Huel, fart and weight gaining

(forgive me if my message seems stupid or if it seems to have been written by a kid. I’m not native english so i’m pretty limited in my langage)

When i eat huel, i often need to go to the toilets to poo. More often than when i eat regular food. Sometimes much more often.
I also fart a lot all day long.
I thought it would only last a few weeks, the time for my body to adapt this new food (40% of my calories comes from huel) but it remains the same after 5 packs.

Am i the only one having this issue?

  1. The only reason why i eat huel is that i do everything i can to gain weight. Huel allows me to add a lot of easy to swallow calories every day. In addition of this i train 3 times a week, the hardest i can.
    If i often go to the toilets, do i really benefit from all the calories i swallow when i eat huel? If an important share of what i eat finishes in the toilets i miss my goal.
    Are there kind of food that have better “per calorie” efficiency for weight gaining?

Sorry if all of this seems stupid

Thanks

2 Likes

Huge fibre content. What does the other 60% of your diet consist of? The farting and digestion is just all part of it. Are the poos normal consistency or diarrhoea?

Yes. Peanut butter, oils or other fat dense foods are your best friend when it comes to gaining weight.

However, gaining weight doesn’t necessarily mean gaining muscle. You’ll need plenty of protein and high amounts of progressive overload to achieve what you want.

1 Like

Huge fibre content.

So it will always happen?
The rest of my diet is “fine”: a lot of raw home cooked fresh products: fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel), lean beef, chicken, rice, wheat pastas or other flours - i do it myself, sweet patatoe, vegetables, olive oil, coconut oil (a little bit), herbs, garlic (alot!), onion, a few alcoolic beverage (mostly wine), non sugar almond milk, a very few yogurt with no sugar at all (raw), houmos, carrots, pistachios, Cajun nuts, nuts, seeds, eggs
I never eat anymore: butter, sugar (nor in industrial products nor by adding it myself) so it means no cakes, no biscuits, no junk snacks, no beer or very few, no “bad oils”, no fries, no fat burgers, no bread of any kind

I train hard 3 times a week with a progessive overload method.

I eat 2800 kcal per day, 40% of it being huel.

Are the poos normal consistency or diarrhoea?

Nothing like diarrhoea, just not hard. I would say between normal and soft but much more soft than normal

Yes. Peanut butter, oils or other fat dense foods are your best friend when it comes to gaining weight.

I know fat is much more dense that carbs or protein (9 kcal per gr). My question was: are there food that you eat but that your body don’t really use and “trashes” to the toilets. If i eat 1000 kcal, i want to have most of these 1000 kcal in my weight, not in my toilets :smiley:

However, gaining weight doesn’t necessarily mean gaining muscle. You’ll need plenty of protein and high amounts of progressive overload to achieve what you want.

I, of course, want to gain lean mass. Nobody likes fat.
My program works, i’ve gained 3 kg but i don’t gain anymore since a month. I loose fat.
It can be because 2800 kcal per day is too low for me or because of the kind of food i eat. That’s why i’ve posted my question

1 Like

Hi Vanquish. I’ve been on Huel for a few years on & off now and have the same problems as you. I won’t go into too much detail on here but lets just say I can no longer have Huel ‘on the road’ (my job involves a lot of travelling) as I will always need to know where the closest toilet is in case my stomach decides to empty it’s contents much sooner than planned !! The constant gas is also a major issue. When reading about the Huel gas in the early days it appeared to settle down for most people within a couple of weeks. Three to four years later it is still a major issue for me, so much of an issue that I rarely consume Huel these days unless I’m working from home

Ok same as here but your situation seems to be worst
I just fart often and it is sometimes annoying…

It seems most people don’t have this inconvenient
I don’t have this problem with Vitaline nor Feed nor Jake…

Any reaction from @JamesCollier?

Fibre will add bulk, change the consistency of your stools and possibly the frequency you visit the toilet, especially based on your previous diet before Huel. I wouldn’t worry about this.

It’s actually really hard to estimate how many calories are lost in faeces. Just because you don’t go to the toilet doesn’t mean you have digested all the calories. For example if you’re constipated, that food will sit in your large intestine whereas the majority of digestion and absorption occurs in the small intestine.

Fibre will is beneficial for digestive health and can cause softening of stools.

You can out a bit more about fibre here: Fibre - British Nutrition Foundation

Other competitors tend to be lower in fibre, or have fibre added rather from natural sources and are lower in protein. All these factors can influence the gut, however from a health point of view we feel Huel has got it right.

Some Huelers have found enzymes such as Beano have helped their gas while they adjust (it can take longer than others) but this can be hit and miss.

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Thanks.

t’s actually really hard to estimate how many calories are lost in faeces.

This could be a major problem for me
I’ve tried something : 2 weeks @ 2900 kcal per day with 40% huel
2 weeks @ 2700 kcal per day with 0% huel

… i’ve just maintained my weight in the first situation, gained a kilo in the second one

In terms of kcal burnt, my apple watch says more or less 2500 kcal per day in average during these 4 weeks

that’s why i’m asking…

It makes me think i would need to eat MUCH more calories from huel to gain weight than from regular food

Is this possible? Have you ever experienced this?

To be honest, no.

Are you tracking your calories through an app like myfitnesspal and weighing your meals? This can make a huge difference and many people’s estimates of their calorie intake can account for a lot of the changes, or lack of, that they are noticing.

“To be honest no” => not possible or no you have never experienced this?

I’m tracking my calories with myfitesspal, yes. And i’m weighing every single thing i eat with no exception.
And i’m cooking almost everything i eat when it’s not huel

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I don’t think it is possible that fibre and/or increased excretion has caused around a 700kcal difference (200kcal between the 2, 2 week periods and 500kcal for the weight gain).

It’s possible your protein intake is higher without Huel (although Huel is pretty high in protein, you could try adding a scoop of protein powder to your Huel) or you’re retaining more water without Huel. Apart from that I can’t see any other reasons as to why you’re not gaining weight with Huel incorporated into your diet.

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I’d suggest this is the issue, rather than that you aren’t absorbing your food.

Wrist-based heart-rate monitor calorie counters drastically underestimate your calorie burn during vigorous exercise, even if you’ve entered your personal stats correctly in the app.
A quick google search into heart rate monitors and their accuracy will give you more information as to why this is, and how to use them as a guide rather than an actual.

If you want to track your exercise calories burned more accurately, get a chest band heart rate monitor.

Ultimately though, the only way to know for sure how many calories you personally burn, is to track your calories in and your weight and look at your trend. If you aren’t gaining weight and this is your goal, simply add another 250-500 calories per day (or more).
It may seem like you are consuming a lot of calories but I’m female, 5ft nothing, and 40yrs old, and if I have an active day plus go to the gym for a couple of hours, I burn in excess of 3000 calories easily

2 Likes

I think I have posted this before, but I do agree that optical heart rate monitoring is not the most accurate while exercising.

Having a sport watch myself the difference is night and day when I use it as opposed to the chest band.

On another note, nice array of products that you’ve tried:muscle:

https://www.google.com/search?q=digestible+energy&rlz=1C1GCEU_frFR821FR821&oq=digestible+energy&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.3021j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 ?