If you want to ensure your success on Medifast so you can achieve a 20 lb weight loss in a month, take a look at my tips for using the Medifast plan to lose weight quickly
. The 20 lbs in 30 days that they entice you with in their advertising is definitely possible with a little bit of the right kind of effort.

1. Eat All Your Meals

Medifast is already very low in calories, so it is important to eat all of your Medifast meals to get your full nutrition for the day. Also, this will help make sure that your weight loss won’t stall. If you are getting adequate nutrition and calories, your body won’t go into “starvation mode” and slow down your metabolism.

2. Only One Medifast Bar Per Day

Medifast makes some pretty tasty bars. In my opinion, they taste much better than any other type of protein bar. But there’s a cost and that’s paid for in extra carbohydrates. Since Medifast works partly by reducing carbs and keeping you in a mild state of ketosis (which helps burn fat), it is very important to not accidentally increase your carb consumption. In fact, some folks find they do best by not eating the Medifast bars at all. Personally, I would only bother cutting them completely though if I wasn’t losing weight or had hit a plateau.

3. Ignore the Medifast snacks

The Medifast plan is 5 Medifast meals per day plus one homemade meal called the Lean & Green. But Medifast also allows you to have one snack per day. Both their soy crisps and and their crackers taste good and hit the spot in terms of crunch, but they do add some extra carbohydrates to your day. I think most people who really have rapid weight loss with Medifast skip the snacks. You won’t be that hungry anyway, so don’t worry about them. Just forget they exist. If you really need a snack, have two dill pickle spears. They are very low in carbs and shouldn’t slow your weight loss down at all.

4. Drink plenty of water

In any low carb plan, a lot of weight loss in your first week or two will be water, and Medifast is no exception. A lot of folks like to dismiss water weight loss as meaningless, but if you look at yourself in the mirror you’ll realize it isn’t. Once that extra water your body was holding is gone, your face will look slimmer and I bet you’ll find your hands and feet aren’t as puffy either. To ensure that your body lets go of all its extra water weight you need to drink more water. Try to get your intake to about 64 ounces per day. That’s about 8 glasses.

By following these four tips, you should be able to maximize your weight loss while using Medifast. If you have significant weight to lose, I think it’s pretty easy to achieve a 20 lb weight loss each month for at least a few months in a row. After that, weight loss may slow down a bit and that’s a good time to start adding some exercise to your plan to kick things back into gear.

Because aspartame is still in so many products – 1 is too many – we have to continue to report this in order to inform those who have not read it or don’t know, and to remind those who have read it be need a refresher. It’s bad! – as are most artificial sweeteners. One trusted source on sweeteners is Dr. Mercola, who claims to have had 5 doctors working full-time for about 5 years to report on sweeteners. Here’s a quick excerpt of what he has on the subject –

Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, Equal-Measure and Canderel, aspartame can be found in more than 6,000 products, including:

It’s even found in vitamins, as well as prescription and over the-counter drugs such as Alka Seltzer Plus, and some Tylenol medications.

Food For Thought

One 12 ounce diet soda contains about 180 mg of aspartame, or 15 mg of aspartame per ounce, which equals approximately 4.5 packets of NutraSweet.

According to the industry-run Aspartame Information Center website – a propaganda masterpiece, if I ever saw one — the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI), as set by the FDA, is 50 mg/kg. That equates to about 20 cans of 12-ounce diet soda if you’re a 150 lb. adult, or six 12-ounce cans for a 50-pound child.

The ADI for tabletop sweeteners is 97 packets for adults, and 32 packets for children.

One of the things common among dieters is the notion that a juice detox is going to provide weight loss that will make a difference. While a detox diet may be a good way to ‘cleanse’ the body, it is by no means a healthy way to live, or to expect any amount of weight loss – at least none that is permanent.

Many college students trying to improve their overall health have turned to controversial detoxification programs. Detox regimens claiming to help participants purge toxins, lose weight and gain energy are wildly popular, gaining support from celebrity testimonials and a flawed understanding of human metabolism.

