The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[explorthis]

My first visit to the Doctor…….

Ok. Obviously some Doctors are not in the weight loss arena.
I FINALLY get into my Dr’s office today (74 days after I began the program on 9/8 )
My normal Dr. (Dr. O. I have been seeing him for 12 years – Kaiser) is on some seminar teaching thing, so I get the reputable Dr. J. (Never met her – though she was very nice but firm).

Go for the weigh in, what a bummer, my scale is off. Instead of 62# gone, now I am at
S-E-V-E-N-T-Y pounds gone… Hate it when that happens… Did I say bummer?

The nurse that checks you in brings me in the room… I instantly adjust the scale to what I think it should be (as she is watching) I adjust it before I actually stand on it, secretly hoping it might be a little less… I adjust it to 272… (hoping) I get on… slide-slide-slide… 267!!! (337-267=70) Say it with me S-E-V-E-N-T-Y!!!

Anyway, she is now extremely interested in WHAT I have done… Medifast!! She instantly changes the subject to herself and her sister who are both overweight, and both who have had gastric bypass surgery (I was yawning at this point – this was MY visit, I did not come in for a Nurses family regaling) and who had both gained back a substantial amount of weight. She gave me the proverbial thumbs up, and said she was proud of me. Asked me where I got it (Nancy – you owe me for this) I did not tell her where I actually got it from, but told her makemethinner.com. Explained about our forum and all the wonderful things on there (Nancy I expect a kick back here – I was PIMPING your site like no ones business) She could not write out the site address fast enough…

So the Dr. finally comes in. I had to re-hash all over again what Medifast was. I even printed out a content/ingredient list of the Medifast 70 (also again from Nancy’s site) for her… She read it.

She did some poking prodding, felt my stomach, blood pressure ended up at 110/60 – PERFECT she said. (I did not have to bend over, or turn and cough if you were wondering)

YOUR LOOSING TOO FAST – YOUR NOT TAKING ENOUGH CALORIES – 500 IS NOT ENOUGH – I WANT YOU ON 1000 OR MORE – YOUR BODY IS NOT MADE FOR THIS TYPE OF WEIGHT LOSS!!!

Hold the phone…!!!

Here is my conversation best I can remember: (took place about noon today)

Me: Why is it not healthy?
Dr.: Just isn’t – your loosing too fast.
Me: Is this your opinion as a Dr., or as a person?
Dr.: What’s the difference, I am a Dr. in and out of the office.
Me: But I am loosing rapidly, feel 110% and am healthier than I have ever been, I have more energy than ever, things are great, I cannot sleep due to the energy level. This is wonderful.
Dr.: Your loosing too fast.
Me: Why?
Dr.: Don’t know, lets run a blood test.
(I go to the lab - ½ hour later back in the room)
Dr.: OK, lets see the results… Hmmm.. white/red count perfect, potassium perfect… perfect, perfect, perfect she says.
Me: (secretly laughing inside) Why is this not good for me?
Dr.: Your loosing too fast for your body, the body is not made this way.
Me: Why?
Dr.: I don’t know, it can not be good for you to loose this fast.
Me: Wait, my test results are 100%!!
(my full panel analysis was not doable at this time – but they did the basics)
Dr.: Ok let’s check your blood pressure.
Me: You already did.
Dr.: Yes, but you have moved around, lay down (takes pressure) 110/60 – Good! Great!
Dr.: Stand up! (takes it again) 115/60 See its higher!
(now I am really laughing)
Me: Ok, what’s the difference 110/60 vs.115/60?
Dr.: Expended energy.
Me: So what does this mean?
Dr.: Your loosing too fast, I want you to drink 10 shakes, just double up to 1000 calories p/day.
Me: Dr, you know I am not going to do this, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I have less than a month to go before my goal (what ever that is).
Dr.: I know, but I needed to tell you my thoughts.
Me: Why am I loosing too fast?
Dr.: Have a nice day Mike, we will call if there is anything odd in your tests.
I left.
(laughed all the way to my truck)

So…… I better go off the program, I am loosing too fast “NOT”

-Mike

[meredith]

Hi Mike,

Way to go on your continued weight loss! My guess is that the Dr.s are very worried about losing another patient due to healthier habits and weight loss! It sounds like they tried their darndest to find something wrong!

Keep on chugging, Meredith

[VK]

To be fair to the physicians, Medifast WAS designed for the morbidly obese, and the body can and does sometimes react negatively to quick, massive weight loss. That's part of the reason the Optifast plan requires monthly bloodwork. If Medifast still required a prescription I doubt most of us would be able to get a doctor to write the script for us because most of us are not morbidly obese. The other sobering fact is there have been patients who have died while on this plan. The two deaths that got the most attention were due to muscle wasting and unfortunately it was cardiac muscle that took the brunt of the damage. Whether the dehydration and muscle wasting would have killed them faster than the complications related to obesity is a whole other question.

Going completely liquid takes food completely out of the picture which is something I appreciate, but if I had serious will power I could take in the nutrients that the shakes have through restricted caloric intake alone and drop the weight that way. I researched a LOT before I decided to take on any program. I chose Medifast because I wanted to nix food while I do some serious behavior modification and get myself ready to go back to normal eating because clearly it’s not feasible to stay on these shakes for the rest of my life. Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic, Florida State University med school and the National Institutes of Health have all published extensively on Medifast and Optifast, and if you read the full reports, most people regain significant amounts of weight once they leave either program. That’s alarming, which is why I want to learn some serious portion control and behavior modification.

