Weight Management

OPTIFAST Meal-Replacement Program

If you need to lose a lot of weight, or if you have tried other weight-loss programs without success, the OPTIFAST Meal-Replacement Program might be the right way to take back control of your life and achive your weight-loss goals.

The OPTIFAST program works because it combines an effective meal-replacement plan with a medically managed lifestyle-change program. This combination makes it unlike any other meal-replacement program available in Delaware.

Research has shown that there's a higher success rate for losing a significant amount of weight and maintaining it when you undertake a low-calorie diet along with a behavior-change program.

The OPTIFAST program is designed for people with a body-mass index (BMI) over 30. Through significant, sustained weight loss, the OPTIFAST program has been shown to help people address a wide variety of health issues, including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, back and joint pain, and sleep apnea. In fact, clinically validated studies of OPTIFAST patients show:

21 percent average weight loss.
29 percent average decrease in blood glucose.
15 percent average decrease in cholesterol.
10 percent average reduction in blood pressure.

How the OPTIFAST program works

Initial evaluation

Before you even start the food-replacement component of the program, you'll undergo an initial evaluation with our weight-management team, which includes a doctor, nurse practitioner, registered dietitian, exercise physiologist and clinical psychologist. This medical work-up and assessment will allow us to determine if the OPTIFAST program is a good match for your particular needs.

Getting started

Following this program is easy. There are no calories to count or food choices to make. The portion-controlled formula diet is a complete meal-replacement program. The OPTIFAST products contain all the nutrition you need each day. Taking away the need to select and prepare foods makes it easy to reduce the calories you consume, which means you lose weight.

Lifestyle changes

A critical component of the OPTIFAST program is learning and adopting new eating and lifestyle changes. As you retrain your body to consume a low-calorie diet, you will attend 18 weekly educational sessions, where you will learn about nutrition, meal planning, exercise, stress management, body image and more. Over the course of the program, we'll help you transition from the meal-replacement products back to a normal food diet that's healthier than before and optimized to help you keep your weight under control. Losing weight is important, but it's even more important to be able to maintain your weight loss. The lifestyle changes you will learn in this program make that success possible.

Long-term management

In order to ensure life-long weight-loss success, you'll participate in our Staying on Track maintenance program once you complete your active phase. You'll find our ongoing classes and support groups very helpful in reinforcing your new eating behaviors and lifestyle changes.

Weight Management Center
Eugene du Pont Preventive Medicine & Rehabilitation Institute
3506 Kennett Pike, Wilmington, DE 19807 directions
302-661-3475