The MakeMeThinner Support Forum

[Mom23]

I'm really having a hard time with the products! I have stayed on program so far, but I'm really having my doubts about this. Honestly, the products make me gag. I have tried everything to make them go down, but I just can't stand the taste. I've tried 6 different things now, I've doctored them as suggested, yet this morning, as I sat with the French Vanilla and mixed berry oatmeal (which I actually thought tasted better than the previous 5 things from yesterday), I found each bite harder and harder to swallow until the last bite I took almost came back up. I tried pinching my nose (so I wouldn't taste it), I "chasing" it down with water after swallowing, etc., etc. I just can't get the stuff down. So, after having 4 of my 10 waters for the day just at breakfast, a bowl half full of oatmeal, I'm wondering what to do...

I remember seeing where Nancy said she'd eat cat poo to lose weight and I keep trying to remind myself that if I want to be thin I've got to do what it takes, but honestly, that gag reflex is in full motion.

Maybe I'm someone who just can't do this program... If I liked what I was eating, this wouldn't be a problem for me -- eating 5 small meals and one L&G is not difficult. Drinking the water is easy for me. It's eating the products that's my challenge.

[saraak]

Hi ,

Would you mind telling us what meals you chose and what they tasted like to you. Maybe there are some items that don't taste good. I can say I enjoy the taste of about 10 different items and I just had to find them and I rotate them. If I didn't like anything though, this would be a very hard diet to stay on to me. I don't know if I could whole heartedly agree with Nancy's statement about cat poo. Dieting is hard enough in itself, I need to enjoy what I'm putting in my mouth to a certain extent. Hope I can help you a bit once you list what you had, ect.

Sara

[Patti]

Bobbi,

I know the feeling. When I started I had a distaste for everything except the bars. But, my taste buds obviously changed. I love the oatmeal, like the puddings, chocolate and swiss mocha shakes. This is all that I eat now, along with the bars. Not much variety, but it works for me. As for the rest of the stuff, if it didn't go in the garbage, I traded it.

I make my shakes into smoothies (I just can't stomach them with regular mixing). The best investment I made was the Hamilton Beach blender/smoothie maker (got mine at Walmart). It turns an 8 oz. shake into a 24 oz. drink with the texture of a thick malt. I put the water, shake mix and usually S/F caramel flavoring into the blender and press aerate for a bit, add 8 oz. crushed ice, press ice crusher until ice totally blended into mixture, then press smoothie option until drink is thick. Have you tried the Cinnabon recipe for the vanilla shakes. It is pretty good.

I know it's tough starting out, but, I know this program works....which is probably no consolation to you right now. Utimately, the decision is yours to make as to whether this program is right for you or not.

It's really not easy for most of us. It's hard to stick to such a strict regiment when one was used to what I now call "freedom eating". I made it through 4 months of chemo therapy last year, kicking, screaming and threatening to quit everytime the nausea and vomiting brought me to my knees. But with constant support and being constantly told it is not forever....I made it through. I am approaching my stint with Medfast the same way....and don't think that a day goes by that I don't want to quit...I just try to get through the day, which I always seem to manage.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you can come up with some solution to help you stick with the program.

Patti

[Mom23]

Thank you for your replies/advice. I don't want to quit, I want to do this, I have seen from all of you the support and the success and that's why I decided to do Medifast.

The products I have tried are: apple/cinnamon oatmeal, chai latte, vanilla shake, chocolate pudding, chocolate shake, french vanilla oatmeal. Of all that I've tried, the shakes were the worst -- I made them with my immersion blender (which I used when I did LA Weight Loss) so that their volume would increase, they'd be mixed well, and they'd be frothy and more shake like -- well, I got the consistency but the taste was more than I could bear (and yes, I doctored them with flavoring as suggested in the Lean Cuisine section)

Like I said before, I am really, really, trying, but if I'm not eating the products, then I know I'm going to throw my body into the starvation mode... my tummy is just so nauseous feeling and when I think about eating a product, my mind kicks the tummy into feeling worse. I'm going to go through my box and find something to use as my meal since it's time.

Thank you again.

[Patti]

Hmmmm, have you eaten soy before? I don't know is there is such a thing as soy allergies or what the reactions would be. I'm groping for a solution here.

Patti

[ToyDiva]

I add one Splenda packet to almost everything. The only items I don't add Splenda to are the soups and then I always add more water and bouillon and seasonings. The first few days are tough no matter what and as it was said before, your tastes do change.

Hang in there and keep trying new products.

