Sometimes I get emails from people looking for alternatives to Medifast or wondering what’s so special about the company’s products. I understand that because I used to wonder about these things too. What I didn’t understand at the time was that the cost of the foods on this plan is actually usually cheaper than groceries, and that the nutritional, carbohydrate, and protein content of the Medifast foods are often a lot better than the alternatives. I will use the very popular oatmeal as an example in the following article.
The real differences between Medifast oatmeal and regular oatmeal: I make no secret of the fact that I love the plan’s oatmeal. All flavors are good (blueberry, peach, apple cinnamon, and brown sugar and cinnamon) but I really love the peach. And I often use the brown sugar as a dry ingredient for very low-fat, low-calorie, but delicious oatmeal cookies. One of my colleagues asked me how this diet product differs from, say, Quaker oatmeal. Well, let’s look at the numbers.
The oatmeal in this diet (peach flavored) has 110 calories (15 of those calories come from fat). They contain 1.5 grams of fat, only 16 grams of carbohydrates and 2 grams of sugar. It has a very high 11 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber. In addition, it contains at least 25-30% of the needs of vitamins and nutrients such as iron, folic acid and vitamins A, C, D, E and K as well as biotin, niacin and riboflavin.
Now let’s look at the equivalent of Quaker (also peach flavored). It has 130 calories and 20 calories from fat (2.0g total). That’s not too bad, but things get worse when you look at the carb and sugar content. The regular oatmeal has a whopping 27 grams of carbohydrates and 12 grams of sugar. It only has 3 grams of protein 2 fiber and that is the main difference. (Flavour-wise, believe it or not, there’s not much of a difference between the two, at least in my opinion.)
The importance of the combination of low carb / low sugar / high protein: The reason the Medifast diet works so well is because of ketosis. This means that the low amount of carbohydrates and sugar and the high amount of protein convinces your body to turn on its fat and burn it effectively. The oatmeal in this diet is an example of how many snack foods change diets to ensure that you are not only consuming a small amount of calories, but also restricting your carbs and sugar.
Sure, regular oatmeal is pretty low in calories and fat. But that’s not the whole story. It’s very high in carbs and sugars and doesn’t have nearly enough protein to counteract that. There is no way this product would allow you to get into ketosis, which is really the key.
And you can make similar comparisons with many different types of food. Pick your typical protein bar or pudding and you’ll find tons of sugar and very little protein. This is not the case with the Medifast equivalents.
Thanks to Lindsey Price