Defragged

1. Get Organized - If you are like me, you became overweight because your focus was elsewhere and your mindset wasn't organized or balanced enough to include organizing your meal plans. The Medifast Diet is teaching me a great deal about myself, but one thing I've learned is that you cannot be too organized when trying to lose weight. To me this means organizing everything in my life that is directly related to losing weight on the Medifast Diet including my kitchen, kitchen appliances, kitchen tools, my Medifast food, my shopping lists, my pantry food, cookware, exercise routine, recipes, etc. I'm re-organizing my entire life and in a later post I'll explain more about how I'm organizing my life to ensure maximum weight loss with the Medifast Diet.


2. Plan, Plan and Plan Some More - I'm also guilty of not planning my meals ahead of time and not paying attention to how much I eat, how often I eat, when I eat, etc. Even though Medifast makes it super easy to preplan your meals with prepackaged food, there is still some responsibility on my part to plan ahead. I'll write more about this in a future post too. I'll let you know exactly how I'm planning ahead depending on where I intended to be when I eat my meals and who I'll be with.


3. Follow the Medifast Diet Plan Exactly - Read all of the materials that comes with the Medifast Diet. Read it several times. Contrary to most diet books, the quick start guide that comes with the Medifast Diet is only 21 pages. It's simple to follow and wrap your head around. Once you start the Medifast Diet and register for a MyMedifast account to join the fabulous community of Medifasters, you will find a ton of recipes to entice your taste buds. Be wary though. Although most people posting recipes do so with good intent, they may not be thinking of the number of carbs and fat they are adding to a single serving or may not realize that an ingredient they are using in their recipe is not permitted in the weight loss stage of Medifast. If you use an altered recipe (that was not provided by Medifast), always be sure to check the ingredients are permitted and do the math to determine the exact portion size. One wrong meal size or ingredient can throw your body out of the fat burning state which means you will lose weight slower until you get your body back in line with the Medifast plan.


4. Drink More Water than Required - It's really simple. Drink as much water as you can without forcing yourself and go over the required amount on the Medifast Diet. The more water you drink, the more weight you will lose but be sure to listen to your body. If the water is too much, your body will let you know. Water means water. Water does not include water that is in diet sodas, flavored water, tea, coffee, fruit drinks, and mixed with Medifast food packets. I'll show you how I've managed to drink more water than required and the method I use to remind myself that I've not drank enough water as I go about my day.


5. Create Medifast Habits - It has been said that it takes 21 days of continually doing something to make it a habit. So in the first month of following the Medifast Diet, you'll be forming good habits. In a future post I'll share with you some of the Medifast Habits I've developed and explain why they are helping me.


6. Establish a Gradual Exercise Routine - If you are not exercising at the time you start the Medifast Diet, Medifast recommends you wait a few weeks. If you are exercising, Medifast advises that you might need to cut back your workout regimens until your body adjusts to few calories. It is human nature to avoid doing anything we don't like to do even when we know it is good for us. It is also human nature that if we find something fun or convenient, it is more likely we'll do it more often. I've found ways to make my exercise routines fun and something I look forward to. In a future post, I'll share with you my exercise routines and how I've made them convenient to do and keep myself motivated.


7. Avoid Temptations and Negative Feedback - No matter who you are or your lifestyle, you will always encounter situations that will tempt you to go off the Medifast Diet. You will also run into people (some you dearly love) who will discourage you. It can happen even without them knowing it. I'll soon share with you ways in which I avoid temptations, and explain how I deal with negative feedback regardless of how genuinely caring people may be who is feeding it to me. ;)

So come back soon as I expand on my summarized outline of the 7 Keys to Sucess with the Medifast Diet. I've learned quite a bit about myself, meal planning, eating habits, and nutrition since being on the Medifast Diet, and I've only been active for about 4 weeks. That in itself tells me there is much more to learn, and I'm looking forward to sharing what I've learned with you.

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