[DogMa]

I had a really hard time with all of the sweet products when I started. I choked down the shakes, couldn't handle the pudding, etc. The only things I could tolerate were the fruit and nut bars and the soups (with plenty of salsa and hot sauce added to cover up the taste). But my taste buds adjusted pretty quickly and I could at least tolerate the stuff better for a while.

Now I actually LIKE a lot of the products - although I still can't stand the shakes unless I mix 'em up like pudding and add some sugar-free pudding mix to cover it up.

Oh - or try the cocoa, too. That tastes most like the real thing to me, especially with some DaVinci syrup added to it.

[Linda]

Let's see if we can help you with a few you've already tried.

When I first started, I didn't like the Chai Latte at all, now I really look forward to it on cold nights. I thought it had a very overwhelming taste of cloves at first, so I added about a 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and that helped a little. Then I discovered the perfect way to make it for me. I now pour the package into a large mug (at least 16 oz) and add just a few tablespoons of cold water to make a thick paste. While I am doing this, I have my teakettle heating water on the stove. Then I add about a tsp of instant unsweetened decaf powdered tea (Lipton has this in a glass jar) to the paste and stir again. When the water is hot (not boiling), add it slowly while stirring. The clove taste is gone and you're left with a steaming large mug of tension soothing goodness!

For the shakes, I've only found a few of the Da Vinci syrups that I like in my shakes, but just a little sprinkle of cinnamon before blending works wonders. I've also tried them shaken, stirred, immersion blended, blender blended and Magic Bullet blended. There is a definite difference in flavor depending on how mixed. I prefer the Magic Bullet myself.

The important thing from all this is to be aware that the way the product is prepared can have a HUGE effect on the flavor. And remember that everyone has different tastes, so you need to find your own "magic" preparation method. I know I spend a large part of the first month perfecting this and there were days that I felt I couldn't face the next package, but I did finally find the way and it is VERY worth it.

Good luck to you

OOPS! edited to add that on the Chai Latte I add 16 oz hot water! Or if you don't want to buy instant tea just make Chai Latte as above but with 8 oz water and then make 8 oz of hot tea and add it to the 8 oz of Chai Latte with cinnamon.

[lise]

I'm one of the odd ones that likes a lot of products and I just started!

I think you should see the lean cuisine part of the site; they have great recipes and tips on how to doctor up the food in case you don't like it.

I'm not crazy about the oatmeal or the Strawberry shake, but everything else, I love!

I was worried about the chili but man, that has become my favorite! I need to order at least 3 boxes of that stuff next month and for the shakes, I am sticking with the chocolate one since it"s the one I love most (of course, I still need to try the orange and the banana one).

The bars imo, are to die for. Chocolate mint is really good; it actually feels as if I am cheating when I eat 1!

Good luck!!

[Diana]

I had to stare out the window and get my mind off it the first time I ate the oatmeal. Ugh! The second day, I followed the recipe on the box for the cookies and used pumpkin pie spice plus extra cinnamon. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! These I like.

The shakes, soups and "coffee house" drinks are definitely better blended. And the shakes blended with ice are quite good (although they take me longer to drink).

But I have to say, I'm with lise. I actually like most of what I've tried and I've had much, much worse!! I do know what you're going through, Bobbi!! I started another shake program which I threw up and chose to quit.

I haven't read ALL the posts, but I wonder if our bodies go through some kind of detox that increases the gag reflex.

How are you doing today?

Diana

[Jan]

We here in the US. seem to like three things (and they are acquired tastes) Sugar, salt and fat. Babies are happy for the most part with their food which contains little if any of the above. We know they are not "good" for them. But then as we grow older we decide they are "fine for us" Of course on program we are lowering the amount of all three. It seems to be a matter of your taster going back to before we acquired these tastes. Since our program is low in sodium you can add a bouillon cube to the soups and such. Plus, you can help yourself along with a little splenda to sweeten things up. As for the fat -- hmmmmm -- sorry -- it's not good for you anyway.
Some people take a while to get used to the taste of soy. Most of our meal replacements are soy based. I think it's a matter of the smell. Drinking with a straw seems to help. I myself have a rather unsophisticated taster and everything was fine to me. I do have my favorite products as well as my least favorite. We all do.
You will do fine. For the first couple of weeks or so until your taster changes-- and it will-- just stick to the things you like the best. Then, try adding a new product to see how it goes. You'll find "oatmeal haters" on Swap and Shop gobbling up of all things boxes of oatmeal. It happens all the time. I'll bet you'll be fine after the first 2 -3 weeks. It's a small price to pay to be slim and healthy from ever after. I'll be watching for you.
jan
jan

[DogMa]

OK, that would be ME in the swap and shop area. I've gone from hating oatmeal my whole life to eating it three times a day.

