hello. I am new here
 

After a lot of thought and research I chose Medifast.

I introduced myself on the main page but since I just ordered one month of Medifast, I thought I should jump in here too.

I'll be back when my shipment arrives.

Summer

Hey! :wave: :wel3fc:

Hope to hear more from you! Medifast takes the thought out of most of the day--and that's a good thing. The first few days are rough, but stick with it--it does get better!

Jay

Hiya! Be sure to read, read, read the forums. There are many helpful tips and heads-ups about what to expect and how to make it better. :)

Thanks JayEll and SpinDizzie. I have been reading the forums all night. I am excited to see that my package has already been shipped and it should arrive tomorrow.
I did Atkins before and lost interest fast. I hope the prepared meals make things easier with MF. The Lean and Green part will be easy because I love that type of meal. My biggest problem is stress eating and binge eating at night.
I really think I can tackle this weight

Good luck!

I've been on Medifast for 5 weeks, and it's starting to become habit now. I like that there is a lot of structure - if you're cheating, you darn well know you are. I've had some success with South Beach Diet, but it's easy to cheat on that. I love that I still get to eat real food once a day. The lack of real food is what burnt me out on Nutrisystem. I won't say Medifast is easy, but it is not complicated, and the fast results keep me motivated. I don't want to cheat most of the time.

Keep looking around - there's lots of tips for meal prep and improving taste.

Good luck! I'm currently on week 3 and just placed an order for another month's worth of food.

If you've been reading the forums, you should have come across some of the tips, but the ones I found most useful are in regard to preparing the food:
1~soup: mix and cook and let it sit before you eat it (that way all the veggies/rice, etc. get rehydrated and aren't so crunchy). I actually fix mine the night before--while fixing my lean and green--and then put it in a leftover container for work the next day.
2~eggs: don't even attempt to do them in the microwave! Mine turned out with hard lumps and runny ickiness! I do mine like regular scrambled eggs and they're good.

Anyway, again, good luck. It really is easy and having the lean and green each night takes away any kind of monotony. Let us know if you have questions!

Welcome 101. I've been on MF since May 3. It's working great for me and now that the first week is over, it's a refreshing break from night time overeating and feeling bad later and the next morning. I'm excited for a more structured transition to maintenance that MF will provide (compared with WW). Take care and glad you are here and reading a lot.

Hey peeps! I'm new, too. I'm on Day 12 of my Medifast journey. Thought I'd piggy-back on someone else's Newb thread.

This will be the piggy-back thread :)

I'm new too, fairly. I started medifast a month ago exactly, and I'm down 17 lbs! Woohoo!

I'm loving the program, not feeling deprived or the urge to cheat. The first ~3-5 days were a little bit of a different story, but still, not bad.

I had a little bit of a stall in week #3 and didn't lose but one pound. I'm hoping it's just TOM and that next week I'll see as many as 4 or 5 gone. I'm almost 1/3 of the way back to goal and I'm hoping I get it done by mid July. We'll see.

Day one
 

Hello everyone. As I mentioned in another post, I started MF today.

So far Day#1 is going well. But I am so so so tired. I can not stop yawning.
The food is ok....I have had worse. Drinking water is easy because I already have a habit of drinking a lot of water.
I am having grilled chicken breast and steamed spinach for dinner. I am going to keep it simple for a few days.

Riddy, alinnell, godown, MairsieD, gardengirlkp Thanks for the welcome....it's great to meet so many people who are new on the plan. I had thought MF was not as popular as it was 10 years ago.

101days~I'm rooting for you!!!

Allison, 1/3rd of the way! That's awesome!! Congrats! I had a week where I only lost a pound too, but I think it was because I started back at the gym.

101days, I was super tired the first few days too, but it does get better, promise. I've actually had trouble the past couple of weeks getting all my meals in because I feel full all the time. Never, ever thought I'd say that when I started. What food have you had so far?

First Day-
Blueberry Oatmeal and a cup of Tea w/splenda,
Banana Shake,
Beef Stew,
Raspberry Tea,
Grilled Chicken on a bed of Steamed Spinach and Mushrooms,
Chai Tea


I'll get used to the manufactured taste. The raspberry tea wasn't too bad. The shake was a bit hard to finish. The Oatmeal needs help and the Stew tasted like babyfood. The Chai was ok.
I didn't buy any bars because I am afraid they might be too tempting. I'll wait till I have my willpower is fully charged.

101 -
The food does seem to taste better the more times you eat it. Definitely take advantage of seasonings - I think all the soups benefit from adding some garlic/pepper/hot sauce and sometimes even a little salt.

When making shakes at home, I really like to add some ice cubes - my stick blender will crush the ice, so I didn't need to buy a bullet blender. For shakes at work, I bought a glass shaker jar with a built in mixing disk. I make the shake ahead of time and stick it in the fridge - it gets thicker as it sits. I didn't like the banana at all - ended up trading it with a friend.

Cocoa powder is my new favorite condiment. I've gone through about 1/2 a can in the last 6 weeks. :lol::lol:

Keep up the good work!

I've found that although some of the food can be bland, the only things I've added stuff to is the pancakes (Walden's zero calorie maple syrup) and the eggs (Del Taco's Del Scorcho sauce). I do find that I get a strange aftertaste in my mouth, especially after the soups, so I often pop in a stick of gum to get rid of that.
I'm kind of excited--I ordered my 2nd month of food and handpicked everything (the first month I simply ordered the one month for men and one for women). I'm getting a little tired of chicken soups, so I'm looking forward to some new flavors.