The basic premise of detoxification is that toxins such as pollutants, pesticides, sugar, medicines and alcohols accumulate in the body’s digestive system, sapping energy and causing a variety of negative health effects. Consequently, the body needs to be periodically “cleansed,” often through laxatives and liquid diets. Unfortunately, the dramatic claims of many popular detox diets are not scientifically supported.

Detox diets range from the fairly minimal fruit-and-vegetable fast to extreme versions, such as the “Master Cleanse.” Popularized by Beyonce Knowles, the “Master Cleanse” is a glorified fast in which participants drink a mixture of water, lemon juice, pure maple syrup and cayenne pepper for 10 days.

The human body is adept at cleansing itself if a healthy diet is followed (that’s a BIG if, because it normally isn’t!). As food enters the body, it goes directly to the stomach where it is broken down by stomach acid. The digested food then passes to the small intestine where nutrients are absorbed and next to the large intestine where solid wastes are eliminated. Toxins absorbed into the bloodstream are filtered through the kidneys and liver and finally eliminated through urine. Because of the body’s internal mechanisms to clean out toxins, many medical experts question the need for a “cleanse.”

“The body’s own detoxification systems are remarkably sophisticated and versatile. It is remarkable that people are prepared to risk seriously disrupting these systems with unproven ‘detox’ diets, which could well do more harm than good,” states Professor Alan Boobis, a toxicologist at Imperial College London.

“Our lungs, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, and immune system are effective in removing or neutralizing toxic substances within hours of consumption,” according to Clemens and Pressman.

Since the body is capable of removing toxins on its own, the supposed benefits of detox diets such as weight loss and increased energy may in fact be due to other causes.

One reason for these dramatic results is that participants refrain from sugar, fatty foods, caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and other substances while on the diet, all of which can negatively affect the body.

Rather than going on potentially dangerous detox diets, focus on eating a balanced and healthy diet and avoiding the everyday toxins that processed foods and soft drinks alone will bring, which are responsible for the majority of them. If you are interested in a meal plan to assist with your weight loss, Medifast provides a diet that makes it easy to plan the foods and meals you will eat. Click here – Medifast – to try the Medifast diet meal plan to help you get started losing weight.

One of the first places to look when it comes to a healthy diet is the kitchen. Almost 100% of the time we find a plethora of items that are contributing to the added weight and keeping the dieter from their weight loss goal. Starting with the ’snack’ cabinet – you know, the place where you keep your potato chips, cookies, snack bars, candies, cereals, and other assorted boxed or bagged consumables – we find that almost every item needs to be thrown out. For a healthy diet and one that will promote weight loss, it is imperative to remove as much processed and high-fructose-corn-syrup filled items as possible. Most people are not aware of just how many items they have that are contributing to the demise of their health and that of their children. Cereals loaded with sugar, potato chips loaded with salt and fat are both major factors that seem to be all too common.

Next to the refrigerator where we find even more high-calorie items. Starting with beverages, most-often we find sugary drinks. It wouldn’t be as bad if these were not from concentrate – i.e. orange juice, apple juice, cranberry juice, all made from the source without added sugars. But most of the time that’s not what’s present. These sugary drinks are calorie-dense liquids that add lots of calories with little effort – that is, there’s no calories expended when consuming them, unlike celery that has to be chewed and provides a negative calorie gain because more energy is used to chew celery than the caloric value of the celery itself.  So liquid calories are to be avoided if possible. Milk needs to be Organic and skim, or 1% if necessary. Moving down to the fruit and vegetable bins, these most often are not filled with a variety of those, or they contain other items like beer, cheese, and leftovers. Not an example of what a healthy dieter needs to weight loss or to maintain good health.

Here’s what a typical refrigerator contains from someone practicing a healthy diet: Organic skim milk, Rice Milk, Skim Soy Milk, a water pitcher (with filter), Famer’s 12-grain bread, Organic jelly, Organic peanut butter, Organic caged-free eggs, Orange Juice (not from concentrate), low-fat cheese, fish, chicken-breasts, oranges, grapefruits, apples, pineapple, strawberries, blackberries, cranberries, mushrooms, onions – yellow and red and green, red-leaf lettuce, cabbage, celery, carrots, spinach, broccoli, tofu, beans.

