I’m a 67 year old male who is trying to lose weight, I’ve been using the Huel powder almost exclusively for more than six months. I’m 5ft 10 average build {too much around the waist}.
I’ve been doing 2 scoops three times a day and in truth I’m putting weight on.
I have three Beagles and walk them twice a day come rain or shine. Total daily distance between 5 and 10 miles, measured by GPS.
What would be the minimum safe Huel amount that would help me shrug off the pounds?
Cheers people.
Is that all you’re eating? Are you weighing it out or just roughly scooping?
How about sugar in drinks? Snacks?
If you really are only having approx 1000 calories a day and nothing else, and walking 5-10miles every day, it’s a bit concerning that you are putting on weight. I would go to your GP for a check up. At the same time they can advise what your calorie intake should be.
I’m guessing that either there is some underlying health condition that is affecting your metabolism or possibly water retention, or maybe you are snacking or drinking something and not considering the calories.
Are you sure it is three beagles a day not 3 bagels?
Since adolescents I’ve had trouble with my weight.
I will go my GP in due course but I I know she will repeat what I’ve just said.
I probably should be more careful in scooping it in.
So how many calories are in a flat top scoop, give or take?
Thanks for the reply.
I have had a good laugh at this.
Definitely weigh it if you’re having trouble putting on weight even though you’re counting scoops. Decent electronic scales can cost as little as £7. Worthwhile investment.
A compressed level scoop is roughly 80g so 320 calories but it’s easy to get much more or much less in a scoop
Weight gain during a calorie deficit is quite normal. This applies usually if transferring from a state of calorific surplus to deficit. The body will then ‘store fat’ because it senses a change so it prepares for stavation. This process is also seen by the homeostatic hormonal cascade as a stressful event. This results in cotrisol a glucocorticoid steorid hormone being release which in turn lead to weight gain through the deposition of fat.
It may be necessary to revert to your previous dietary intake for a while and then gradually reduce the calorie intake.
I agree with Christina Jonny. Get yourself a set of scales to accurately measure your Huel. If you are having around 1000kcal a day based on your weight, you should be losing fat.
We have a basic guide here that may help: https://uk.huel.com/pages/guide-to-fat-loss
If you are accurately tracking your calorie intake including all foods and liquids especially alcohol and sugar sweetened beverages, (MyFitnessPal is good for this) you know you’re at least 500kcal under what your body needs and after a couple of weeks you’re not losing weight raise this with your GP as something is not right.
This isn’t normal and goes against the laws of thermodynamics. An underlying health condition may explain a lack of weight loss however that would mean there is no calorie deficit.
From what I understand we aren’t totally clear on the reasons why stress leads to weight gain. However, it’s most likely due to changes in how the body responds to the environment rather than internal factors. More specifically, cortisol and chronic stress leads to a change in eating behaviours and calorie dense, palatable foods become from rewarding and so people eat more. It’s not because calorie expenditure decreases or the body increases fat storage from the same amount of calories.
There is a really good paper on this - more for the discussion and other papers it references than the study itself: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895000/
Happy to be proved wrong though!
In addition to everyone else’s comments (which I agree with - you should be losing weight with ~1000kcal of Huel + 5 - 10 miles of walking) I would download the MyFitnessPal app, and make sure you track everything you put in your mouth… accurately (so weight it out with scales - for liquids I think assuming 1ml = 1g is ok).
Milk with your coffee? Put it in!
Sugar on your cereal? Put it in!
Ketchup with your chips? PUT! IT! IN!
I had two little tubs of garlic sauce with my Domino’s pizza the other day - the two tubs came to ~360 calories. I was within my calorie ‘target’ with the pizza included, but those two tubs put me over. If I did something similar every day I would a) be very poor (domino’s is expensive…) but also b) pretty much be at my maintenance calorie requirement, rather than my weight loss calorie requirement.
So, essentially, track everything!
Thank you for your full and frank reply. As of last Monday I have been tracking everything that passes my lips and I now feel slightly guilty as I had been making the odd bread and olive oil snack (huge chunk of bread), I’m not doing that anymore and I was also eating digestive biscuits like they might never be made again… However while that added a lot of cals I’ve not cheated myself beyond that.
So, I am now doing this:
} one scoop for breakfast; one scoop after first dog walk approx 2pm and
} two scoops for my main meal at around 7pm.
If I don’t start shedding pounds I’ll have to go back to running (at my age that might not be such a good idea).
Let me know what you think,
John
brilliant!
Well, that’ll explain the lack of weight loss!
The great news is: it’s unlikely you have any underlying health condition (phew)
The bad news is: biscuits contain HUGE amounts of calories. STOP eating biscuits 
And your olive oil and bread snack wasn’t just adding calories because of the bread… olive oil contains 150 calories per tablespoon so if you were dunking your bread in it, I’d likely bet you were eating at least 600 calories in oil alone. Olive oil is very good for you but also massively calorific. So, yeah, stop snacking on this as well and you’ll be on your way to weight loss in no time !
I’m not sure if you mean this is your entire calorie intake for the day?!
Or if you’re planning on having a cooked lunch?
If you’re planning on a lunch, don’t forget to calorie count it! Include everything: condiments, sauces, cooking oil, everything. Weigh and count. Don’t slack or you’ll make the same mistake as the first time round.
If four scoops of Huel is your planned intake for the whole day then this is definitely unrealistic and unwise. That’s 530 calories. You won’t be able to maintain it, and it’s not enough to give your body the nutrients it needs. You’ll fail and / or get ill.
Use the nhs bmi calculator to estimate your recommended daily calorie intake. And go from there
Good luck. You can do this 
@ChristinaT is right, you’ve gone too far. Your original plan of 2 scoops, 3 times a day was more manageable, though still very low. Maybe go for 2 scoops 3 times a day, plus 5 bonus digestives.
I am eternally grateful for your replies (you know who you are) and I have looked at the nhs bmi and I’ve concluded that two scoops three times a day will create a safe weight loss (I will have two low calorie digestives) with my third ‘meal’.
I don’t plan to modify this until I am losing weight and at that point I will move to two lots of two scoops plus one three scoops… and I will share all this with my GP.
Thanks for the input and support,
John
2 scoops 3x a day plus a couple of biscuits sounds a much better plan 
I hope it works out for you - don’t forget it can take a while to see the results, and your weight can fluctuate daily so just look at the general (hopefully downward!) trend of your weight over the course of the next few weeks.
Keep us posted!
I’m your age and have lost a stone with 3 scoops twice a day plus an evening main meal but no dessert. I start to regain if I have snacks as well. I exercise less than you. So I think it’ll work for you if you track the calories precisely.
Not related to the subject, but since the thread is bumped… this forum has a shocking lack of pet photos. A man called “Three Dogs” talking about his dogs but we don’t get to look at the dogs. This is all wrong.
My dog is dead but I will post a photo if it gets the ball rolling.
I mean a photo from when he was still alive, ffs.
Richard, thanks for that. I will stick to the 3 times three plan. No treats until I am shifting some weight!
I agree. Alf and Fred.
