I sometimes hear from people who only meant to take a small amount of time off from their diet.
Perhaps they thought that they would take a weekend of freedom.
Or perhaps it was a week.
Well, one week can turn into two.
And two can turn into a month.
And you can wake up and realize that you aren't on the diet anymore.
And with that realization comes the worry that the weight is going to creep back up again.
I heard from someone who said: "I had been on Medifast for about six weeks when it was time for me to go on vacation.
I was happy with my results, but I was going on a cruise with my family.
I knew from experience that the food on the cruises is superb.
I wanted to experience that so I told myself that I would give myself permission to go off the diet while I was on vacation, but I vowed to go back on as soon as we returned.
Unfortunately, this didn't happen.
I enjoyed myself so much on the cruise that I just didn't stop.
It was as if I suddenly developed a taste for fried, fatty, salty and sweet food again.
And now I am having a hard time going back on my diet.
I find myself cheating all the time and some days I don't even make any attempt to diet at all.
Now, the weight is starting to creep back on.
I know that I need to get back in compliance quickly because I don't want to lose my results.
What can I do?" I will address this in the following article.
Tips For Getting Back On Track When You Take A Break From Medifast: First of all, don't beat yourself up too badly.
No one is perfect.
I believe that these types of breaks are pretty common.
Many of us take them.
And most of the time, nothing horrible happens, especially when we go back on the diet without much fanfare.
Of course, the risk in this is that you don't go back on the diet.
And I probably don't have to tell you that most common reason for diet failure is to stop using the foods or products.
Because the process can't work if you don't use it.
Frankly, half of the battle is in establishing habits.
My goal is to make eating the foods second nature and something that I never have to even think about.
It should be automatic.
Unfortunately, when you break this habit, then you'll have to start over to reestablish those habits.
The good news is that this isn't impossible.
You were able to establish the habit in the first place and you can do it again.
If You Need To, Ease Your Way Into It: I believe that part of the reason that people have trouble getting back on their diet is that they have experienced free reign and it can be hard to give that up.
Sometimes when you try to give this up very abruptly, it feels like a loss.
So it can help to give yourself permission to ease into it.
Perhaps you will just start out having a Medifast breakfast and an afternoon snack.
When this feels acceptable, then add in another diet meal until the three meals become automatic.
And then just work your way up steadily and slowly until you are back to where you were before you took your break.
Try To Replace What You Crave With A Medifast Alternative: The person admitted that she had started craving sweets again because she had loved the midnight dessert buffet on the cruise.
One thing that might help is to try to satisfy your craving with a Medifast food.
This diet does offer a lot of sweet items.
You could try the brownie or the soft serve ice cream.
If you had to, you could even add a few chocolate chips or a little fat free whipped cream to make the item seem more dessert like.
I know that this isn't how the diet is designed.
But if adding a few chocolate chips to your diet food keeps you from feasting on a hunk of real chocolate cake, then in my opinion, this is worth it.
You could also use the diet's chips and pretzels if you were craving something salty.
Of course this isn't the same as eating the full fat or non diet version, but it can help to ease you back into the diet's foods and doing so is important.
Because I find that once you start to do the diet at least part time, you'll find that the results start to return.
And usually when you start to see the results, you will have an easier time getting back into compliance because you don't want to jeopardize all of the hard work you've already done.