Here’s what a typical cabinet contains from those with a healthy diet: organic wheat pasta, organic natural pasta sauce, clams, crab meat, Oatmeal, wheat germ (refrigerate after opening), milled flaxseed (refrigerate after opening), Organic honey (unheated and unpressed), sweet potatoes, tomatoes, squash, bananas, organic cereal (healthy variety), wheat crackers, some protein bars, rice cakes, meal-replacement powder (used for a healthy snack).

I’m sure I’m forgetting some things as this is memory of my own kitchen. I eat a lot of Oatmeal, lean meats (although the case can be made to avoid all beef products and possibly poultry, I still consume chicken breasts because I’m not good at eating beans), some pasta (don’t consume too much carbs at one time), sandwiches made with healthy bread, and lots of egg whites with only 1 yolk often as an omellete with lots of veggies and tomato served with a slice of toast and a small amount of the organic jelly; skim milks, and protein shakes that contain nutrients from a variety of fruits and vegetables (link below). I do snack on the organic peanut butter at times with just a tablespoon by itself, sometimes Almond Butter. Of course, all the typical condiments and spices are also present in my kitchen.

A healthy diet is not difficult to follow. It is more difficult to avoid the tens of thousands of products and food items that are not healthy. The diet that is healthy has plenty to choose from but wouldn’t take all day to list those items. On the other hand, it would take weeks to go through all of the items that don’t support good health (reports estimate 320,000 different consumables are available – from The Way To Eat, Marion Nestle).

Weight loss is achieved through a healthy diet, and of course, exercise regularly. Start on your weight loss plan and build a healthy lifestyle. If you are interested in a meal plan to assist with your weight loss, Medifast provides a diet that makes it easy to plan the foods and meals you will eat. Click here – Medifast – to try the Medifast diet meal plan to help you get started losing weight.

There are many myths out there about dieting and weight loss. These are some of them and the truths. It is worth pointing out that common sense needs to take a front seat to any special diet plan or diet trick or weight loss strategy that may be popular or appealing. The truth is that it seems these days that ‘common sense is the least common thing’. Why is that? Why is it that we can’t just understand that “foods” and beverages that are processed are not really foods or beverages at all, just edible consumable junk. The only diet that we need is one full of fruits and vegetables, a plant-based diet, and lean protein sources like fish, bean, lentils. Food makers have created such “tasty” and addictive food that we just can’t seem to resist the tens of thousands of choices that aren’t plant-based or from Mother Nature. In fact, the only diet we really need to know are the things we can pick, pull, or catch from the Earth. Here are 10 diet myths as reported on Savannah Morning News –

10 diet myths
Low-fat! Low-carb! Eat all day! Don’t eat after 8! Finally, the honest to goodness truth about how to keep your weight under control.

1. Don’t eat after 8 p.m.
The theory: You burn up the food you eat earlier in the day, while late-night calories sit in your system and turn into fat.
The reality: Calories can’t tell time. “Your body digests and uses calories the same way morning, noon and night,” says Mary Flynn, Ph.D., a research dietitian at the Miriam Hospital, in Providence.
The best advice: Pace your eating. Being so hungry that you grab whatever is at hand means you’re more likely to make poor choices. “Don’t go longer than about five hours without eating,” says Jo Ann Hattner, a registered dietitian and a nutrition consultant in San Francisco.

2. Eating small, frequent meals boosts your metabolism.
The theory: If you keep adding small amounts of food to your fire (the fire being your metabolism), you will keep it going strong and burn more calories overall.
The reality: Food intake has a negligible effect on metabolism. More muscles and bigger bodies generally burn more calories overall.
The best advice: Build up your muscles. A pound of fat-free tissue burns about 14 calories a day, while a pound of fat burns just 2 to 3 calories. If you hate lifting weights, you can maintain your muscles by going to a Pilates, body-sculpting or power-yoga class two to three times a week.