I definitely agree with Riddy, it does start to taste a lot better. The soups I make with 1/2 water and 1/2 V8 or chicken/veg broth and I cut up a little celery and mushroom to throw in as well. Takes them from being tolerable to being pretty enjoyable, and it feels a lot more satisfying.

I didn't like the banana shakes either, but I do the same as Riddy - about 1/2 ice, 1/2 water. For the flavors I don't like, I've used diet soda or coffee instead of water or put a little peanut butter into the shake. I really love the dutch chocolate shakes though, tastes just like a fudgesicle to me.

Some of the bars are crazy, I feel like I'm cheating when I eat them. They're all pretty good, but I crave the s'mores and peanut butter bars. I look forward to the smores bars, will definitely be buying those even after I finish losing the weight.

I've liked all the bars so far, and ordered different ones this time around. I'm thinking the bars are something I'd like to continue to have because they're easy and not nearly as calorie laden as what you find in the stores. I should do a little more label comparison, though.

Funny, I like the banana shake but not the vanilla. Vanilla tastes chalky.

I hated the vanilla! Blech! I can tolerate the banana, but I had a really hard time with vanilla. I tried mixing with diet coke and ice to hopefully get a coke float-ish result, but that was a fail. Mixing with coffee and some ice ended up tasting a lot like a frappuchino though. That helped me finish out the box.

With me, it's the mocha shakes. Ick. I can get through it if I add either sugar-free peanut butter syrup or some instant coffee powder. I should know to just stick with chocolate when it comes to shakes, lol.

Day 2 was not so bad. I had a bit of a head ache this morning. Coming off caffeine. I am addicted to it. I usually have 10 or more cups of tea a day.
I had Cream of Broccoli soup today and it was alright.
The Cranberry Mango drink was good. I had it semi frozen.
The Strawberry Shake reminds me of the stuff you gotta drink for medical tests. yuk. So I just pictured myself sipping ice tea on the beach in my thin body and chugged it down.
Like I told my dh...it's not about the fake food it's about the weight loss.
There will be plenty of time to eat yummy food again AFTER I reach my goals.

I had to set my phone with six alarms today because I forgot to eat lunch and then I had to squeeze my meals together.
My 8:45 alarm just went off so I will need to prepare my evening snack/meal.

Did I tell you all how happy I am to be surrounded by people who understand what I am trying to do and are here to listen to me rambling on.....

See you all later
Summer

ok....the morning of Day3 and I am off to a good start. Blueberry Oatmeal for breakfast and a frozen Banana shake for mid morning..yum yum...
Seriously...after this plan my taste buds will be so confused that even my husbands cooking will taste good.....
But I am in it for the long haul.
i can do this
i can do this
i can do this

Hang in there, 101days! :cheer2: :cheer3: :cheer2:

Jay

Oh boy, I forgot all about the strawberry. I think I blocked it from my memory. That's the only way I got through it too, 101 :P

You're nearly through the rough patch! For me, the first 3 days were a bit rough, but I was just fine after. I'm only a little over a month in, and already I can't really see going back to eating all the junk I was before (at least not on a routine basis, hehe). Such an amazing feeling!

Keep up the good work, Summer!

I just went in and modified my next shipment - NEED MORE CHEESE PUFFS! I can't get over how good they are, and if I make myself eat them 1 at a time, they take quite a while to eat.

Definitely get some bars next month - they are just like real food to me.

Riddy, I didn't order any puffs with my first shipment (of a month's worth), because my mind couldn't take the thought of a tiny bag of diet "puffs" being a "whole meal."

But then almost right away after that, Medifast announced they were now selling single packets through their webpage. So, I ordered a whole mess of stuff I didn't get in my first month, single packets only, to try them, with the idea that for my second month, I'd be able to order only my favorites.

Anyway. So, I've had one bag of Parmesan and one bag of Chili Nacho. I found the Parmesan kind of... meh. Not terrible, but not Parmesan-y. However, I cannot LIVE without more Chili Nacho puffs! YUM!

I'll have to get some samples of the bars, puffs, and pretzels. I'll just have to muster up my willpower so I don't eat them all in one day. The only way I can stick to this plan is by being very very strick about following the plan 100% and if these are allowed I guess I can work them in, as long as they are not too tempting. And if it turns out I like them maybe I'll use them as rewards after weekly weigh-ins.

on another note....

On another forum someone was talking about doctoring the shakes.
I do not understand why you would want to do that. It might make it taste better ...but wouldn't that change the nutritional value of the shake and throw the balance of the meal way off? Please enlighten me if there is something I am missing here.

101days, you're not missing anything. I don't know why people doctor the shakes either. :dunno:

People just have to mess with things, I guess. You'd think "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" would apply.

But along those lines--don't use extra food as a reward. That's not how Medifast works. Eat what you are supposed to eat and you'll do fine.

I think it's generally best to get away from using food as a reward for weight loss. That's like someone with a drug problem shooting up to celebrate being clean. :chin:

Jay

JayEll ... I didn't mean as an EXTRA reward. I meant I would include them in my daily meal plans only when I reach my mini goals. Instead of Oatmeal or Soup.
I am an OCD kind of gal. It's all or nuthin'....I am following the plan 100% .

LOL! OK, gotcha! :D

Jay