Now I eat around 2400-3000 calories a day, and those are coming from Huel. 3 scoops each meal to hit 3.4g leucine, 4 to 5 times a day. The weights are getting heavy now in the gym, so I might have to eat even more. My idea was to increase my calories to 4000, effectively eating 200% Huel. That is double in all the vitamins/minerals/fibers, which might be too much. Protein/carbs/fat is fine. It is the micronutrients and fiber that I am worried about (I have serious smelly farts right now). The other idea was to just fill in the calories by increasing carbs, for instance oats. Or any other carb source, really. So here I am with two ideas how to increase my calories, 200% Huel, or 150% Huel + carbs on the side (preferably which I can mix with the shake in my blender).
Candidates for the carb source:
Oats
White rice
Pasta
Sugar
Tapioca flour?
Some of these are really bad at mixing with. As previous mentioned, the top contender is adding more oats. I am however worried about the increased fiber intake. Other than that, oats are great because of the slow digested carbs, the good fats and protein.
Add some oil, it’s the simplest thing to buy & measure.
10g of oil in each shake is 90kcal extra. If you have 5 shakes, that makes 50g oil, which is 450kcal. You can of course add more than 10g oil to each shake.
Hi @strength_athlete - great to hear Huel is supporting you lifting heavier weights.
My challenge back to you is why 4,000kcal? that’s a 33-66% increase in calories, which is ****-loads! You’re making gains on your current intake, so why such a massive increase?
Sure, I get that you might feel you require an increase, but seriously, a 5-10% will be plenty. Any more than this, you’ll hit two problems: 1) you’ll put on fat (it’s unlikely that you need to be fat; you merely need to be in an energy surplus); and 2) moving forward you’ll then require even more calories in order to gain weight and you’ll find it harder to lose weight when you want to and this could have health implications when you’re older.
You could just add another 1/2 scoop to 3-4 of your Huel servings.
You want to increase the carb content? Why don’t you use juice instead of water? Contains lots of carbs, is “healthy” and you won’t have any solubility issues. If you are willing to invest more money smoothies would also be a possibility.
I agree with James. Why do you need 4000kcal, are you trying to become a sumo wrestler? That amount of calories is insane and you have to have some very specific goal in mind to justify that amount. I couldn’t really think of any potential “win” from 4000kcal besides the aforementioned joke.
That amount of calories is insane and you have to have some very specific goal in mind to justify that amount. I couldn’t really think of any potential “win” from 4000kcal besides the aforementioned joke.