their program and what’s allowed in the materials you get with your first order, but if you would like to know what to expect before you place an order with Medifast, here is a good overview of what kind of foods are allowed on the diet.

The Medifast products are the primary foods that you’ll be eating each day. So you don’t need to put a lot of thought into those. Just pick your five Medifast meals and you’re all set. The question of what’s allowed comes up when it is time to think about your lean and green meal. Since you prepare this yourself at home, you’ll need to do some grocery shopping. Naturally you want to know what’s on the shopping list.

As the name of the meal, lean and green, hints, you’ll be picking up lean protein and lots of vegetables. So let’s take a look at each side of the plate.

Lean Protein

The lean part of your meal consists of lean protein. You have both meat and vegetarian options here. Portion sizes depend on the fat content of your selected protein. So if you choose certain types of fish, you can have 7 ounces, but beef or pork choices will limit you to 5 ounces. Poultry falls right in the middle at 6 ounces. For vegetarian options, the choices range from 14 egg whites or 3 whole eggs, with the whole eggs clearly containing more fat. Other vegetarian options include items like Boca Burgers, Morningstar Farms patties and Tofu.

The Green Portion

The green side of your plate is made up of leafy green vegetables and other colorful veggies. Eliminated are foods like potatoes, corn, carrots and other high carb vegetables. Serving sizes, for your greens, are determined by carbohydrate level. So, for example, you can have a 1 cup serving of of nearly all leafy greens such as lettuce or spinach, but only a 1/2 cup serving of cauliflower or asparagus. Your entire green serving is three servings, keeping the portion restrictions in mind. So you could have three cups of leafy greens, or one cup of leafy greens and a 1/2 cup of portabella mushrooms and a 1/2 cup of peppers to make a nice, colorful salad.

Additional Fats

Finally, Medifast also adds some additional fats to your daily diet and the amount depends on how much fat is in the protein choices that you made. Fats are added because some vitamins and minerals are fat-soluble only, so fats are an important part of a healthy diet. For your fat serving, you get to choose from items such as black olives, low carb salad dressing, olive oil, canola oil and even trans-fat free margarine.

As you can see the main items that are eliminated from the Medifast diet are white flour and other high carbohydrate foods like rice and potatoes, etc. But overall you have quite a variety of allowable foods on Medifast and so you should be able to maintain some variety in your lean and green meals without feeling deprived.

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Vegetables allowed on Medifast Program

June 3rd, 2009 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

medifast vegetablesThe Medifast Lean & Green meal is an important part of the Medifast plan, so you’ll want to make sure you’re including the right ingredients. You get three servings of vegetables as part of each lean & green, but there are some veggies that aren’t included on the plan.

Since Medifast works by limiting carbs as well as calories, it is important to pay attention to the carbohydrates in the “green” part of your Lean & Green meal. So some of the really starchy, carb-rich veggies aren’t allowed while you are in the weight loss phase of the plan. These no-no’s include potatoes, carrots and corn. You probably won’t be too surprised at that list, but would it surprise you to know that onions are excluded too? Yep, onions are pretty high in carbs. Peas and brussel sprouts are pretty high in carbs too, so be sure to exclude those as well until you hit your weight loss goals.

So what is allowed?

Well, you can start with all kinds of salad greens. You can have butterhead, iceberg and romaine lettuce. In fact, enjoy any lettuce that you find at your grocer. Try picking up some of the different mixes of salad greens available for some variety, such as the Spring mix. Since you can have three vegetables servings with each meal, I like to have two cups of salad and then another higher carb vegetable such as a 1/2 cup of broccoli or tomato to round things out.

Some other favorite veggies I like to eat with my lean & green meal are asparagus; summer or winter squash and all kinds of mushrooms. Oh, and don’t forget spinach, zucchini and cauliflower.

I find the best thing to do, so I’m getting a variety of vegetables every week, is to pack the list of Medifast approved vegetables in my purse. This way when I go shopping each week, I can pull the list out while I’m in the Vegetable aisle and just let my eyes pick out the nicest looking veggies to add to my cart. And whatever vegetables don’t end up in salads, I’ll lightly steam or roast. Pick up a salad dressing spritzer made with olive oil and use that to lightly spritz veggies for roasting for a delicious flavor that adds negligible calories.

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4 Tips to Help you Stick to Medifast

June 2nd, 2009 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

If you’ve dieted before, you know that sometimes sticking to a diet can be tough. So now that you’re considering the Medifast diet, you might be thinking, “What’s going to help me stick to Medifast?” Well, I have a few tips that should help you meet your goals — losing your excess weight.

1. Follow the Medifast Program exactly

Medifast has been around for over 20 years and the doctors and nutritionists who have formulated the diet know what works. So it’s important that when you get your first Medifast order, that you read the booklet that comes with it and follow the plan as written. I’m going to cover the most important parts of this plan in the next few tips.

