MEDIFAST
Medifast is another doctor-originated diet founded by Dr. William Vitale in 1980. The diet calls for five Medifast meal replacements each day plus one normal meal. Dieters truly give up typical meals and use the meal replacements to supplement their eating routine.
Foods Emphasized: Medifast shakes, chili, oatmeal, drinks, soups, pudding, green vegetables and lean meat
Foods Discouraged: All other foods, alcohol
Premise and Guidelines: The Medifast diet is structured as a 5 & 1 diet plan. In the initial phase of the plan, the diet is extremely restrictive, only allowing five meal replacement shakes or special 'Medifast' foods per day, along with one regular meal. The regular meal must include lean protein and green vegetables.
After this initial phase is completed, and a desired weight is accomplished, the dieter must begin a maintenance plan that has to be followed for life. This plan allows higher caloric content, but the dieter must still consume at least 1-3 Medifast meal replacements a day.
The main criticism of this plan is that the meal replacements are not organic or unprocessed foods, which leads the diet to be unbalanced nutritionally. It is also very difficult to stay on since there is very little ‘food’ involved. Other diets involve food restriction, but since there isn’t much real food allowed, other than the meal replacements, eating out at a restaurant or elsewhere could destroy the diet. The diet appears to be unrealistic and also expensive, since the dieter must rely on purchasing the meal aides from Medifast. The proponents of this diet claim that by eating every two to three hours, hunger is staved off. This could only be maintained by having unlimited access to the Medifast meal replacements, and until they serve this at the local café, the Medifast diet could be a difficult one to maintain.