WHY do liquid diets work? Medifast - Optifast - HMR!

I am a person who has a tough time losing weight. Most people do anyway but I am resistant to it. Exercise has to be excessive, food intake has to be perfect and low calorie or I maintain. Yet medifast, a liquid diet, makes me lose weight everytime I can stick to it.

I have eaten as little as 600 calories a day and never lost an ounce, yet that is about what a consume with medifast and off comes the weight. Why do I go into "starvation mode" on any other low calorie food diet but not on medifast?
Does anyone understand why this works??

It is a sad fact of the world for everyone, but especially us ladies, that we are willing to torture our bodies to be thin. Here I am, suffering on medifast, a diet that gives me heart palpitations and headaches, makes me weak and feel gross but willing to do it because it WORKS. Because other diets cant seem to get the last of the weight off me and the liquid diet always does.

I am so confused about dieting, I thought I was an expert. I have no idea what to eat to make me thin and healthy and stay that way. The only time I have maintained my weight and not gained was on an 800 calorie a day ALL PROTEIN low fat and I mean ZERO carb diet. How the hell do I stay on that for life???? I am really frustrated with my body. I dont even lose weight on that, only maintain.
If I eat ONE thing off the plan I gain up to 5 pounds. In 2 weeks I put on 17 pounds just from eating "normally" and not starving. I hate my body.

Well I am venting. Thanks for being here. Would love to hear any thoughts from people out there who did liquid diets, and from other women with bodies like mine...are you out there or am I alone?

I'm drinking one now, for breakfast, more than two years completing weight-loss. I'm at a healthy weight, and have been for over two years, so why would I still be drinking shakes, when I could legitimately be having a bowl of oatmeal, cereal, toast or even eggs? Because they're GOOD!
What I'm having for breakfast this morning is the single best breakfast I could imagine (for 200 calories). Better than any of the traditional choices. It sure helps that it is also incredibly nutritious and helps me maintain my weight-loss.

What's the difference? Have I been reprogrammed? <grin>
No! I just know which shakes to buy, and how to make them into my breakfast -- make them better than any alternative.

There are horrible shakes out there.

There are also rotten eggs!

(Hint: Don't eat rotten eggs!) <grin>

Research from the National Weight Control Registry shows that this is typical for folks successfully maintaining significant weight-loss.

Bicker, what shakes do you use? Did you lose weight on a liquid diet? Which one? Can you please email me so I can ask you a few questions? I would appreciate it so much! Thanks
V.

Your thing about building up muscle is a good point. That requires exercise. You have to exercise to be healthy. I'm glad you kept after it and found some way to do that even when you couldn't walk.

Em, if I could have 5 minutes with God and ask Him to grant one wish - it would be that I could go on living and never have to eat.

I hate food, I hate eating, and if I didnt feel hungry and lousy on the shakes,
I would feel relieved that I never had to eat solid food. If I could live on shakes and feel great, I would do so for life.

I actually like the taste of them though

That seems to jive with reports that dieters using meal replacements have more success. At least the meal replacements won't have the side effects of diet pills - so you can continue using the shakes indefinitly.

(KittenLove99) escribió:

We're currently using up the last of the old Myoplex Lite
Cappuccino Ice flavor. (They discontinued it, and replaced it with a Cappuccino flavor that isn't half as good, IOHO.)
We'll probably switch to HMR 800 Chocolate for a while when this stuff runs out (we just replenished, selling out
Vitamin Shoppe, so we're set for a few months).

Health Management Resources. 100 pounds for myself; 60 pounds for my wife. Maintained for two years so far.

Sure! However, you may find that some of your initial questions are already answered on my web page:
brianandrobbie.com/hmr

I'm afraid I don't have much to offer in the way of a reply. But I do have a question. How on earth can you stand drinking those liquid diet things?
To me they taste so awful, I think I would rather drink a glass of used motor oil.

That's not clear, and so no violation of physics is assuredly indicated. The body is a remarkable thing, and it does often manage to slow itself down quite a bit. All of the major VLCDs are specifically designed to provide enough protein, and to include enough exercise, to preclude this (though there is nothing forcing VLCD patients to ensure a good amount of exercise is weight-bearing). However, any low-calorie diet, improperly practiced, metabolism can be adversely affected.

Yes, this is likely to account for some, but not necessarily all, of the disparity, in most cases. VLCDs, especially the
600 calorie ones, though are easier to ensure accuracy.
Count the empty packets. It is a lot harder to deceive yourself into believing that you're not cheating when what you're doing is eating something other than the one packet of powder you're supposed to be eating.