The one thing I DON'T like about the changing tastes is everything on the program used to taste TOO sweet or salty to me, and now it's just fine. The last thing I want is to develop more of a taste for sugar and salt. But I suspect REAL sugar would still be too much for me.

[Dayna]

Are you using ice when you blend up the shakes? The colder they are, the less you can taste the soy (in my opinion). Don't breath in through your nose as you drink a shake. Get a bendy straw, so that your nose is not right over the glass. These are techniques I used when forcing down the Atkins shakes (then there were the times I had to have them at room temperature . . . ewwww . . . ). The medifast shakes taste much, much better to me, but that might be partly due to the fact that I'm pretty used to the soy flavor now.

You might want to try the Ready-to-Drink (RTD) shakes, lots of people prefer the taste of them over the shake mixes.

Give the soups a try, especially the chicken noodle and the chicken with wild rice. Add extra water and a thing of boullion. If you like soups in general, hopefully you'll like these.

If you freeze the pudding, it's kind of like eating ice cream. Well, at least the chocolate is like eating a fudgesicle. That might help you with the flavor.

Like Di suggested, try making the cookies - that might be the preferred form of oatmeal for you.

And, finally, don't give up until you've tried everything. Instead of forcing yourself to get down stuff you don't like, see if there's stuff you do. Contact your health advisor to order some samples of the medi-foods that weren't included in your starter kit. You don't HAVE to drink the shakes, if you don't like them. Dogma can vouch for that!

Keep us updated on how it goes!

- Dayna

[bzlife1967]

Remember too your tastes really do adapt. The first few things I tried I thought oh my goodness am I going to be able to do this?? The oatmeal made me gag... now it is my favorite breakfast. Now pretty much everything I try I like. Finding your own personal perfect combination is a must. Have you tried using flavoring extracts instead of the syrups? I find they are much more flavorful than the syrups and you just use a drop of them, The cinnabon recipe for the vanilla shake is to die for and I did use butter extract instead of molly mc butter. The chocolate mint bar tastes like a Girl Scout thin mint to me.

Someone posted something about soy allergies so I thought I would paste this here as well, Don't let this scare you alot of big words but most are minimal when you look them up and also pretty rare only 0.5% of people have soy allergy

What is soy allergy? - Soy allergy is an immune system response to soy that the body mistakenly believes is harmful. Once the immune system decides that soy is harmful, it creates specific antibodies to it. The next time the individual eats soy, the immune system releases massive amounts of chemicals, including histamine, in order to protect the body. These chemicals trigger a cascade of allergic symptoms that can affect the respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, skin, or cardiovascular system. About 0.5 of the population has soy allergy. Soy allergy will not show with the first exposure to the allergen. The symptoms of soy allergy will only occur upon reexposure to soy. During the first contact the person is only sensitized to soy, but the immune system reacts only at contacts with soy that occur later. Not all soy products may cause soy allergy. Some fermented soy foods, such as tempeh and miso, may cause less soy allergy than whole soybeans. Soybean oil, which does not contain soy proteins, does normally not produce soy allergy.

Symptoms of soy allergy - The reported symptoms of soy allergy include: acne, angioedema, rhinitis, anaphylaxis, asthma, atopic dermatitis, bronchospasm, cankers, colitis, conjunctivitis, diarrhea, diffuse small bowel disease, dyspnea, eczema, enterocolitis, fever, hypotension, itching, laryngeal edema, lethargy, pollinosis, urticaria, vomiting, and wheezing. If you suspect that you or your child may have soy allergy or intolerence, you can conduct your own test by completely eliminating soy for a several days. Then try just one soy product to see if it causes adverse reactions. Keep in mind that intolerence reactions can occur as long as 48 hours after ingestion of an offending substance.

Cross reactivity with soy - People with soy allergy may also cross react to certain foods, such as peanuts, green peas, chick peas, lima beans, string beans, wheat, rye and barley.

Hope this helps
-Geri

[Arklahoma]

Mom23 ... I am completely unable to drink the shakes as they make me gag so I can completely understand. Please keep trying until you find the things that work for you. I personally hate the chocolate pudding but absolutely love the banana pudding and I know there are others that have the opposite feelings. I do very well with the hot cocoa (with & without sf syrups), the chicken noodle soup, bars, making the alternative recipes (brownies, cookies, muffins, etc.)

I just tried the peach oatmeal mini muffins today and cannot even begin to tell you how much I liked them. They can be dangerously addicting!

How are you doing?