Medifast Diet Review, a Scam or Does it Work?

The Medifast plan is a meal delivery service that offers to takes all the guess work out of shopping, counting calories, even cooking.  For over 20 years, the plan sends meal replacements directly to dieter’s homes.  The meal plan consists of shakes, bars, and soups.  Medifast boasts a menu of over 70 choices.   To follow the plan you will consume 5 prepared meals and 1 “Lean and Green Meal.”  This is known as the Medifast 5 & 1.  The meal consists of 7 ounces of lean protein with a tablespoon of your favorite condiment.  Then you have a choice of a side item, including salad greens, raw or cooked vegetables with the meal.  Followers must eat every 2-3 hours, drink a minimum of 64 ounces of water, and find time for daily exercise. The website helps guide you through the process, although the medifast plan suggests having your doctor supervise your stay on the plan.  The plan can meet many needs, low-glycemic, lactose-free, kosher, and even vegetarian.  More than 15,000 doctors have referred medifast to their patients.  The  medifast basic plan cost 140.50 for 70 meals.  This will last for two weeks.  The Medifast Diet has an online weight loss diet program that acts as a diet center.  Members pay a fee for access to meal trackers, message boards, physician search, bmi calculator, live chat, and various support material downloads.

What we like about this plan It is perfect for the very busy dieter.  The meals are pre prepackaged, somewhat reasonable in cost, with a wide variety of menus.  The diet is doctor recommended.  It has an easy to use website with support and success stories.  It supports exercise.  It is clinically proven to support the 2-5 pounds a week claim.  The plan aims to help the dieters plan a maintenance plan.

What We Dislike about this Plan This plan is very low carb and low in calories.  It is a very strict plan.  Some people find the taste of medifast products bland.  While others find them mildly repulsive in the beginning.  Some people find it hard to follow the medifast plan in the first few days of the program.  There is no eating out with this plan.

How healthy is this plan? Technically, it is healthy.  The meals have sufficient minerals and vitamins to be healthy.  The Lean and Green meal will give you a whole foods meal that provides fiber and non processed eating.  It’s rare to find a medically based weight loss company that’s been around this long. Medifast has helped people lose weight for 28 years.  The Medifast program was developed for medical reasons by Johns Hopkins doctors for patients who had to lose weight fast before undergoing cardiac surgery.  John Hopkins University study suggests that the Medifast plan helps participants quickly and safely lose weight by decreasing the amount of calories consumed.  The study also suggests that participants with Type 2 Diabetes lost twice as much as much weight compared to individuals following the American Diabetes Association’s recommendation.  Additionally, Medifast shows results in participants with other illnesses.

Here is the Bottom Line The Medifast Diet is the best diet for dieters who have trouble controlling their portions and what they eat. With pre-made meals that dieters order online, dieters have their meals with the correct portions and nutrients already planned out for them.  Once dieters get a perception of correct portions and nutrients, and see the results through their weight loss, they can reduce the number of Medifast meals they eat and start cooking healthy foods for themselves. It is important that dieters leaving the Medifast Diet find nutritious diet recipes to help them in their healthy cooking.  Pre-packed engineered food is not the best way to go, but Medifast seems to be the best one in this class of diets.  So, if you are very overweight and struggling with portion control, give this plan a try.  But do not forget to explore the emotional aspects of overeating before you begin to eat a normal, healthy maintenance plan.  It might just make you the next Medifast success story.

© 2008 – 2009 Which Weight Loss

South Beach Diet, A Scam Or Does It Work?