Yes, yes, yes. Precisely.

From what I've experienced and read, I believe it is actually more a matter of how formal the transition to maintenance is.

VLCDs work best for the morbidy obese precisely because they are relatively easy to maintain for the period of weight-loss. However, they're subject to the same pressures of regain from reverting back to previous (bad) eating and lifestyle behaviors as other diet regimens. VLCDs have typically taken their advantage, in that they're generally taken more seriously by their patients (due to the higher risks from the regimen itself), to apply significant behavioral re-training into the weight-loss support.
Behavioral re-training is the key to effectiveness with respect to maintenance, regardless of the approach taken.

I never pay attention to calories burned exercising, but I think I get a pretty good amount of exercise. Currently I'm walking 2 to 4.5 miles most weekdays, running maybe 6-7 miles total per week, and weightlifting around 4 hours per week, plus other odds and ends.

I did a liquid diet and was quite successful in losing the weight like you.
Keeping it off has been a serious challenge to say the least. Each person is different and has different levels of success. The people I know personally who have kept their weight off have done so for two reasons:
either they built up a lot of muscle or they continue to eat extremely low calorie.

I'm not sure on the research, bicker would know better than me, but I personally think that how long you did the liquid before transitioning to a low calorie plan with regular food has a lot to do with your long term effects. I stayed on the liquid until my goal weight and then lost more during the transition, so much so that they rushed me through the transition. If I had it to do over, I would have transitioned sooner and slower. I think that I ended up losing too much lean mass which has made it difficult to maintain my weight, but I'm doing weight training and it's helping.

Your hormones also play a big part. I ended up losing too much estrogen too quickly and my periods completely stopped during my liquid diet. My body still hasn't recovered and now I'm in perimenopause at 37 which has wreaked havoc with my entire system. I also had an existing adrenal problem that didn't become apparent until after the weight loss. I get this fun thing where every so often my body swells up like a water filled balloon and I can be as much as 15 lbs heavier in one day and can barely walk because my feet get really bad.

Each of these problems are affecting my ability to maintain or even lose weight, but I'm seeing positive results from doing the weight training, eating 5-6 small meals a day, and taking hormones.

Don't give up, but don't expect quick results either. You aren't alone.

maintained my weight and not gained was on an 800 calorie a day ALL
PROTEIN low fat and I mean ZERO carb diet. How the hell do I stay on that for life???? I am really frustrated with my body. I dont even lose weight on that, only maintain.
If I eat ONE thing off the plan I gain up to 5 pounds. In 2 weeks I put on 17 pounds just from eating "normally" and not starving.<<

I'm sorry that you're having such a tough time. I have a few questions.

How old are you? How tall?

What weight are you trying to maintain? How many calories is "eating normally"?

What happened after you put on 17 pounds in two weeks? Did your weight stabilize or continue to go up?

What is the highest weight you've been? How long were you at that weight?

What does your doctor say (you are going on these fasts under strict medical supervision, right?) about your apparently extremely slow metabolism?

As always, YMMV.

This is me, too. In order to stay where I am now, I need to exercise more than most people and eat less as well. But it really isn't all that big a sacrifice to make. A slower metabolism also means I don't get hungry on what I'm eating, whereas others might. My problem isn't hunger but just wanting to indulge -- and I do make room for that occasionally. (I know this doesn't seem to work for you, Mary -- at least not with sugar -- but I don't seem to have that particular sensitivity.) The exercise is fun, but there are times I'd rather just relax. This week I'm in long meetings each day, and I'm the only one there who's working out in the gym beforehand or taking a walk during the lunch break. I'm also the only one not eating the cookies and pastries and chips and stuff that are provided. But I'm about the thinnest person in the room, too . (There are 12 people in the group, and I think one of the men is also a normal weight. The other folks are of varying degrees of tubbiness -- none huge but typical of middle-aged white collar workers.

I'm sorry if you said this and I forgot but you don't say anything here about exercise. Do what JMA did; don't let anything stand in the way of exercising.

Both Medifast and Wonder Slim have package plans that make this type of diet easy. These plans packaged consist of the food products necessary and the instructions on how to use the bariatric diet products. Both of these plans contain large amounts of proteins and supplements that give you the other nutrients that are necessary for a balanced diet. Both Medifast and Wonder Slim are suitable for gastric bypass patients.

The best benefit of these high protein packaged diets is they are very convenient. They are highly portable and you do not have to make food choices. That is all there at your finger tips with both the Medifast diet plan and the Wonder Slim Bariatric diet.

Follow the Link :http://www.theweightlossmiracle.com/