Hey thanks for the welcome Naughtyangel.
Let's see.. how to describe Medifast.. well, mainly, it's a high soy protein, low fat, low carb meal replacement program. The diet itself has been around for over
20 years and has substantial success with helping those who are moderately to morbidly overweight to lose weight in a healthy and slightly faster way than most other diets.
There are two main programs you can follow. One is called the
5 and 1 program, where you consume 5 meal replacements a day and have one measured out "lean and green" meal.
This is usually some sort of vegetable or salad greens with a lean protein like chicken. The portions are measured out to ensure the correct caloric intake, but this is only done once a day. The second program is called the
Complete program where you consume only 5-6 meal replacements a day and nothing else.
This program should be monitored by a doctor.
The meal replacements are varied - there is flavored oatmeal, chili, shakes, pudding, soup, snack bars, chai latte and a few others I can't remember. I'm doing the Complete program and, at the moment, I'm opting to drink only the shakes as I'm trying to get rid of some very bad habits I have with food. Whichever plan you follow, you are advised to drink at least 2 cold shakes and you may only eat 1 snack bar per day due to the higher carb content.
Most people do very well on either program and are not hungry after the first 3 days. I can vouch for that personally.
Since I've started, my IBS has not acted up once, I have no hunger, no headaches and I'm steadily gaining more energy.
My first 2 days were awful as my body rid itself of all the junk I'd been feeding it for ages.
I had a headache from noon on day 1 to the evening of day 2.
I read that you are also allowed 2 bouillon a day and 2 dill pickles to give you a boost of potassium. Once I had the bouillon, I was good to go the evening of day 2 and haven't looked back since.
So far, I lost 11lbs in 9 days. I haven't weighed myself yet this week - I'm waiting until Wednesday morning when I'll start week 3. I'm dying of anxiousness to see what it reads!
The program, at first glance, seems quite pricey. I paid $290 for a 28 day supply of shakes. However, when I broke it down, it really is not much more expensive than grocery shopping. The last diet I was on, which required fish, chicken breast, ground turkey, eggs, fruti and vegetables ran me around $110 every two weeks. $220 versus $290 really didn't seem like that big of a difference, especially since it works!
I believe that no diet is for everyone, but if you can make it through the first 3 days, you'll find that all the hunger goes away, my over-production of stomach acid went away and you don't have to drive yourself into the ground with exercise to make it work.
In fact, they recommend that if you aren't used to exercising you should not exercise for at least the first month and if you are used to it, you should halve your routine. I've gone from doing 3 day at Curves doing 3 circuits to 2 times a week and one circuit. I've never been a gym-aholic so this diet suits me just fine!
I should note that this is
NOT a fad diet.
This diet has been endorsed by the Johns Hopkins University Medical Team and has been proven to work if you follow it correctly.
Soy protein can also lower triglyceride levels as well as cholesterol levels.
Anyway, that's about it. I think I covered everything but if you have anymore questions, just please ask.
Alisha
Couldn't make myself. *sigh*
It will be better from now on right? LOL
but i have been caught up in some personal issues...not that any excuse but anyways i did miss posting here and it's really good to see everyone making progress and still working hard at it. 
