Sometimes I hear from people who are desperately afraid they won’t have a perfect Medifast experience. In other words, they are worried that they are going to do everything wrong.
I heard someone say, “I have some co-workers who have had some success with Medifast. I too would like to lose some weight, but I’m not very good at sticking to diets completely. I’m always looking for ways to change it.” For example, I asked about taking a cheat day and my coworkers said this would ruin everything I asked about eating a regular main meal instead of the lean and green meal and they scoffed making some adjustments to some of food, and they acted like I was crazy or just wasting time. Can you really screw up Medifast? And if so, how? Isn’t it better to stick to something than nothing?”
Keep in mind that I can only give you my opinion. I’m certainly not an expert. You can easily call or chat with one on the company’s website. However, it is my personal opinion that the only way you can really “ruin” your Medifast experience is to quit smoking. Because if you quit smoking, you obviously won’t get the benefits of the diet anymore.
Of course, if you don’t always deliver, you can’t always expect optimal results. But some results are certainly better than none. And even a small number of health benefits are worth looking for. I’ve always had the belief that it makes sense to do what you need to do to stay happily on the diet. If that means taking a cheat day once in a while, I think it’s worth it, as long as that cheat day prevents you from quitting and means you’ll get back on track afterward. When I started my diet path, I regularly added fat-free cheese and sauce to food. I still add sugar free syrup to shakes. And in no way do I feel like my experience and results are ruined.
However, I’m not sure if I would make a daily habit of replacing lean and green food. Honestly, you can have a “regular dinner” and still turn it into a lean and green meal with very small adjustments. But I do understand skipping the lean and green once in a while, assuming it’s not a habit.
I look at it this way. Diet foods are much lower in calories than you would normally eat. So even if you’re only partially compliant, you’re still likely saving a lot of calories in what would be a typical day. Would you have lost more weight if you had played completely safe? Probably. But I’d be willing to bet that you would still have done well even if you tweak things a bit.
And I think it’s better to take a longer-term perspective than a short-term one. Ultimately, you want to be successful, and you want to keep the weight off. You are less likely to do that if you feel too restricted or private. So again, this is just someone’s opinion, but I don’t think it’s possible to “ruin” this diet unless you stop doing it.
