I write a lot about my experiences with Medifast. Someone recently visited my blog and asked if it was possible to replicate Medifast yourself or find some kind of “do it yourself” alternative. I answer this question in the following article.
What you would need to come up with if you want a do-it-yourself Medifast plan: To repeat this diet, you would eat six times a day. Eat five small meals that are low in calories and high in protein. Almost every “meal” in this plan contains around 90-110 calories and is packed full of decent nutrition.
I will use the very popular shakes as an example. They contain 90 calories and 10 grams of fat. In addition, they have 11 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber. They are very low in sugar at just 8 grams. And they are also quite rich in vitamins and minerals. They contain 20% (or more) of your daily requirement of vitamins A, C, D, B6 and B12 to name a few. And they contain 30% of the iron you need every day, which is important for women.
Considering that you’re eating 4 other similar meals a day, you’re providing your body with more than what it needs nutritionally, but you’re also getting a low amount of calories and a high amount of protein. This works to put your body into a state called ketosis, where not only are you less hungry, but you also start burning your own fat.
So obviously you want to achieve that goal with whatever alternative foods you can think of. And you need to find five of these alternatives a day.
Once a day, with this diet, you prepare a “lean and green meal” yourself. This meal should contain lean protein and up to three servings of vegetables. This isn’t too difficult and can be done at the grocery store or even a restaurant, so copying it isn’t a big deal.
Why a Medifast alternative probably wouldn’t be cost effective: Many people ask for a DIY alternative because they are trying to save money. But let’s think about it. To find foods that are so low in calories and sugar and so high in protein and nutrients, you probably have to go to a health food store. And you need to buy enough to eat those small meals five times a day. You’ll probably want a bit of variety, too.
A regular monthly package from the company costs $299, but there are always coupon codes and special offers that can make this even cheaper. Unless you have a very good relationship with your local health food store and can buy the groceries at cost, it’s going to be really hard to top that when you have about 145 of these applicable groceries to buy.
In short, I suppose that with a lot of research and hard work you could find some comparable groceries in specialty stores, but they would probably be a lot more expensive than what you would pay to get the original.
Thanks to Lindsey Price