Overview. Dr Agatston, a leading American cardiologist, initially created the SouthBeach diet for his heart patients.  While his diet was to improve his patients heart wellbeing, he discovered that a side effect of the diet was that they lost considerable amounts of weight.  He claims this isn’t a low-carb or low-fat diet – instead it focuses on eating the ‘right’ carbs and the ‘right’ fats.  In fact, the South Beach Diet is based on the Glycemic index.  It begins by severely restricting carbohydrates in the first two weeks, before gradually re-introducing those with a lower on the glycemic index. In addition, it recommends swapping saturated fats for unsaturated fats. The South Beach Diet follows the same principles of other diets based on the Glycemic Index.  SouthBeach is divided into three phases.  In Phase One, most carbohydrates are banned to give your body a complete rest from fluctuating blood sugar and insulin levels.  The theory is this will help to resolve insulin resistance.  During Phase One, the banned foods list includes bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, milk, sweets, cake, biscuits, ice cream, sugar and alcohol.  A few low GI vegetable such as broccoli and cabbage are allowed, but the focus is on eating lean meat, chicken, fish, eggs, low-fat cheese, some nuts and olive oil.  You follow this phase for 14 days. In Phase Two, low GI carbs including most fruits, Granary bread, wholegrain cereals and pasta and low-fat milk are reintroduced. The idea is to stay with this phase until you’ve reached your target weight.  Finally, in Phase Three, you introduce an even wider variety of foods.  This phase is aimed at keeping your weight steady and the diet recommends you stay on this for life.What we like about this plan. The South Beach Diet differs from its low-carb competitors, like Atkins, in that it restricts saturated fats, which are associated with health problems like heart disease and high cholesterol.  The plan reduces the cravings for sugars, sweets and other carbohydrates because the diet is supposed to keep blood sugar levels sustained.  Its importance on fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and heart-healthy fats is an eating plan that is full of vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids.  Dr Agatston has great support from the medical science community.  There is a new updated book released in 2008, “South Beach Diet: Supercharged”.  The book does an excellent job getting a dieter started and includes great recipes.  There is also a complete line of South Beach Diet foods that can be purchased in your grocery store from cereals to frozen meals.What we dislike about this plan. The plan is tough for a vegetarian and a non-fish eater.  The science behind Dr. Agatston’s assertions about certain foods and their ability to raise blood sugar levels or put on weight is inaccurate.  Alcohol is forbidden in the induction phase and limited in the long-term diet.  The book contains no exercise guidelines.  Recipes rely on a lot of NutraSweet and sugar alcohols, which many find difficult to digest.  To become a member of the website you must join for 6.00 a week.How Healthy Is This Plan? It is a overall healthy plan after the first phase. Its encouragement of eating vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats is marvelous.  Its elimination of white sugar and refined carbohydrates is equally creditable, but not so easy to follow.  Many people have been successful losing weigh following the South Beach Diet and have been able to keep it off.  The South Beach Diet has some scientific flaws and many nutritionists would argue that its promise of losing 8-12 pounds in 14 days is a bit aggressive and is certainly water weight and some muscle, especially since exercising is not addressed.Here Is the Bottom Line. The South Beach Diet only requires serious willpower for the first two weeks during Phase One.  Nevertheless, this phase is extremely restrictive. If you can get past the initial phase, then it will get easier.  No major food groups are eliminated, plenty of fruit and vegetables are recommended and generally the diet follows the use of the glycemic index and taking heart health into consideration.  If you can handle the restriction of carbs, this plan will be a plan for you. © 2008 – 2009 Which Weight Loss

Acai Berry Weight Loss

Oprah’s media clout made it possible to almost everyone to know about Brazil’s most kept weight loss secret. This is the so-called amazing super food that is actually a fruit. It’s the mystical fruit known as the acai berry. This berry is like a smaller version of a grape. So it is round, small, black berry that has a large seed at its center covered by a small amount of pulp. There are of course Oprah worshippers that will just believe anything that she recommends or features in her show. Can the acai berry really help in weight loss? Or is it just a fad that will have its own natural death because of its overrated and unfounded claims?Nowadays, buyers are becoming wiser. The broad coverage of the internet has made it easier to verify information and contest weight loss scams. Since Oprah bragged about this wonder fruit, there have been tests conducted already regarding acai berry’s weight loss properties. Based on these results, these are the factors that have proven effectiveness for Acai berry weight loss:Acai berry helps increase the body’s metabolism rate. This is very important since an essential factor in shedding off those unwanted pounds is by burning fat. The human body needs essential fatty acids in order to maintain good health. These are the fatty acids Omega-3 and Omega-6. Our bodies do not produce these fatty acids and it just so happen that the acai berry has lots of these fatty acids. Keep in mind that these fatty acids increase the metabolism.The berry has the ability to control appetite. This is partly because acai berry is rich in fiber. Fiber as we all know sates hunger. It also helps in the proper movement of food in the digestive tract. This actually helps eliminate excess food in the body. Usually excess food are absorbed and converted into fat. Acai berry has been transformed into shakes, diet bars and into other forms of nutritional meal supplement.It has the ability to improve the immune system, fight cancer, eliminated bad cholesterol and improve blood pressure. The method of measuring the antioxidant capacities of various foods is through its oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC). Impressively, acai berry’s potency is 4:1 extract ratio which is the highest quality anywhere. This will immensely reduce the impact of cell oxidization in the quickest way possible.The Acai berry is rich in amino acids which are famous to be the building blocks of protein. Also, it is full of phytosterols which are the building blocks of cell membranes that strengthen the digestive tract. Amino acids are needed by the muscles in order to perform properly. Since the fatty acids in acai berries increase metabolism and the amino acids develop and regenerate the muscles, their combination provides a lot of energy in burning fat..