Fat Gain

Huelers-I’m having gluten free banana huel everyday. I take 3 scoops per shake (600kcals) which I have twice/three times a day and then an evening meal. My evening meal is healthy, good protein (no red meat) with rice or sweet potato and plenty of greens. Despite this, I have gained a considerable amount of fat. I see that 3 scoops of huel contains 19.5 grams of fat, so with huel alone im having 39/58.5 grams of fat depending on how many servings that I have. I’m 39, fairly active. I’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced this or if anyone has any advice?

Many thanks

Mike

How many calories are in your evening meal? Humans are notoriously bad at estimating calories and at portion control. Based on your description, I’d estimate that meal to have ~1500kcal.

So you’re eating 2-3 meals of Huel at 600kcal each, which is 1200kcal-1800kcal, and 1500kcal meal on top of that. That makes 2700kcal-3300kcal. You should be eating 2000kcal to not gain or lose weight, and you’re 700kcal-1300kcal over the top.

This gets stored as fat, because “fairly active” is not active enough. Humans are also notoriously bad at estimating their activity level.

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Hey Mike, welcome.

I’d start by thinking in terms of calories rather than fat.

From what you’ve said you’re consuming 1200-1800 calories per day before your evening meal and not including any drinks or snacks.

I suggest looking at what your caloric maintenance requirement is - you can find a pretty decent guide here - https://tdeecalculator.net/

After you know what you need to be aiming for then next step is to really track everything you consume for a week or so. Various apps including myfitnesspal can help you with this.

Weight gain or loss is simply a matter of calories in versus calories out (nicknamed CICO) so in simple terms, the law of thermodynamics means that you are eating more calories than you are expending if you are gaining weight.

Use those above mentioned tools which should help you figure out where the disparity is. Good luck and welcome again, we’re a generally friendly bunch!

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hmmmm…:angel:

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I didn’t want to upset @David yaknow? :joy:

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many thanks for the replies-I do use ‘myfitness pal’ and Im pretty solid around the 2500kcal per day mark. I’m a tradesman so on my feet most of the day, plus I do hit the gym 2/3 times a week. I just wondered if anyone had felt that they had gained a bit of fat from huel. my goal is 2550 (fitness pal) so I’m bang on the money I think. Ive been on it solidly for about 6 weeks, and apart from taking huel, nothing else has changed. Cheers for the input

Ah ok so sounds like you’re on top of it from a calories perspective. Were you thinking more in terms of body composition? If so, not sure what to say really, I’ve dropped 3stone in weight and fat % went down from 30ish to 23ish but I mostly use the Black Edition (lower carbs in the macros I believe) with a few bars and hot& savoury thrown in.

Tried callipers or a scan?

I tried black but I found myself becoming light headed from lack of carbs! Do you only use huel then with the odd bar chucked in?

I do 100% huel for four weeks out of every six. And then I do usually have a huel a day at least anyway (usually breakfast shake and a bar) but I do it via intermittent fasting, so my breakfast isn’t until 12:30pm.

The hot&savoury stuff is a real godsend too, the green curry tastes awesome and gives some nice differences in texture.

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ill maybe give that a go then, cheers for input-and solid effort on the weight lose!!

How did you determine that your body fat increased? As far as I know determining body composition is very error prone and most methods aren’t exact.
If you want to reduce your calorie input the easiest way would be dinner cancelling or cancelling one of your shakes, or reducing the number of scoops you use. Another possibility would be replacing part of the Huel powder with protein powder. Or switching to Huel Black Edition (which is also gluten free). More protein will make you feel full for a much longer time, which makes it easier to reduce calories without feeling hungry all of the time.