Medifast is one of the diet food delivery programs that sends you all of the food you need so you end up relying on it completely. It seems to be designed for those that need to lose a considerable amount of weight. Compared to other programs it seems a bit more extreme, with food that looks less delicious. But can it really work to help people lose lots of weight quickly?
Overview
Diet food delivery programs have gotten more popular in recent years, and while Medifast is not the leader in the market they do seem to serve a particular niche. They specifically state that they are good for those who have been recommended by their doctor to lose weight. This would include people that are legitimately overweight, and obese. More drastic measures need to be taken when your weight loss is crucial to your health, to the point where you have your doctor recommending that you lose weight.
The Claim
One of their most simple claims is that their program provides fast, safe, and easy weight loss. While you may experience fast results, we doubt that following this system is safe for the long term. You will no doubt experience nutritional deficiencies from not eating fresh fruits and vegetables. We also doubt that it will be easy, as your body will crave more calories, and freshly prepared meals, so the level of cravings and hunger pangs will be through the roof.
Also, it is not very healthy to eat many meals throughout the day, as your body digests things one at a time, and also has peak times when it releases more digestive juices. It is not like your stomach is always ready for a meal regardless of what time it is. By constantly bombarding your digestive system with a new meal, 5-6 times a day you are not giving it a chance to properly digest or process the foods you’re eating.
The Cost
You can get 20 boxes of food for $300 plus $20 shipping if you order through Amazon. This breaks down to $15 per box of food. When you order direct from their website you can get a full month’s worth of food, which includes 143 servings for $340.
The Commitment
You have to resolve yourself to eating the same sort of meals again and again, day after day. These aren’t fresh foods that come prepared and ready for you to heat and eat. They are all dried out and dehydrated so you have to add water to them. The taste is not very good, so you will have to get used to the fact that this is your diet for the next however many months you’re going to be on it for.
Evaluation
Low quality, poor tasting food. It all comes in dry packets. This is just not healthy, and could never substitute fresh, organic foods that you can buy in the store. You’re paying a premium price for these low-grade foods, and Medifast gets to pocket high profits.
These diet delivery programs are really smart for the manufacturer because they are getting you to buy their products in bulk. If they tried to sell these meals individually at the store they would have a lot of trouble because people would try one and then know better than to buy it again.
But for the consumer this is just not a smart purchasing decision. You should never give up the responsibility of feeding yourself to a corporation. Take more accountability for what goes into your system, make small changes to your lifestyle until they seem effortless, and take a gradual path back to being healthy. In the end, it will cost less, you’ll eat delicious fresh foods, and you won’t have any withdrawal cravings, or starvation pangs like you will with Medifast.
Final Medifast Review
There are much better ways to lose weight than by substituting all of your meals with dry, lifeless products delivered by Medifast. Losing weight is not the telltale sign on whether these weight loss products work, it’s about the long-term success and your overall health. You will actually experience a decline in your overall health by eating these meals for a long period of time, and it will be a break even with the amount of weight you lose, with a net effect of no benefit.
Here is one user’s opinion and their experience:
Our Recommendation
You didn’t do drastic things to get fat, so it’s not a good idea to try and drastically lose it. The chances of crashing on this are high, since you will likely crave all of the foods you love. This is like going cold turkey on your favorite foods. You may be able to keep it up for a month or more, but you will eventually succumb to your cravings. It’s a basic calorie-restricted diet, and these have been proven time and time again to fail.
I was on a methamphetamine pipe diet for about 23 days and lost 41 pounds, my home and entire family. It was amazing! I saw dragons driving hot air balloons, I learned to play dice in jail and got 5 tattoos I’d never have the courage to get otherwise! Sure, the house and family thing sound harsh, but for 75 bucks total, I was freed from that daily grind, a nagging wife and kids that wanted me to pay for college. I’d say try the meth diet first. You lose the weight plus if your lucky like me you’ll have fewer dentist appointments, bills and nagging children and wife.
I was on Take Shape for life from March to July of 2013….lost 36 lbs. I feel great and don’t regret doing the diet at all. Loosing the weight has even made it easier for me to start to exercise. You can move a lot easier, when your almost 40 lbs lighter. It is now November, and I have kept the weight off, I have changed a lot of my bad food habits, and cut out caffeine. Yes, some foods were not that great, but there were many products that I enjoyed. I have no complaints!
Hi, I was on the Medifast diet several months ago. I am going to say it does work. I do agree with several statements made in this review, and disagree with others. The diet definitely is expensive. They claim buying a month’s worth of their food costs about the same as buying a month’s worth of regular groceries. That is not true. You can purchase groceries much more cheaply if you clip coupons, use your grocery card, etc. Not to mention you have to buy groceries IN ADDITION to the diet meals (the pre-packaged food isn’t the only food eaten on this diet.) It is also true that many of the foods are powdered or dehydrated, but not all of them are. There are no fresh foods available (as far as I know), that too is true. It isn’t accurate to say that people on this diet will be eating the same foods over and over. There are dozens of different foods to choose from, including bars, shakes, teas, snacks (like pretzels), fruit drink mixes, oatmeal, cereals, soups, desserts and more. There is plenty of variety. It’s also unfair to say that all of the food in general is bad tasting. Some of it is lousy, I can vouch for that; but not all of it is. The shakes and bars are quite delicious in my opinion; this goes for all of the available flavors. The cereals taste good, too. The oatmeal is nasty. The soups are meh.
It also isn’t accurate to say the food products are dry and lifeless, or not good for you. Unless the nutritional information printed on the boxes are a pack of lies, the foods are nutritious and balanced. They all contain vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein. They are balanced in such a way that one individual meal provides 20% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals including A, C, D, E, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, and K. Also Calcium, Iron, Folate, Biotin, Phosphorus, Iodine, Magnesium, Manganese, Zinc, Selenium, Chromium, and Molybdenum. It seems nutritionally complete to me.
Furthermore, the diet progresses in phases. The first phase entails buying the 20 boxes of food every month, eating 5 of the replacement meals a day, along with what’s called a “lean and green” meal (a form of protein and any green vegetable or salad.) This continues until you lose a target amount of weight. After that, you go into the maintenance phase, which involves going back to eating fresh foods in such a way that is optimal to helping you keep the weight off. It is optional to continue to buy the Medifast replacement meals. Basically, you eat the correct way a human adult should eat, (according the recommendations of the founder and their team of nutritionists…)
The best foods in the proper portions in the proper number of times a day. People who start the diet are in now way expected to remain on it indefinitely.
The company website has tons of information and tools to inform, help, and encourage you in your weight loss journey. There are people to call around the clock at the company, and each person who starts the plan is assigned a health coach to be their one-on-one guru to answer questions, check progress, and to be a listening ear. All health coaches are people who have completed the plan and/or have lost considerable weight on it.
I also disagree with the statement, “it will be a break even with the amount of weight you lose, with a net effect of no benefit.” This is simply not true. My health coach lost significant weight on this diet, and is feeling great. She looks fantastic, is much happier in general, doesn’t struggle with depression anymore, and is in much better overall health. That may be a biased claim, but I knew her before she started the diet and became a coach, and the changes in her are tremendous. I mean, there is no denying it. The diet works.