I sometimes hear from folks who want more clarification about the Medifast lean and green meal. (This is the main meal that you prepare yourself. And since getting this right is your responsibility because this is the only meal that isn’t provided for you, few people want to get this wrong.)
I sometimes have people ask me how many carbs you’re supposed to take in for this main meal. I have to be honest and tell you that I don’t really keep track of this for myself. Generally, I do follow the guidelines for the ounces of lean protein and for including three servings of vegetables. And in my mind, covering these bases should pretty much ensure that I’m not taking in too many carbohydrates.
However, this question made me curious. So I set out to research this topic. Now, before I tell you what I’ve found, I want to stress that I totally recommend your taking this concern to the company. But, general guidelines indicate that you shouldn’t have more than 80 – 85 carbohydrates per day.
So, we can take a look at many of the prepackaged options, determine how many carbohydrates they contain, and then figure out how many would be left for your lean and green meal. For the purposes of their article, I will choose five meals, add up the total amount, and then calculate what you’d be left with. Note that this is one estimate for one day, but one cool thing about Medifast meals is that they are often very similar in calories, carbohydrates, and proteins. That way, you can choose anything and still be fine.
For breakfast, I’ll chose the mixed berry crunch cereal. It has 15 grams of carbohydrates. For a breakfast snack, I’ll chose a chocolate shake which is 13 grams. The lunch time sloppy joe has 15. The afternoon snack of a peanut butter crunch bar which has 13 also. Finally, for my nightly snack, I’d chose a diet brownie which is also 15. This gives me a total of about 71 carbohydrates for the entire day, which gives you about 14 left for your lean and green meal.
This makes sense when you think about it, because each meal works out to around 15 allotted carbohydrates each. Essentially, this usually equals a small serving six times per day which I think is pretty reasonably. Again, this is just my own calculations based of random example foods that I chose, so your results may vary some. You can do the same with your own meals and see if you get the same results.