Huel for Home Workout and Runs?

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I wanted to develop and tone my muscles over the next few months before summer - I have been doing no equipment home workouts every other day for a while now, as well as going for a run on the off days, resting completely one day a week. I average about 350-400 calories burnt for each of these 30 minute workouts/runs, and have 3 meals a day with one snack between lunch and dinner. I am fairly slim and muscular now, but want to keep up with these workout until summer to tone/grow my muscles even further.

I was wondering if getting started drinking Huel Black would be a good idea for me, to help grow and tone my muscles? If I were to have a shake after my no-equipment workouts and runs, would that be a good idea to help grow my muscles, or is this counter-intuitive and not a good idea? Also would I have to cut anything out of my current diet, or is drinking the Huel Black shake after workout along with my regualr 3 meals fine?

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Huel is not a supplement but instead a balanced healthy source of nutrition. Therefore, you should take total calorie input per day into account and determine if adding huel on top of the current caloric input requires modifying your existing diet as it can replace traditional meals if you want to keep calories the same.

I’m a moderately intense athlete and get about 75% of my daily calories and protein from huel shakes and hot & savory, with great results after 1.5 years. Lost weight, gained muscle, lowered cholesterol and overall feel much better so it’s certainly a good option for you.

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Hi William, welcome to the Huel forum!

We have a great article on exactly this topic: How to Eat When Building Muscle – Huel

Let me know if you have any questions once you’ve read it.

You could use Huel Black Edition after your workout. Post-workout is a great time to eat to help hit your goals.

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Gonna jump on here to give a personal account of my BE experiences.

Just after the pandemic hit I began working at Tesco to gain extra $ and this is where I began making the most use out of Black Edition

My routine (of pandemic shoppers madness!) lasted from March 26th 2020 - 1st September (until things calmed down haha)

Week : Monday - Friday: 6am - 2pm. Total 40 hours a week
Steps : 20,000 steps a day x 5 = 100,000 steps a week
Daily Diet
5.30am: Coffee
10am: Huel Black + fruit on mid-morning break. Coffee.
2pm: Home. Calisthenics Lockdown garage workout
4pm: Huel Black + Fruit
8pm: An overall balanced meal. Plenty of veggies, pulses, quinoa, meat alternatives (I’m plant based) and suitable amount of healthy fats.

As you can see I had Huel for breaky and post-workout meal. Then I had a standard evening meal. It was a great way for me to hit my targets as I wanted to test myself and get as lean as possible (I love a challenge!!!)

The results I found were great for me and Black Edition is a super great product to use. The lower carbs gives you a bit more room to play with, so it means you can add simple carbs, like berries or banana, to your post-workout and not worry too much. So yes I would recommend!! (I do have pics of the results but I’ll keep them to myself for everyone else’s sake lol)

I think what I have written above answers this! Of course Huel alone didn’t help me gain lean muscle mass though it definitely contributed.

As Dan has linked a useful read for you I won’t interject too much.

All I will say is that if you’re just looking to tone your muscles, as opposed to real muscle mass gain (from the sounds of it doesn’t sound like you are) then I’d experiment.

Try first to have your two meals + a post-workout Huel as your third meal. If that’s not quite right for you, then you can add an appropriate sized meal as your 4th meal. Better to start with less then you can tailor it more easily.

Hope that helps to have a personal account here. Let me know what you think. Cheers and have fun!! :smile:

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“Toning” muscle is a well established myth aimed at bikini conscious ladies and those unfamiliar with the workings of the body. “Tone your abs with this 5 minute crunch workout!!”.

Muscle “tone” is just a term used to define the prominence of a muscle below bodyfat. A “toned” muscle is one which is increasingly exposed visually as one drops in bodyfat %. You can tone your muscles with minimal weight lifting work just by eating at a deficit. That’s how those verging on an unhealthy level of bodyweight come to be revelled in the media… “Great tone though amirite?”.

As your post alludes to - OPs question isn’t necessarily the most specific in its goal. True “toned” look is a result of pristine diet, a caloric surplus to build the underlying mass, then a healthy deficit to trim back subsequent bodyfat.

If I had a pound for every time my mum has told me she’s looking to get “toned” with her 8kg kettlebell I’d own Huel… :upside_down_face:

Edit: Just to balance the argument - Same applies to folk like the grunting bloke next to me at the gym. He can come and do his 50 curls and 50 tricep extensions every damn morning but until he lays of the pies and pintos there’ll be no tone to be seen.

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Hey! Thanks for clarifying some terminology here! To be honest I have been so used to hearing/using the word tone in the fitness and health world, that I forgot to even think about it’s meaning in proper depth anymore.

Yes! Totally agree with these two statements here. I guess an analogy of this is if you cycled everyday, whilst maintaining a balance in your nutrition (assuming the individual is wanting to drop body fat %) that you would begin to develop some definition on your legs (predominantly) :seedling: Of course, dependent in accordance on your overall average effort per week over time.

Thanks again for reminding me of the true meaning on “toning” :grin:

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