The other day, I received an email from someone who asked me, in part: “I’ve always had a slow metabolism — so much so that diets just don’t ever seem to work for me the way that they are supposed to. I’m wondering if Medifast is designed to work for someone like me with a slow or nonexistent metabolism ” I’ll answer this question in the following article.

My Slow Metabolism Experience: In truth, I could identify big time with what this person was asking because my thought process was the same before I started this diet. If I so much as cheated a little bit on a diet, there would be immediate consequences and it seemed that I had to try twice as hard to lose half as much. My friends and I would start a diet at the same time and some of them would have success while I would maybe lose a pound or two even though I followed the directions to the letter. I thought I was doing everything right. I didn’t skip breakfast, I took in a low amount of calories, and I tried to stay away from fattening foods. Some well meaning and loving folks told me that it was in my best interest to accept that my genetic destiny was to have a slow metabolism, but I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel just yet.

Something That Helped Somewhat: Eventually, I did have success on low carb diets. And, from my research I came to understand why this was true. Low carbohydrate / high protein products put your body into a heightened state of fat burning called ketosis which in turn revs your metabolism. It was through this mechanism that I was able to overcome the snails’ pace and out and out failures that I had seen before and to finally start losing some weight. But, there’s always a catch, right And that catch was I just could not take depriving myself of sweets for the long term. I became irritable and moody. Eventually, the enthusiasm for the diet left me because I felt deprived and I got tired of it.

Why Medifast Revs Your Metabolism In A Way That Most People Can Tolerate: I often tell people that I think that Medifast is the best of both worlds. Make no mistake, it is a low carb diet too. I can not deny that, but the manufacturer does a pretty good job in hiding this from you. Because you do get the eat chocolate shakes and oatmeal and pudding. You do get chips and fruit drinks for snacks. Sure, these foods have been tweaked so that they are high in protein, but this really doesn’t matter to me because I’m still getting to eat my sweets while staying in ketosis and losing weight. Another reason that I believe that this diet works is that you have to eat no less than six times per day.

You eat five of the small diet, prepackaged meals and you prepare one “lean and green meal” for yourself. So, you are learning good habits but you get the convenience of having the work done for you until you reach your target weight (It’s the best of both worlds again.) And, eating so often is very good for your metabolism and it retrains it to burn fat steadily throughout the day.

See, I realize now that the conventional way that I was eating (and this isn’t my fault as most of us are brought up to eat this way) just wasn’t working for me. I was eating three large meals per day that my body had a hard time processing, burning off, and digesting. These were too high in carbs so rather than burning off the calories and the fat, my body simply burned the excess carbs so that I was on a never ending cycle of frustration.

Now, my routine, and my diet, is much more in line with my goals. My body has an easier time burning off six smaller meals and my “slow metabolism” is no longer a problem. I am losing weight steadily and this keeps adding onto itself so that the overall effect is dramatic.

Do you realize that in order to keep weight off permanently you have to follow your diet forever? This is a big key that many people forget about. They think that if they just follow their new diet for a few weeks the weight will stay off. This is the point where you have to evaluate your diet and ask yourself, “Can I follow this diet forever?”. If the answer is no, guess what, that weight you just lost is going to come right back!

This is why it is so crucial that you find a diet you can actually stick to in the long term. You need to find a diet that doesn’t make you feel like a prisoner. Everyone goes to eat out once in a while and there is nothing wrong with that. You get to spend time with family or friends and enjoy a delicious meal, it’s part of life. Do you really want to throw all of that way because your diet is so strict? When you start to go to extremes with your diet you create a negative relationship with food. You get to a point where you restrict yourself so much your stomach is grumbling on a daily basis. Even though your diet guide tells you to eat cabbage soup for lunch, what you are really craving is some fettuccine Alfredo with chicken! Your mind is telling you “don’t touch the pasta!” while your body is saying “chow down on the pasta who cares!”. Eventually you will lose control and start binge eating everything. The cycle continues over and over.

Here are some things to look for in a diet:

-Doesn’t require counting calories

-Doesn’t restrict carbohydrates (contrary to popular belief carbs actually give you energy!)

-Allows you to eat out

-Doesn’t restrict entire food groups

If you don’t have the time to do the research on a good long term diet, let me recommend the “Every Other Day Diet”, just like the name implies, it make you eat healthy foods 50% of the time while the other 50% is spent eating anything you want, that includes the Alfredo! Click here for more information.

How can you tell a genuine Diet product from a hyped-up one that is big on promises but lacking in substance? Will the Diet system you are considering give you the means to lose the weight that you are so determined to get rid of?

I am going to give you 3 points that will enable you to spot a genuine Diet system from an impractical hyped-up one.

1. Excess weight is an emotive subject and we all want to get rid of it as fast as possible - but realism should also come into the equation! Rapid weight-loss can be achieved using certain diets - no doubt about that, but surely, what should be more to the point is this: will a rapid loss of weight remain ‘off’ - or will it return to haunt you within weeks or even days of losing it as it goes back ‘on!?’

Weight loss should always be approached as a permanent goal and not a temporary one. OK, there may be exceptional circumstances - for example, 2 weeks before you get married! - or even for serious health reasons, but apart from ‘crisis’ situations such as these, permanent weight-loss must be regarded as the long-term remedy to your problem.

A good Diet system should have everything in place for you to succeed with long-term and permanent weight loss. There should be no hype, and nothing should be promised that cannot be fulfilled.

2. We all love our food, and of course this is half the problem in the first place! But bearing that in mind, does the Diet system you are considering provide for a ‘balanced’ approach to dieting? You could choose to live on porridge and vegetables indefinitely, and of course you would lose weight rapidly on that diet - but who wants to go down that route?

Better to have a diet that does not make you feel as if you are on a diet. A diet that lets you have a certain amount of ‘what you like’ to make life worth living! - but at the same time allow you to make the necessary adjustments that must take place in order to achieve the object of the exercise - the permanent reduction of excess weight.

A good Diet system should fulfill its purpose by setting an eating programme that is enjoyable, sustainable and varied for the dieter, and yet achieves the required weight-loss at the same time.

3. The Diet system you are looking at should offer a full money-back guarantee if you are dissatisfied, as well as a manned help-desk to answer any queries you may have about the system. Does what you are considering offer a 30 day or a 60 day refund period? A longer 60 day refund would indicate a strong belief in the product by the manufacturer.

I hope this information has been of benefit to you.