Already going liquid has helped me really become aware of my eating triggers, and I already saw how I just went on autopilot when the chocolate tart was offered to me. That’s valuable to me, in addition to dropping weight which IS great fun. Still, buying these shakes for the rest of my natural life just is NOT an option, so I’m looking forward to moving back into the world of regular food, just armed with a greater awareness.

[Unca_Tim]

Mikey you bonehead.....

You get me crackin' up everytime you post.
Poor doctors aren't gonna get any bypass surgery or med money out of you.

The other sobering fact is there have been patients who have died while on this plan.

Vonnie - There have never been any deaths on Medifast. Those were years ago in the very first studies of VLCDs (very low calorie diets) before Medifast was even around and I believe they were also related more to dehydration from not enough water. Medifast has come a LONG way from those days. If you know anything that I haven't heard about, please post it here...

Unca

[VK]

The Medifast folks may not like the title, but Medifast, Optifast and HMR are VLCDs - Very Low Calorie Diets. I know the word “diet” is not in vogue here, but that’s what the plan is from a dietetic/nutritionist point of view. I don’t think that has to be a bone of contention here, because Medifast was formulated (and re-formulated) by physicians, nutritionists and dieticians. They wanted to create a product that would produce good and safe results.

You're right that Medifast has come a long way since its beginnings. It was reformulated because there were major problems with the initial plan from the 1970s. In 1977 there was a rash 17 deaths of people (most of them under 35) on the Medifast/Optifast plan. Medifast/Optifast were essentially the same product back then. The FDA required three different warnings for protein products deriving more than 50 percent of their total caloric value, which is the protein content Medifast still follows. How is it that we don’t have FDA warning labels on our Medifast products now? Because products are exempt from the labeling requirements if the product is represented as part of a nutritionally balanced diet plan providing 400 or more calories per day, which Medifast, Optifast and HMR all do now.

I’m not trying to alarm anybody - I mean geez, I’m on Medifast too, so I have a vested interest in its safety. However, since its reformulation there have been people who have died while on this program. Were they not hydrated enough? Were they skipping shakes in hopes of dropping more weight even faster? Did years of obesity wreck their systems to the point where the Medifast program was too much of a shock for their cardiovascular systems? Were they just fundamentally unhealthy and on the verge of a heart attack anyway? Who knows, but they’re not here any longer to tell their stories.

I’m in Washington DC and I’m a lobbyist so when I started researching plans, fortunately I had the US National Library of Medicine and the Library of Congress at my disposal. If you’re not in the DC metro area, or aren’t near a major university library system, use the National Institutes of Health and the Center for Disease Control, because they both take obesity seriously. If you log onto their websites you can see abstracts and summaries of tests of every diet plan known to mankind, and how effective those plans have been or not been.

I think Medifast is like anything else in life - individual results will vary depending on all sorts of variables. Remaining overweight is clearly unhealthy. Overall I think most physicians would prefer us to be on a plan that gets us near a normal weight rather than remaining overweight. Some people can do it with regular food, but I don’t know that I can so here I am. That said, this plan is not 100% risk free, and the serious risks (though rare) shouldn’t be glossed over. On the upside, both Medifast and Optifast paired with behavior modification received the highest marks from the CDC and from most physicians who studies the plans. That’s part of the reason I decided to go with Medifast in the first place! If you really want to get into the minutia, here are some reports that your local library should be able to get for you:


Heber, D., JM Ashley, HJ. Wang, and RM. Elashoff. "Clinical evaluation of a minimal intervention meal replacement regimen for weight reduction." Published in the Journal of the American College Nutrition. 13(6):608-14, 1999 Feb.

Hoy, MK., S. Heshka, DB. Allison, E. Grasset, R. Blank, M. Abiri, and SB. Heymsfield. "Reduced risk of liver-formation-test abnormalities and new gallstone formation with weight loss on 3350-kJ (800-kcal) formula diets." Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 60(2):254-69, 2001 Aug.

Seim, HC., JE. Mitchell, C. Pomeroy, and M. de Zwaan. "Electrocardiographic findings
associated with very low calorie dieting." Published in the International Journal of Obesity & Related Metabolic Disorders. 19(11):817-9, 1995 Nov.

Shovic, Anne Caprio, PhD, Susan Adams, Jane Dubitzky, and Melody Anacker. "Effectiveness and dropout rate of a very low calorie diet program." Published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. 93(5):583-4, 1993 May.

Walsh, MF and TJ Flynn. "A 54-month evaluation of a popular very low calorie diet program." Published in the Journal of Family Practice. 41(3):231-6, 1997 Sep.

-Vonni, without an "e"

[Unca_Tim]

Hi Vonni with an i, and great post....

All information good/bad is welcomed here. Your resource links are great. Although, i still have a prob with your comment.

However, since its reformulation there have been people who have died while on this program.

I've also dug deep for any info I can find about dieting in general and VLCDs especially. To date, I've haven't come across any article stating what you posted above. In fact, i've found the contrary.

Taken from an FDA report in the 80s

Unexplained sudden deaths, such as occurred with use of protein products in the 1970s, have not been reported with use of the improved formulas.

I'm sure there's a possibility someone has died while on the program. I'm 100% sure there's been 10s of thousands that have died from obesity at an early age that have not been on the program. What i'm not sure of, is if anyone has died as a direct result of being on the program.

It's always been highly stressed and recommended that anyone using the "full fast" plan should work closely with their doctor. Even the modified plan should be monitered closely especially if you're grossly overweight or have any health issues that may complicate matters.

To see the full version of the report:
http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/CONSUMER/CON00070.html

Keep up the great posts and hard work,



Unca