Hi everyone.

I decided to try both Medifast (MF) vs New Life Style Diet (NLS) to see what I like better. I'll post as I try different foods.

Disclaimer: I don't work for either company in any capacity. I'm as neutral as can be.

I have liked all the MF foods I tried so far with the exception of the chili and the orange creme shake. They are going back to MF asap.

Vanilla shakes: MF wins. I like MF better. Some nutmeg, cinnamon and crushed ice and I'm happy.

Pudding: NLS wins for the Dulce de Leche. It was awesome. However, on the MF end, I like making their pudding into ice cream. I haven't tried making the NLS into ice cream yet.

Crispy Cinnamon Bar Tastes close to the cinnamon toast crunch bar.

I like that NLS has cold cereal and it has the same amount of carbs (before the milk) as a shake but it doesnt leave you feeling full.

I still have the following to try and will post my observations.
Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin Bar
Crunchy Cheddar Mix
Cheesesteak Pasta

I am interested to see what effect mixing the products had on my losses this week. I am eating 3 MF's and 2 NLS's plus my lean and green. Unless it is significant, i will do it for a second week and post again.

I can't eat chocolate due to it being a migraine trigger so I will not be reviewing any chocolate flavors. I hope this helps others.

Great idea! Should be interesting! Thanks for being the ginuea pig!

As I sit and read the ingredients list, 7 of the 8 items I purchased have some form of soy in them.

Soy is the FIRST ingredient in the following items:

• Crisp N Crunch Cinnamon Bar (Soy Protein Isolate)
• Cinnamon Crip Breakfast Cereal (Soy Protein Isolate)
• Cheesesteak Pasta (Soy Protein Isolate)
• Crunchy Cheddar Mix (Soy Flour)

Soy is in the ingredients of the following 2 items:

• Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin Bar (Roasted Soybeans - about halfway in the list)
• Vanilla creme instant pudding (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 3rd Ingredient)
• Dulce De Leche Instant Caramel Pudding (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil 6th Ingredient)

The only item that does not have Soy is the Shake.

If you are considering NLS to avoid Soy, I would take a good look at the ingredients of the non-shake items before committing.

Can't wait to hear what you think is better..or worse or if it is just the same.... however it does sound like NLS has exciting type of foods..like cheesesteak pasta.... i mean.. that sounds amazing! maybe you would try one week on NLS and one on MF and see which one you lose more weight with, how your energy levels are, how you sleep, etc. LOL..or maybe ill try that!! haha..sounds fun though, and thanks for letting us know!! are they about the same in price?? because they sound about the same in plan wise!!

Great thread! I can't wait to read more of your reviews. I've used both New Lifestyle and Medifast interchangeably with good results. The Berry Smoothie from New Lifestyle is one of my favorites. I didn't like the Chili at first either but then it became a favorite too. I like the pricing of New Lifestyle and the support.

I made the KICKINEST ice cream from the dulce de leche NLS pudding tonite. I am never ordering pudding from MF again.
I'll post my review of the beef and pasta tomorrow after I try the MF beef stew for comparison.

Beef Wars
Today was MF Beef Stew vs NLS Cheesesteak Pasta. MF Beef Stew wins for not having to do anything else to it. It does not have that 'fake' taste to it, for me anyway.

I was going to return (if possible) the NLS Cheesesteak Pasta but I decided to try doctoring it up first. I put in about 1 oz of 2% Kraft Colby & Monterey Jack cheese and 2 tsp of Francesco Rinaldi Sweet & Tasty Tomato sauce. That improved the taste considerably. It also covered up what I found to be the 'fake' taste I had detected originally. I have decided to keep the cheesesteak pasta as part of my regular rotation. Next time I think I'll use parmesan and mozzarella. It is worth the extra 2g of Carb.

Snack-Off
I tried the final item in my NLS order today, the Crunchy Cheddar Mix. One word. YUCK. It has this NASTY fak-on (fake bacon) in it that 1) looks like a dog treat and 2) tainted all the other pieces of the snack mix even after I took all the fake bacon out of it. My hand stank of fak-on until I washed twice.

I prefer the MF Apple Cinnamon soy crisps and White Cheddar soy crisps. The MF multigrain crackers are beyond blah. I am going to try and use them in a recipe tonite.

What does the scale say?
Overall... I have not been doing a strict 3-2 of MF and NLS. I just go with what I feel like eating that day. I do watch my carbs like a hawk and plan accordingly. The 7g NLS pudding is awesome for that reason. I can put syrup on my shake cake when I have that.

So far I appear to be down 4lbs this week so I do not foresee and issue with mixing and matching like in this way. My official weigh in is on Monday.