3. Pasta makes you fat.
The theory: When you eat carbohydrates, your body turns them into sugars, which are then stored as fat.
The reality: Carbohydrates per se don’t make you fat; extra calories do.,
The best advice: Pasta in moderation is fine. Dietitians recommend 2 or 3 ounces of uncooked noodles per person or half of a 1-pound box to serve a family of four.

4. Coffee can help you lose weight.

The theory: The caffeine in coffee acts as an appetite suppressant and a metabolism booster.

The reality: While coffee may temporarily squelch your appetite, drinking a couple of cups a day won’t have enough of an effect to help you lose weight.

The best advice: Enjoy a cup or two of coffee (or tea) every day, if you please. Just be sure that if you add anything to the brew – like cream, sugar or cocoa powder – you take those calories into account.

5. Milk can help you loose weight.

The theory: Calcium helps the body break down fat more efficiently, stimulating weight loss.

The reality: Dairy doesn’t appear to have magic properties.

The best advice: Go ahead and eat dairy products, but stick with low-fat versions.

6. Going on a diet is the best way to lose weight.

The theory: Switching to a prescriptive plan temporarily is the smartest way to drop pounds.

The reality: Short-term, you do lose weight on any plan that results in your eating fewer calories. But temporary changes don’t lead to permanent losses.

The best advice: Don’t go on a “diet” – a quick fix that begins on New Year’s Day or before bathing-suit season. Instead, change the way you eat. Find a satisfying eating plan that you can live with long-term, and make sure you’re eating the right amount of calories for weight loss.

7. Eating protein and carbs at different meals will help you lose weight.

The theory: Protein and carbohydrates require different enzymes for digestion; if you eat the two separately, you improve digestion and further weight loss.

The reality: Your digestive tract can handle a variety of food groups at the same time.

The best adivce: Eat protein along with carbs, but choose with care. The best protein choices are lean meats, poultry, low-fat dairy products and tofu because they have little (if any) saturated fat. The best carbs are whole grains, fruits and vegetables, which offer more health benefits than refined grains.

8. To lose weight, you need to cut calories drastically.

The theory: Eat much less; weigh much less.

The reality: Sure, if you subsist on 1,200 calories a day, you’ll take off weight, but it won’t be for long. “Psychologically, it’s difficult for people to adhere to strict diets over a long period because they feel deprived and hungry,” says Traci Mann, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis

The best advice: Don’t starve yourself. “If you want to lose weight and keep it off forever, you need a modest calorie restriction that you simply continue and never stop,” says Christopher Gardner, an assistant professor of nutritional science at Stanford University School of Medicine.

9. Diet foods help you diet.

The theory: Low-fat, low-carb and artificially sweetened packaged foods make losing weight painless.

The reality: Low-fat and low-carb don’t always mean low-cal, and if you’re trying to lose weight, stocking up on these treats could undermine your efforts

The best advice: When you’re tempted by a snack food that’s labeled “light” or “low-fat,” check the nutrition label. Look at how many calories are in a serving, then compare that number with the calories in a comparable product that’s not making a label claim.

10. Eating fat makes you fat.

The theory: Fat has 9 calories per gram, whereas carbs and protein have only four per gram, so to lose weight you have to avoid fat.

The reality: Fat is not the enemy. Although fat-laden products can be full of calories, a modest amount of fat may help you feel full (so you eat less overall) and make healthy foods, like vegetables, taste better.

The best advice: Eat fat, but don’t go overboard. Choose healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, found in liquid oils such as canola, safflower, and olive; most nuts; and fish. Limit or avoid unhealthy saturated fats, found mainly in beef and dairy products, and trans fats, which are in a lot of packaged foods, fried fast foods and margarine.

The lesson to remember? Most everything in moderation will keep your weight where it belongs.

