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Here's the message I just sent to my health coach, since he wanted to know my loss stats for Medifast:
I took the TSFL assessment and I got 88. I pretty much got everything except for exercise, which I know I have been slacking on a little bit. I just got a pedometer/heart rate monitor watch so that I could see what kind of exercise I'm getting each day and to try to add more. So at least I have a plan to improve that! I just need to build exercise into my day again, it was a part of my day before but I stopped when I started MF because I didn't want to stress out my body too much with the big drop in calories.
As far as the Medifast weight losses so far, here's what I have:
Week 0 (7/27) Starting weight - 242.4
Week 1 (8/3) 240.0 - down 2.4lbs
Week 2 (8/10) 236.1 - down 3.9lbs - 6.3lbs total
Week 3 (8/17) 233.5 - down 2.6lbs - 8.9lbs total
Week 4 (8/24) 231.6 - down 1.9lbs - 10.8lbs total
So right now, my 4 week loss total is 10.8 on Medifast. I've mentioned before that I started changing how I ate before I started Medifast, so I'll give you my loss results for the 3 weeks before MF too.
7/4 Starting weight - 257.2
7/11 - 252.0 - down 5.2lbs
7/18 - 247.0 - down 5.0lbs - 10.2lbs total
7/25 - 243.6 - down 3.4lbs - 13.6lbs total
Then I started Medifast a couple days later. My grand total since I started changing how I eat is over 25 pounds lost.
Here's my question, if you can answer it - Why was I losing more weight before Medifast? I was basically following what I thought Medifast was but using things more easily available. I had a lot of Slim Fast type shakes and the Kashi TLC chewy granola bars instead of Medifast shakes and bars. I still had one "Lean and Green" style meal, but I wasn't measuring like I am now. Now I can see that even my pre-Medifast diet was higher in calories AND carbs compared to Medifast. I don't understand why I'm not losing weight as fast. I've been having some doubts about Medifast because of all of this, and I've tried to make sure that I follow it 100% to make sure I'm not messing up my own results, but so far I haven't been able to figure it out.
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968 kcal
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Fat: 35.67g | Prot: 102.38g | Carbs: 79.08g.
Breakfast: medifast peanut butter crunch, medifast smores crunch. Lunch: kirkland green tea with citrus, hill country fare turkey, 2% String Cheese Sticks, Cucumber (Peeled). Dinner: broccoli, cucumber, Annie's Lowfat Gingerly Vinaigrette, reduced fat feta cheese, romaine lettuce, part skim mozzarella, medifast eggs. Snacks/Other: baking powder, Coffee (Instant Powder, Decaffeinated), medifast hot cocoa, medifast parmesan. more...
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 Comments
I think it's a very good msg to your coach! I can't imagine what the response will be, but I'm sure it'll be something to advocate you staying on MF. After all, it is their goal to make money! You have the concept down & you were able to eat more calories w/ better results. This should be a BIG motivator for you to go it on your own, save yourself alot of money & eat real food. = )
25 Aug 10 by member: Evil_Angel_Shay
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Weight lose is going to fluctuate over time. Initial weight lose is going to be water weight. Portion controlled diets do work and people have a lot of success that stick w/'em.
Q: Is initial weight lose water weight?
A: Afraid so...
If you’re looking for scientific evidence, here’s a very-frequently-cited 1976 article (before Atkins, but describing an Atkins-like "ketogenic" diet):
Composition of weight lost (percentage) during the ketogenic diet was water 61.2, fat 35.0, protein 3.8. During the mixed diet, composition of loss was water 37.1, fat 59.5, protein 3.4. ... During starvation, mean rate of weight loss was 750.7+50.9 g/day, the composition (percentage) being water 60.9, fat 32.4, protein 6.7.
In other words, on either the Atkins-like diet or the starvation diet 60% of the weight loss was just water weight. The "mixed" diet (basically, a lower-calorie diet, radically so in the case of this study) subjects did lose more fat weight than water weight, over the course of several weeks, but again, in the earliest part it was primarily water loss.
The results of this study are well accepted and have been repeated in various forms, further refining our understanding. The upshot: eating less, but not going overboard on any particular kind of food, is the best way to produce real fat weight loss.
You just can't burn fat in the first week of a diet. It takes time for your body to shift to other metabolic pathways, even if you shock it with a diet designed to force your body to burn fat. Instead, the body shifts into a starvation mode, burning up all of its stores of sugar, which is then excreted as water and CO2.
You are losing a bit of protein, and that needs to be replaced in the diet. You won't lose muscle during a diet if you exercise, especially strength training, which forces your body to rebuild muscles. That's harder to do on an extreme diet, when starvation mode makes exercise extremely uncomfortable.
25 Aug 10 by member: cayo12
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I'm definitely not going to be in starvation mode. I'm monitoring everything pretty carefully. I just feel like there are some things that I could tweak with medifast and make the experience more comfortable for me. I asked a doctor about the weight loss that I've had so far and he said it sounds reasonable, but not sustainable. I was thinking about that and I think I may just make some adjustments so that my body doesn't flip out when I start to transition. I guess the whole transition phase of Medifast is controlled like anything else, but I don't want to "relapse" into my old ways of eating and gain all my weight back. I'd love to feel like I'm not as restricted, with flavors or food. I guess thats just part of the process. I was looking around in Whole Foods Market today and I did find some things that I would be interested in trying, but I will save for transition because they seemed a little high in carbs. Sometimes I wonder if the low carb thing is really important if the calories are still low, but I do understand the whole thing about ketosis, so there's not a whole lot of wiggle room. I don't know sometimes....
26 Aug 10 by member: jenrose82
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Don't be discouraged you're making a big step staying focused and working towards your overall goal. I worked in a hospital for many years, teaching nutrition to patients and various weight lose programs. I found that reactive vs. proactive, so I work in the health and fitness field now. I understand wanting to add variety to your diet & I encourage people to find ways to add healthy calories to their diet. Stay Motivated!!!
26 Aug 10 by member: cayo12
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jenrose82's Weight History
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