I often write about my experiences on this diet over the past year, so I'm sometimes asked questions on the specifics of how it works. Yesterday, someone asked "how many calories are you allowed to eat per day on the Medifast diet?" I'll answer this question in the following article.
™
First, An Overview Of Medifast And How It Works: Before I go into the caloric content, I need to explain how the plan works. You'll be eating six times per day. Five of those meals are pretty much set because you'll be choosing and eating five meals that the company provides you with. These are basically pre made. You just have to assemble them. There are a lot of choices available, including the popular shakes and bars, eggs, oatmeal, soups and stews, chili, pudding, cappuccino, hot chocolate, latte, fruit drinks, chips, etc. In all, there's over 70 choices available.
But, once per day you will make your own larger, healthful meal called "the lean and green." The guidelines for this have you eating 5 - 7 ounces of lean meat or protein and 3 servings of vegetables. Obviously, the foods that you chose are going to impact your daily calories. The guidelines ensure that the "lean and green" is healthful, but there's going to be some differences in the caloric content depending upon the foods that you chose.
The Daily Amount Of Calories In The Medifast Diet: For the most part, a typical day on Medifast contains about 1,000 calories. Let's take a quick look at the caloric content of a typical day of meals. Below is chart to show you what I mean.
Meal 1 Oatmeal 100
Meal 2 Cappuccino 100
Meal 3 Chili 110
Meal 4 Chocolate Shake 90
Meal 5 Protein Bar 110
Grand Total 510 (About 500 calories left over for your lean and green meal)
As you can see, most of the foods are very similar in terms of how much they count toward your daily total. Because the protein bars are a little higher in carbs, they ask they you only consume at most two of those per day.
Protein Counts Too With This Diet: As you can see, the amount of calories is pretty low. But, another important part of this diet is that it's also very low in carbs and it's high in protein. This combination helps to put your body in ketosis since it doesn't have the excess carbohydrates available to burn. So, instead of carbs, your body will begin to burn it's own fat. I believe that this is why people often see pretty quick and dramatic results on this diet.
Go easy on desserts, even these low carb ones. If you are to control your weight you must also watch the quantity of the foods that you put in your body. If you eat more than you need the excess will be turned into fat.
Chocolate Torte
This king of desserts can be made a day ahead
Meringue Stacks
6 egg whites
½ tsp. cream of tartar
1/tsp. almond extract
1-½ cups Splenda
¼ cup slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Beat egg whites, cream of tartar and almond extract in a large mixing bowl until soft peaks form. Gradually add Splenda. Continue beating until stiff. Spray cookie sheets with Pam. Spread meringue in 3, 6-inch circles. Bake in preheated oven 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets immediately. Cool. Place one layer on serving plate. Spread with 1/3 of filling. Continue until layers and filling are used. Sprinkle almonds over top. Refrigerate overnight.
Chocolate Cream Filling
½ cup Splenda
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
½ tsp. vanilla
1-½ cups heavy cream
¼ cup cream de cacao
Combine Splenda, cocoa, vanilla and cream in a small mixing bowl. Beat until thick. Add cream de cacao. Beat until stiff. Spread in meringue layers.
10 servings
2.7 gms. carbs./serving
Flax Seed Pie Crust
Preheat oven to 350 degree F.
Spray 8 inch pie pan with vegetable spray (Pam)
1 cup flax seed
1 egg white
1/4 cup canola oil
Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Turn into oiled pie pan. Press evenly over the bottom and sides of the pan, Bake 8 minutes. Cool before filling. Fill with sugar-free pudding mix prepared with skim milk---or, fill with any thing that you would put in a graham cracker crust.
Servings 8-10
0 net g carb/serving
Note: Flax seeds have 1 gram carbohydrate for each tablespoon serving. However, that carb gram is in the form of fiber which can be subtracted for the total carbs, leaving 0 net carbs.
Meringue Pie Crust
4 egg whites
½ tsp. cream of tartar
Dash of salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup Splenda
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F. Spray a 12 inch pie tin with Pam. Beat egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar, salt and vanilla. Beat until dissolved. Line pie tin with meringue. Keep it thick on the bottom and thin on the sides. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. Turn off heat. Allow to dry in oven another 15 minutes. While meringue in baking, prepare filling.
8-12 servings
trace carb/serving
Lemon Pie Filling
4 egg yolks
½ cup Splenda
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbs. lemon juice
2 cups heavy cream whipped
Beat egg yolks with Splenda, salt and lemon juice. Cook over low heat until mixture is thick. Stir constantly. Remove from heat. Add almond extract. Chill. Fold half of whipped cream into cooled filling. Pour into meringue shell. Top with remaining cream. Refrigerate overnight before serving.
8-12 servings
trace carb/serving
Peanut Butter Cookies
½ cup natural peanut butter
¾ cup heavy cream
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp. vanilla
½ cup Splenda
2 tbs. soy flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Spray a cookie sheet with Pam. Mix all ingredients in bowl. Blend well. Drop on cookie sheet by teaspoonfuls. Bake for about 10 minutes at 375 degrees F.
40 cookies
1.2 gms. carbs
Quick and Easy Chocolate Pie
Try using other flavors of sugar-free instant puddings.
(If keto net carbs or total carbs you are watching cholesterol or calories use skim milk. However skim milk will add carbs to the recipe.)
6 oz box of Jello sugar-free instant chocolate pudding
2 cups heavy cream or half-and-half
Prepare chocolate pudding according to directions, using heavy cream instead of milk. Pour into a Meringue Pie Crust. Let it set up in the refrigerator, then top with RediWhip sugar free topping.
8-12 servings
trace carb/serving
Strawberries and Sour Cream
One of the quickest and easiet desserts I know. And delicious.
1 quart fresh strawberries
½ Splenda
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Wash berries and slice. Mix sour cream, Splenda, and vanilla. Fold into berries and serve.
6 servings
8.6 gms/serving