When you are undergoing the MediFast diet program, you cannot expect that this alone can make you achieve the body and weight that you have been dreaming of. Of course, there are also rules in this diet, rules that you have to strictly follow if you want to achieve optimum results. These rules are different from those that you see plastered all over the internet—the foolish hypes about the newly unearthed weight loss secrets or the twisted philosophies. The guidelines in MediFast are based on science, which makes this diet program probably the first program that you will ever truly love. The MediFast diet program does not have fancy rules; in fact, they are actually pretty simple. You have to eat your MediFast meals on time—all of them (meaning do not skip a meal) and commit to the program. In the process, you will lose those unwanted extra pounds. MediFast is comprised of 6 meals that you have to take at regular intervals—the premise behind ketosis. By strictly following this meal plan composed of low calorie, low carb foods, your body’s metabolism will function better and burn latent fat and convert them into energy. The low caloric intake in the diet will also help you stay well on your way to effective weight management. Skipping a meal is prohibited, and so is eating two meals at one time. The logic behind eating more at one time to make up for a missed meal becomes illogical in the weight-losing setting. This is because doing so will only confuse your metabolism and cause it to not function well, translating to a less effective diet. Moreover, eating more at one time will make it more difficult for your body to break the foods down. If foods are not broken down, they will be stored, and you will only gain more weight. Some skip the Lean and Green meal and/or replace it with something else. Do not reinvent the program at all because doing so will only prevent you from achieving the results that you both need and want. Perhaps the only rule pertaining to this program that is not based on science is that if you want to have more savings, it is best to grab MediFast coupons to purchase meals from MediFast. These promotional coupons will give you a lot of perks such as discounts, incentives, and even freebies like free meals that would last you two weeks or so. Not only will you get value for your money, but you will also make the most out of the benefits that the MediFast diet program can give you. The MediFast guidelines are not hard to follow at all. Even the string of meals is not so bad—they actually taste far better than other diets would. Compare having chicken noodle soup to a starvation project, or to a water-and-crackers only diet. Although the foods may require some getting used to as they are free of some ingredients that make sinful foods so lusciously appealing, they generally are the best in all other diets out there. Plus, they are clinically proven—you can at least keep your confidence in that.

The Health & Wellness Institute has always taken the position that synthetic vitamin supplements are not the best way to get needed nutrition the body needs, and quite possibly not even a good way. Nutrition should consist of all the nutrients that are found in the whole food, and there are literally hundreds, even thousands, that have been identified but that just aren’t talked about. Here is a report from Mercola.com on the subject of Vitamins when an individual has Cancer –

Millions of U.S. cancer survivors take vitamin supplements. However, there is little evidence that supplements help, and worries that some may actually fuel the disease. A review of 32 studies conducted between 1999 and 2006 found that 64 percent to 81 percent of cancer survivors take extra vitamins or minerals (excluding multivitamins). But little is known about how megadoses of vitamins affect cancer.

A 1995 report showed that cancer cells in a petri dish thrive in the presence of vitamin C, and subsequent studies have suggested that vitamin C supplements may lower survival rates. A study of vitamin E showed patients with cancers of the head and neck who took supplements increased their risk for developing a second cancer.  The American Cancer Society says use of vitamins and supplements during cancer treatments should be avoided.

The Medifast program is a very low-calorie, no guesswork approach to weight loss, because there’s no counting calories, fat grams, or carbs. All you have to remember is to just eat or drink six times a day. It is the number one diet prescribed by doctors for over 25 years. Although primarily developed for the obese, people who have 20 or less pounds to lose can certainly benefit from this program. Furthermore, people who are struggling with health problems or are at a high risk for developing health problems as a result of their weight may also benefit from it. Medifast is designed for rapid weight loss, so it is best done under the care of a physician. One can easily lose two to five pounds a week by following the program. This is achieved by eating a high protein low carb meals that account for an average of 800 calories a day, in addition to drinking supplements in the form of shakes. The core of the program is “5 plus 1,” which calls for five daily Medifast meal-replacement drinks or foods plus one “lean and green” meal, consisting of lean meat or fish plus salad or green vegetables. To reduce hunger, medifast meals and replacements are formulated for the highest fullness index, which is a calculation of fiber, protein and calories. In addition, meals are small and frequent as described above by the “5 plus 1? plan, which helps to modulate blood sugar levels, control hunger, and preserve muscle mass while burning fat. This key element of hunger management is what weight loss experts agree on as being the secret to a successful weight loss program. PROS * Medifast is easy, convenient, and relatively inexpensive * Effective for large weight loss (20 pounds in 30 days) * Meals conveniently shipped * Doctors recommended CONS * Some preparation required * Calorie intake is low * Limited choice of food CONCLUSION Because the Medifast program is so simple to follow, it has remained around for over 25 years. It is the perfect plan for someone to lose a substantial amount of weight, ideally under the supervision of a physician. So, if you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off by changing your eating habits after the weight loss, then this may be what you’ve been searching for.

