Huel - Weight Loss! Lets see!

So, as my username suggests, i am a middle aged fat bloke who seriously needs to change his eating habits and finally cut some fat!

Due to my work (off shore) i don’t have a conventional kitchen, or access to most things, but you would think that would help out! No fast food etc, but it doesn’t!

I do have access to a gym though, so there should be no excuses!

I should receive my first order of Huel in the coming week, so in preparation, i am hoping for some positive feedback!

My plan is to have Huel for Breakfast and Lunch, and have a real small evening dinner. I wont be changing my usual dinner as i think its quite healthy anyways, x 2 Chicken Breast and a mixture of greens with a salad dressing!

I am currently sat at 220lbs and stand at just shy of 5’11! I don’t have a specific target, just to cut weight and see if i feel any healthier!

I will be heading to the gym, i will be mainly using the elliptical and treadmill and aim to do around 45 minutes of Cardio 5 times per week, after all, i have the time. Less watching movies and more Gym!

I have access to a blender, and have access to fruit and vegetables most days, so i have some options for a potential mixture of Huel and others.

Any advice or guidance from peeps, would be very nice! Once i receive my Huel, i will try to provide some updates!

Thanks

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Hey!

Firstly, well done on chosing to make changes.

Now you said you don’t have a target in mind, if you haven’t already read the Huel guide to fatloss here:

Decide on a goal, even if its just 20 pounds in X amount of time. It will help you keep focused.

Then use the calorie calculator here to work out how many calories you want to consume a day. Then work out how long it will take you to lose your target amount.

https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

You can adjust it to take into acount exercise. I persoanly looked at both the little/no exercise and exercise values for myself to get a better understanding of what my body needs.

I personaly prefer to weigh Huel so I know exactly what I am getting calorie wise.
You should also check the calorie content of the dinner your planning to make sure it wont carry you over your target.

I use the my fitness pal app to track my calories, if I don’t want to add it to the app I shouldn’t eat it!

Not everyone finds it helpful but I find it helps me to be more aware of what I am consuming.

Its recomended to start by just replacing one meal a day with Huel and first and then moving up to two to help your digestive system adjust.

Good luck!

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Hi Thanks for the advice and reply. I checked the calorie calculations. Apparently ii need to be below 2572 calories per day to achieve a mild weight loss.

According tot he Huel website:-

2 76g 306 cal 311 cal

2 Level Scoops equals 306 cal for the flavored version. My plan will be to add a Banana (typical 105 cal) in with the blender to thicken up the drink and i will do this for both Breakfast and Evening Meal. It will be easier for me this way, i had originally planned for Breakfast and Evening Meal. That leaves me on 822 cal for 2 meals? My lunch, i know for sure i can keep below 1200 calories.

So if it plans out as above, and if i don’t start to starve i could be entering into the ‘Weight Loss’ to ‘Extreme Weight Loss’ brackets, according to the calorie counter.

I will see how this affects my going to the gym, as i am worried about not having enough in my system and experiencing the wobbles or hunger. I will set myself an initial goal of 14lbs - 1 stone and see how long that takes to achieve before setting a more radical target.

Looking forward to the Huel arriving and getting started.

So you need to be below 2527 calories to lose weight.

What was your maintainence calories figure?

Was that based on your current activity levels or the exercise routine you are planing?

You don’t want to be using a figure that is for a lower level than the excersise you are going to do then eat less than that because it will be unsustainable.

Also you don’t want to drop off to many calories under what it recommends for the intended amount of exercise your planing.

So your saying:
Breakfast = 76 g huel + bannanna = roughly 411 calories
Dinner = 76g Huel + bannana = 411 calories

Huel meals = 822
2527 - 822 = 1705 calories left.

If lunch was 1200 calories your calorie deficit would be 505 calories below the calorie figure the calculator gave you.

I would say maybe try to do more smaller meals in a day instead of trying to make up 1200 calories into a lunch?

Actually check the calories of the lunch you plan to have, its really easy to go over if you don’t.

To Maintain my weight i would be at 2822 Calories.

I chose 3-4 times per week activity, as that ‘will’ be pretty normal but maybe i have misunderstood, as i am not doing much exercise now, i thought the calculator was asking what i ‘would’ be doing, not what i am doing now.

I think possibly 5 Cardio sessions of around 45 minutes per week would be achievable. That would shred 500 to 700 Calories.

Would you suggest maybe 2 x 2 Huel per day, rather than the 3 scoops?

