I often hear from folks who are wondering how many calories they might consume each day on the Medifast diet. To that end, many will wonder how many calories are in a Medifast meal. Common comments are things like: "how many calories can I expect to take in every time I eat one of the diet meals? Do the calories vary from meal to meal? Do some have more than others?" I will address these concerns below.
By And Large, The Medifast Meals Contain A Consistent Amount Of Calories: I find that many people assume that some of the meals (like the brownie or the soft serve ice cream) contains many more calories than some other lighter meals (like the chicken noodle soup.) I can see how this would be a reasonable assumption. After all, who wouldn't just assume that a brownie is going to be more harmful to your diet than a cup of soup? The truth is, these two items are very similar. The brownie comes in at only 110 calories while the chicken noodle soup comes in at 100. And believe it or not, this is true of most of the meals. Many of them have a calorie content that ranges from 90 to 110 calories. I will list some examples now just to show you how a wide variety of menu items are all consistently similar. The new macaroni and cheese contains 110 calories. So does the chocolate chip pancakes, the chili, the pudding, the peanut butter soft serve, the shakes, the snack bites, the pretzels, and the chocolate crunch bar. Examples of foods that have less calories are the eggs (at only 90) and the oatmeal (at only 100.)
An exception to the rule that I just discussed are the maintenance bars. They have more calories. Both of the current flavors (the caramel nut bar) and the oatmeal raisin contain 170 and 150 respectively.) That is why you are limited to only one of these each day. The same is not true with the lighter crunch bars. These crunch bars are not limited.
Adding It All Together: Keep in mind that you will be eating five of these prepackaged meals each day. So that's around approximately 500 - 550 calories. Knowing that you take in around 1,000 calories each day on this diet, where does the remainder come from? You'll provide that with your main lean and green meal. This is the meal that you make (or provide via restaurant or frozen foods) yourself. The point is, you are safe to choose any of the items on the menu (with the exception of more than one maintenance bar) and you should be taking in a consistent amount of calories without needing to worry about anything.