An estimated 64 million Americans are considered obese, according to a report from American Heart Association. Obesity can be defined as having a high proportion of body fat with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or higher. In 2005, approximately 112,000 Americans died as a result of obesity-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

“Obesity is a tremendous burden in our society,” says Paul Ratté, ND, a naturopathic practitioner at Northwestern Health Sciences University’s Woodwinds Natural Care Center in Woodbury, Minn. “Americans spend more money on fad diets and weight loss products than any other country but are still losing the battle with obesity.”

Although many of the current fad diets promote calorie cutting as an effective way to lose weight, Ratté says many of these diets can actually make a person gain weight. “Starvation is often defined as consuming less than 2,100 calories each day, yet most diets tell people to consume as little as 1,500 calories,” he says. “When the body is starved, it enters survival mode and holds on to what little food there is, causing the body to accumulate instead of expend calories.”

Medifast

We recommend the Medifast meal plan Take Shape for Life for those seeking to lose weight who would like (or need) an eating plan that is balanced and healthy. Medifast helps those who want to take the guess work out of what foods to buy, how to prepare them, and in what combinations to eat them. Medifast makes choosing the foods you like easier for your weight loss goal.

When people like Star Jone make the news for their dramatic weight loss and fool people for so long about how they did it, it can be a real let down for those who are trying to lose weight the healthy way. When public figures say one thing about their weight loss but have really done something else, many people will get the wrong impression and even false hope that weight loss is easier than it really is.

While Star Jones doesn't need to be criticized for her weight loss or deception – afterall, she did 'come clean' – the real problem is the attention given to gastric bypass as a solution for obesity or being overweight. It is important to know that gastric bypass may get the weight off, but it doesn't magically make you healthy. You still have to change your diet, otherwise you could put yourself at risk of serious health problems. So why not just change your diet without going through gastric bypass?

Here's more on Star Jones appearance on Oprah and her 'confession' —

The former The View co-host left the daytime chatfest in 2006 amid a storm of controversy (some might even say a ball of flames) following a nasty public debate with Barbara Walters as her ABC contract term came to an end.  On Wednesday, however, Jones' goal was not to clear the air about her time on The View, but instead to set the record straight with the one woman who understands almost better than anyone the burden of a public battle with weight.

Winfrey was gracious and welcoming as she greeted Star, offering an affectionate "Hey Lil Bit" to her guest as though they were old girlfriends.  This, even though Star, who is not known to be a part of Oprah's Montecito inner circle, was making her first visit to daytime's #1 show.

In the interview, Star spoke with a simple sincerity about having gastric bypass surgery and why she went to such great lengths to hide it, admitting she instructed her staff to not even talk about it or they would all be fired.

"I was an addict for all practical purposes, that I had never stuck to a real diet, that I'd never stuck to a real exercise program," the lawyer-turned-TV-personality told O.

"The doctor said, 'If you don't make changes, you will die.' I had no choice," Jones continued admitting simultaneously that some days she still feels 300 pounds in her head. read more…

Comments: The bottom line is that a healthy diet and healthy actions is what you should strive for, in order that you have a healthy lifestyle. This will lead to a healthy weight. Focus on what you're doing, what you need to do, and those things that you need to avoid to be healthy, and your weight will take care of itself. The real goal should be good health. Medifast is a meal plan that can help you meet that goal.

If you are interested in a meal plan to assist with your weight loss and health, Medifast provides a diet that makes it easy to plan the foods and meals you will eat. Click here – Medifast Coupons – to try the Medifast diet meal plan to help you get started losing weight. Medifast is physician-developed.