2. Eat all of your Medifast meals

Medifast is a very low calorie diet plan, so it is important that you don’t skip any of your meals — otherwise you may not be getting enough calories and nutrients each day. And when you eat your five Medifast meals each day, you’ll have a much easier time combatting cravings for foods you shouldn’t be eating. In fact, you may find you have no cravings at all after a few days.

3. Eat Your Lean & Green Meal

I’ve seen some folks decide that if they can lose weight fast eating 5 Medifast meals and the Lean & Green meal every day, they can lose weight faster eating 6 Medifast meals and eliminating the Lean & Green Meal. But that isn’t such a great idea.

The lean & green meal is an important part of the plan. It provides a significant amount of your daily protein and fat, as well as fiber from the vegetables you’ll be eating. This is important in making sure you stay regular. The most common complaint about Medifast that I’ve seen is constipation and the lean & green meal will help keep this at bay.

The lean & green meal also provides an important thing that helps most people keep committed to their diet: satiety. Satiety is that sense of fullness and contentment you get after eating. And it is an important part of making sure that we stick to our plans.

4. No more than one Medifast bar per day

The Medifast bars are quite tasty. In fact, I think they may be a little bit too tasty as I would happily eat several of them every day. But the folks at Medifast limit them to one per day. The reason they do so is that eating more than 1 Medifast bar each day will increase the number of carbs you are getting each day. And reducing your carbs is important to keeping your appetite in check.

Also, my own experience with the Medifast bars is that they tend to set off my sweet tooth and make me crave other sweets. So by eating more than one per day, they can make it harder to stick to your plan. In fact, some Medifast dieters find it best to not use the bars in their plan at all, preferring to stick to the shakes, oatmeal and other items. So if you find that using the Medifast bars increases your cravings for sweets, you can try cutting them out.

I think if you stick to these tips, you’ll have a pretty easy time losing weight with Medifast and you will reach your goals. Just remember that the best way to stick to Medifast is to follow the plan exactly. Sometimes it might seem a little boring, but the rewards feel really great.

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Medifast Snacks – How Many Per Day?

March 10th, 2009 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

The Medifast Plan, known as the 5&1 plan, calls for 5 Medifast products per day, plus your lean & green meal. But if some days you find yourself a bit hungrier than usual, or if you need to delay a meal — you can also have a snack. Just remember. That’s ONE snack per day!

Medifast has a couple of different products that are designated as snacks and not a meal — these are the Soy Crisps and the Crackers.

Now the soy crisps I find quite tasty. They come in three flavors — apple cinnamon, ranch and white cheddar. I’ve tried both the ranch and the white cheddar and love them. Just be careful that you only eat one bag at a time! Maybe they are a little bit too good??

Aside from the soy crisps, there are also the Medifast crackers. These come in multi-grain or garden vegetable flavors. I personally find them to be mostly tasteless, but they aren’t too bad when added to the Medifast soups. Sometimes you just need a little crunch.

For snacks you don’t have to order from Medifast, you have your choice of the following:

  • 3 celery sticks
  • 1/2 cup sugar free gelatin
  • 1 sugar free popsicle
  • 2 dill pickle spears
  • up to 3 pieces of sugar free gum or mints

Of these, I find the dill pickles to be the most satisfying. They have a nice crunch and they tide me over pretty well to my next meal without making me feel like I just want to keep munching away. If you like celery, that will probably work just as well. I’m not a fan of celery myself though.

Just keep in mind, that regardless of whether your snack is provided by Medifast, or comes from the list of approved snacks — you are only allowed one snack serving per day.


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Medifast Lean and Green Meal Ideas

April 30th, 2008 by Inspector | No Comments | Filed in Medifast

If you have been taking part in the Medifast diet, then you realize exactly how fast it can help to take your weight off, allowing you to lose up to 2-5 pounds a week. The best part about the Medifast diet is that it is not a fad or just some kind of passing fancy, it is a solid weight loss program that has been recommended by over 20,000 doctors since 1980 and it can help help you get the weight off and keep it off of you permanently. If Medifast reviews are anything to go by, most dieters are really happy with the how well the program works to help them lose weight.

One of the things that many people have a difficult time with, however, is coming up with menu ideas for the Medifast lean and green meal. If you use this meal properly, however, it can help to keep you focused on the meal plan and also give you the options that you need to be able to have dinner out or to eat lunch with a client without deviating from the Medifast menu itself. If you are having a difficult time coming up with lean and Green meals, here are some ideas that should spark some creativity on your part.

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Tips for Medifast Weight Loss Success

April 28th, 2008 by Inspector | Comments Off | Filed in Medifast

The Medifast diet is almost the perfect way for you to lose weight and keep it off permanently. Unlike many other fad diets, Medifast has a support system and a way for you to move through various parts of the diet, from the initial weight loss through to a maintenance plan that you can stick with for the rest of your life. If you are having a difficult time on the Medifast diet, however, here are some tips that may spark some new life and help you to stick with it for the long term. Even if you’re not having a difficult time, these tips can help you to realize even more weight loss success with the Medifast diet.

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