Pudgy Ninja Diet Review: Medifast

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, nor am I a trained dietician. Nothing in this blog is intended as a substitute for medical advice.

Medifast is a meal-replacement diet plan. The rules are pretty simple: eat five of their meals per day, plus one “lean and green” meal and you lose weight—up to 5 lbs per week.

Medifast as it exists now is a two-fer. It’s a diet plan and a multi-level marketing program. Yes, that’s right, not only can you lose that excess weight, you can get your family, friends and neighbors into the act too! Now how much would you pay? Unfortunately for those who want to make their fortunes upon a pyramid of Medifast minions, all of the foods are available from the website, often with discounts. I suspect the MLM model will soon be as extinct as rotary phones.

Does it work? Yellow light. I tried Medifast for several times for 1-2 week stretches. I lost an average of 2 lbs per week. However, I felt so hungry and deprived, I didn’t stick to it more than maybe 2 out of every 3 days, even for the weeks I was trying to be strict. My father and brother, on the other hand, followed the plan for several months, and lost 20-30 lbs each. It’s about 800-1000 calories per day, which is less than your average toddler eats. Sure, if you can keep yourself from eating everything that isn’t nailed down after three days of that, you’re virtually guaranteed to lose weight. But, under 1000 calories? Who can do that for weeks or months at a time?

Is it easy to use? Green light. A monkey could do it without stretching his brain power. Any 5 Medifast foods plus one meal consisting only of lean meat and green vegetables.
Cost? Yellow light. The meal replacements are sold online for an average cost of $18.75 for 7 servings. That’s a little over $13 per day for your Medifast foods. If you are used to eating out a lot, you may even save money, but if you generally cook your own meals, this can get expensive. Plus, the amount of food you get for your money is pretty paltry.

Taste? Red light. BIG red light. With a siren. At first, you look at what you get to eat and get excited. “I can have macaroni and cheese? Dark chocolate brownies? Breakfast cereal? Sign me up!” Then you dig in, and you realize that the creamy, delicious bowl of macaroni tastes a lot like yellow Styrofoam, and there’s no amount of Sriracha that will make it taste like anything but rehydrated soy cheese on puny, tasteless noodles. I couldn’t tell where the food ended and the carton began. It’s all got this same artificial taste that seeps into your mind until even the cheeseburgers that have replaced Nathan Fillion in your late-night fantasies taste like soy dust and despair.

…TMI?

Anyway, here’s the bottom line: In spite of the ease of use and quick weight loss, I can’t recommend this diet plan. It’s expensive, filled with artificial ingredients and tastes and doesn’t provide enough food for a chipmunk, let alone a healthy adult.

There are worse things than being fat, and Medifast is one of them.