Going forward
I will order from NLS again and I am going to get:
Repeats from 1st order: Pudding, Cinnamon Crip Breakfast Cereal
New Stuff: Tomato soup, Cream of Chicken soup and Minestrone,
Sour Cream & Onion Crunchy O`s, Snack Pretzels

The bars are good, but they are so high in Carb, that I consider them treats on days where I am in the 70's and on my last MF/NLS meal.

I will be sticking with MF For:
Shakes, Bars, and Oatmeal, for now. We'll see how the NLS soups stand up.

Comparison Chart
Lastly, I am attaching a preliminary pdf comparing the carbs in the MF and NLS products that I am interested in. It is not an exhaustive list. I don't eat chocolate so none of those products are on there. I made this for my own use but don't mind sharing with others.

I really hope these reviews are helpful!

Excellent comparison job!! Thanx so much.

MsFB, how was your weigh in this week? Just wondering how mixing MF & NLD worked for you.

Pam

I went off plan - it was on my calendar to do so for an event, so I'm up 1.5lbs. Prior to that, I was down a total of 12.5 for the 3 weeks I was on plan. I don't believe that mixing the 2, MF and NLS, is negatively affecting my loss. It is definitely more interesting tastewise. I just placed another NLS order. I'll have some more foods to add to my repertoire, puddings, soups and a few bars.


I'll post up when I get here- should be on 2/16, and update my carb count doc.

Good morning, MsFB, how is the comparison experiment going?

I, too have liked most of the Medifast I've tried (the oatmeal was a bit of a shock, but like it now), but have placed an order for NLS for financial reasons. So I understand we can follow the 5 and 1 plan a la` Medifast with NLS products and add a multivitamin and we're good? I do like the idea of adding a fruit or two to the plan like NLS recommends, but I don't see how this would differ from a normal low calorie diet, complete with cravings and muscle loss (because not ketogenic). Oh, I miss fruit. Hopefully I will be at goal by raspberry season, if I'm disciplined enough, and can slowly start adding in that on my maintenance plan. My raspberry bushes give me fruit until the middle of August. Yay, Canada!

I'm back on the wagon after taking a week off. I really wanted noodles last week and that sent me on a week of not eating MF or NLS foods. I found I can't eat the portions that I used to. So that is a good thing.

Voluptious: I don't eat fruit, well ever. Unless it is in some kind of frozen pop form, or seedless red grapes. I can't really comment on how that would affect the mixed 5 and 1 program between MF and NLS foods. Your question is valid though- how can you hit ketosis with fruit in your diet? Let me know what you find out. I've been curious.

Onto the comparison.

This go round I have:

Snacks:
Sour Cream & Onion Crunchy O`s 12.0g

Soup/Entrees
Vegetarian Sloppy Joe 12.0g
Minestrone 10.0g
Creamy Chicken Soup 7.0g
Creamy Tomato Soup 8.0g

Pudding
Dulce de Leche 8.0g
Lemon Chiffon Pudding 7.0g
Apple Custard Crunch Pudding 8.0g
Custard Crème with Toffee Bits 6.0g
Mocha Pudding & Shake 7.0g

Drinks
Cappuccino 2.0g

Bars
Lemon Crunch Bar 18.0g
Variety box (1 of each): Butter Pecan, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Chocolate Mint, Double Chocolate,
Peanut Butter, Oatmeal Cinnamon Raisin, Peanut Butter Crunch.


MF Tomato vs NLS Tomato: Neither are that great, they don't dissolve well. NLS has a funny taste to it. However, I'm giving it to NLS because of the carb count (8g for NLS vs 13 for MF), cost, and 8oz of fluid vs 5 on the MF so you can feel fuller.

MF Chicken Noodle vs NLS Cream of Chicken: I use no fat low sodium Chicken Broth instead of water to rehydrate them. NLS wins. The taste is better. It's a little blah and could use some salt but doesn't taste as fake as MF. No matter how long I soak MF, the noodles are still crunchy.

I put the Sour Cream & Onion Crunch O's in the MF cream of chicken soup and it was pretty tasty. I'll put onion and garlic powder in the soup next time and that should make it pretty good. Don't want to use up all my crunch O's!

That's it for now. More on the other soups and puddings later!

Plugging along here. Medifast seems to be working well for me, so I think I'll stick with it. I've averaged almost a pound a day which totally blows me away.

Update:

Apple Crunch Custard and Vegetarian Joe are both VERY GOOD. I highly recommend them. Just watch the Vegetarian joe in the microwave. It does not need to go in for the amount of time they tell you. I think it would be good on top of spaghetti squash.

that's really great. I like a lot of variety in my diet so this is working really well for me. I am averaging 1/2 lb a day and I am psyched!