My advice is this..... no "diet" in the world is going to work if you learn nothing from it. Will you lose lots of weight quickly on Medifast? YES you will if you follow the program. Will you keep it off? statistics say you won't. 85% of dieters gain the weight back. Why is this? because people, myself included don't change how they view food. It really depends on what you want out of this. One thing you have on your side is youth. your metabolism is at its highest right now. Choosing health at your age will be of GREAT benefit to your future. At 19 all i cared about was beer and girls with some college sprinkled in. I was overweight but figured I would lose it 'later' I was wrong! This is my 3rd time doing MF and the big change for me has been the book "Dr. A's Habits of Health" I bought it on the MF website. It got my mind in the right place to actually change instead of thinking 'just hurry up and lose it so i can go back to my bucket of chicken and 12 pack. Enough preaching.. here are my MF tips.

READ THE QUICK START GUIDE!!!!
you would be surprised how many people think... 5 of this and 1 of this.. ready, set, go!

1. get a scale! weigh everything in your L&G. people who eyeball are cheating themselves since most who do UNDERestimate the amounts of protein and veg.

2. if your not exercising now don't start . you should wait a minimum of 3 weeks before you do. If you are currently exercising than cut it back to light workouts. your body will go through a pretty big change with the drop in calories and if you exercise too much not only will you feel like crap but you will stop losing weight or see very small losses.

3. don't 'game' the program. Follow it as written for at least 2 weeks before you start tinkering with it. You need to learn the basics of how it works first.

4. WATER!! drink a MINIMUM of 64oz of PLAIN water per day. flavored water/sodas/coffee etc. do not count towards your plain water requirement. I hear people complain about how hard it is to drink plain water. Frankly... give me a break! If the one little change of drinking more water is too much work than maybe being healthy isn't for those people. I have found that the extra water helps with the hunger in the beginning.

5. the food sucks! Seriously... in the beginning it was hard to find something I liked. I even hated some things. Your taste buds will change though. Now I actually like most things. If you encounter something you hate than put it aside for a week and come back to it. That worked for me most of the time.

6. Medigas! Some folks experience this more than others. My advice is not to eat too many bars in the beginning. the sugar alcohols in them are notorious for causing this. I can only handle 1 per day.

Thats enough for now. I truly hope you make your health a priority. I have a list of life's regrets and not choosing health at an early age is 1b on the list.

GOOD LUCK!!

I made my first order!!

Good! :-)

I see you work in a daycare? My only question would be, how flexible is your schedule, meaning - will you be easily able to eat every 2-3 hours, including the slight prep that most of the MF foods take (unless it's a bar or puffs or something)? Most items need at least mixing, and some need soaking/microwaving.

I've never worked daycare, but just knowing how my kids' daycare works, and how my own day went when I was watching small children - you don't always have the "time" to eat when you need to. And, you'll need to be drinking water very regularly.....which means visiting the bathroom regularly too....also something that daycare workers can find challenging at times!

If your employer can be supportive, and your family too, that would help you quite a bit.