If you want to ensure your success on Medifast so you can achieve a 20 lb weight loss in a month, take a look at my tips for using the Medifast plan to lose weight quickly. The 20 lbs in 30 days that they entice you with in their advertising is definitely possible with a little bit of the right kind of effort.

1. Eat All Your Meals

Medifast is already very low in calories, so it is important to eat all of your Medifast meals to get your full nutrition for the day. Also, this will help make sure that your weight loss won't stall. If you are getting adequate nutrition and calories, your body won't go into "starvation mode" and slow down your metabolism.

2. Only One Medifast Bar Per Day

Medifast makes some pretty tasty bars. In my opinion, they taste much better than any other type of protein bar. But there's a cost and that's paid for in extra carbohydrates. Since Medifast works partly by reducing carbs and keeping you in a mild state of ketosis (which helps burn fat), it is very important to not accidentally increase your carb consumption. In fact, some folks find they do best by not eating the Medifast bars at all. Personally, I would only bother cutting them completely though if I wasn't losing weight or had hit a plateau.

3. Ignore the Medifast snacks

The Medifast plan is 5 Medifast meals per day plus one homemade meal called the Lean & Green. But Medifast also allows you to have one snack per day. Both their soy crisps and and their crackers taste good and hit the spot in terms of crunch, but they do add some extra carbohydrates to your day. I think most people who really have rapid weight loss with Medifast skip the snacks. You won't be that hungry anyway, so don't worry about them. Just forget they exist. If you really need a snack, have two dill pickle spears. They are very low in carbs and shouldn't slow your weight loss down at all.

4. Drink plenty of water

In any low carb plan, a lot of weight loss in your first week or two will be water, and Medifast is no exception. A lot of folks like to dismiss water weight loss as meaningless, but if you look at yourself in the mirror you'll realize it isn't. Once that extra water your body was holding is gone, your face will look slimmer and I bet you'll find your hands and feet aren't as puffy either. To ensure that your body lets go of all its extra water weight you need to drink more water. Try to get your intake to about 64 ounces per day. That's about 8 glasses.

By following these four tips, you should be able to maximize your weight loss while using Medifast. If you have significant weight to lose, I think it's pretty easy to achieve a 20 lb weight loss each month for at least a few months in a row. After that, weight loss may slow down a bit and that's a good time to start adding some exercise to your plan to kick things back into gear.