Day One

One of the things that was immediately apparent about this diet is that you really. Do. Have. To. Eat. Every. Two. Hours. Failing to do so produces a state of hypnotic lightheadedness that, for me, made me completely unproductive. Like, I was dropping stuff on the floor all the time. And I found myself unable to touch-type. Basically, a wreck. 

But as someone used to eating just three (or even two) meals a day, the process of preparing a meal/snack that frequently was itself a bit of a challenge. Even though I work from home, my day is peppered with meetings and deadlines that were conflicting with this biorhythm. More than once, I found myself on the phone as I ripped another package open and dumped it in cold water, then stirred it with a chopstick. (This proved much more efficient than the "shaker" they include with the meal plan. Though no amount of shaking or stirring—James Bond aside—entirely eliminated the powdery residue for some of the meals.

Or should I say, "meals." While some fare fared better than others, nothing I ate felt like a real repast—which might have been part of the point. This is about behavior modification, not just calorie reduction. Every successful diet forces you to consider what you're eating, and hopefully, apply discipline to your intake in a way that extends beyond your weight-loss period into maintenance. Not that it works most of the time...ah, Oprah, we love you anyway.

I'm going to rate Medifast meals on three criteria—taste, fillingness (there's gotta be a better word than that) and presentation, using a 1-10 score. Today's menu:

Breakfast: Peanut Butter Crunch Bar

Taste: 8 (surprisingly, this was one of the better "snack bars" I've had—crispy, light, with a balanced peanut butter and chocolate taste. Seriously, these are better than most of the ones you might buy at your local nutritional supplement store.)

Fillingness: 4.5 (you will wonder where it went, and whether there are any more, and a ghostly voice will whisper, nooooo...)

Presentation: 7 (no better or no worse than most of these things, which tend to look like squared off deer turds anyway)

I will admit I had a cup of coffee with this. You can yank my coffee from my cold, dead hands.

Midmorning Snack: Peach Oatmeal

Taste: 4 (the peachiness is faint, more on the order of sniffing a bar of Body Shop soap than a real flavor. What dominates is the overwhelming library paste texture and bland, gummy flavor of the "oatmeal" itself. This is a mucilage, not a meal.)

Fillingness: 6 (well, you're not hungry after eating it, though it's up in the air whether that's due to its unappetizing nature or its heartiness)

Presentation: 3 (really quite yuck. And if you let it set too long, it stiffens into an even more disgusting material that looks only partly organic.)

Lunch: Chili

Taste: 3.5 (as bad as the Peach Oatmeal, if the two are even comparable. I have to admit that I wonder if I did something wrong here, as the beans seemed undercooked and crunchy while the meatesque slurry surrounding them was rather too liquid to seem like chili. It's hard to imagine that this has meat in it; probably soy particles imbued with essence of flesh. Oh, and it's not at all spicy, so lots of Tabasco is recommended—hell, required.)

Fillingness: 6 (yeah, at least it fills the hole.) 

Presentation: 3 (vile)

Midafternoon Snack: Banana Creme Shake

Taste: 6 (really not bad. The banana flavor isn't authentic to the fruit, but definitely tastes like every other artificially flavored banana product I've ever eaten, and I don't mean that as a criticism. And the shake is reasonably thick, though there's no easy way of eliminating the particulate globules that float around within it (again, no manner of shaking or stirring does that). 

Fillingness: 4.5 (tides you over.)

Presentation: 6 (looks like any other powdered drink you might mix from a packet. Low expectations, easily met.)

Late Afternoon Snack: Cappucino

Taste: 6 (again, not bad—don't expect a foamed espresso wonder here, but if you don't hate "reddi mix" coffees, this is not noticeably worse than the average ones of those. Too bad about the particulate globules.)

Fillingness: 4 (fine for a late-afternoon pick-me-up)

Presentation: 5 (looks rather more like hot cocoa than cappucino, but what are you gonna do)

Dinner: REAL FOOD! 

So, the way this plan works is called 5+1—five packetized meals and one actual meal of food that doesn't require reconstitution. My wife and I headed to the city to try to find a "real meal" that met the strict guidelines (5-7 ounces of lean protein and a few cups of green vegetables). We ended up at Monster Sushi, where we had only appetizers—sashimi, yakitori, a green salad, a seaweed salad, and an oshitashi (cold boiled spinach). I'm sure that the seasonings, such as the dressings and sauces, were forbidden items, but this was Day One for us and we frankly needed a mini-break from the relentlessness of powdered meals.

One thing to note: Because there's so much dietary fiber in these meals, you will find yourself pooping somewhat more than usual. Of course, after a day of eating this stuff, you almost expect to be ejecting a fine spray of powder from the back-end, which reconstitutes into poo in the toilet.