Thanks for the advice…

Roughly 500 calorie deficit will lose 1 pound a week.

By knowing your maintince calories you can make sure you aren’t cuting to many calories out at once.

If your maintince calories are 2822 and for mild weight loss the calculator said 2527 calories thats a defacit of 295 calories.

Your plan above would have cut out another 505 calories ontop of the 295 from the calculator a total deficit of 800.

I wouldn’t recomend that especially at the start you might not find it sustainable.

Its up to you with what you think you can cope with but I would start at most with the 500 deficit and adjust depending on how easy/hard your finding it.

In terms of how many scoops, its up to your own trial and error.

Personally I do mostly 50 g (200 calories) huels at a time throughout the day with the occasional 100 g (400 calories).
But I can’t consume a lot in one go so its very subjective.

I would maybe try what you think is best and see how you feel and just adjust the amounts as you go along.

Try track when you get hungry or cravings by writing them down.

A lot of people experience sugar crashes when transitioning to huel due to the change in diet so I would say see how your body adjusts before making huge calorie deficits.

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Hey,

Just saw your thread after seeing you reply to mine. Good luck to you. I did look at your figures and I have a different way of looking at it.

I’d calculate your BMR with no exercise included so you know on your worst day what you need to stay under so you don’t put weight on. For someone 5"11, 220lbs and 40 years old (middled aged?!) that would be 2066 calories.

Then I’d add on my exercise calories each day, if i did the exercise, I find presuming your exercise in your total calories to play with can be dangerous if you then don’t exercise. But each to their own.

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Hey Paul,

Thanks for the reply. I think i see what your saying. So, at most i should be consuming 2066 calories per day to maintain my current weight? I have just completed a session on the treadmill, and managed to burn 550 calories (according to treadmill) - 650 (according to FITBIT).

So with that, does that mean if i was to consume only 1500 calories i would be in a deficit of around 1000 calories??

Thanks for the advice so far, any help or motivation i can receive i am very grateful for.

BMR is the calories you burn just keeping yourself alive. You’d burn that much being in a coma, pretty much. On a lazy day (what you’d consider doing “nothing”) you’re burning a bit more than that, since every movement you do make is more than is necessary to just keep you breathing.

I personally find my Fitbit does a very good job at counting my calories burned. As in, I maintain my weight when eating all the calories burned and lose as expected when eating -500 or -750. Just weigh yourself every week to see if the loss is what you’d expect and adjust calorie intake accordingly.

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Yes, you’d be at a defecit of 1116 if you burnt 550 calories. Which is quite a lot. I agree with Moon’s post below, that is the bare min and you’ll burn more. I kind of like having that “unknown extra” as my reserve of calories burnt on top of my exercise. It’s swings and roundabouts, do what works for you. I just like my safety net as no progress at all really stops me in my tracks.

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So today is the first day of Huel.

Jumped on the scales, an impressive 99.3kg or just shy of 219lbs. I skipped breakfast and will have a HUEL - 2 Scoops of Vanilla for lunch. ( i am a few hours ahead of the UK - so its lunch time).

I don’t have any plans for dinner, i will see how hungry i am feeling later in the day. I will try my best to provide daily updates. If not one is reading, that’s OK, but it will provide myself with some motivation and keep track of what is or not happening!

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Good luck, Steve :+1: Looking forward to reading your updates :grin:

I was 105KG when I started on HUEL. All I’ve done is replace breakfast and snacks.
I’m down to around 93KG in around 5 months (xmas didn’t help - and I fell off my bike so couldn’t walk for a month)
Just keep at it and stick to ~-500 calories a day whih is 1 pound a week, a steady but noticeable amount.

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Finished my first day on Huel yesterday. I had x 2 Servings. 1 at Lunch and 1 for Dinner. I was kind of expecting to wake up this morning feeling quite hungry, but i had enough energy to get up and goto the Gym.

According to the fitbit, i burnt off 550 Calories this morning. I had some cereal for breakfast and a cup of coffee.

Today i will have Huel for Lunch and Dinner with plenty of water throughout the day and see how i feel after day 2.

Sorry to shove my oar in but after reading most of the thread about calculating calorie requirements and energy levels I got a headache🙂 Have you considered myfitnesspal? It calculates your calorie requirements and as you’ve got a fitbit you can link that in so adjustments can be made based on the actual exercise you did rather than what you are predicting you will do.

If I missed a bit when you discussed that then sorry and good luck with the weight loss - I’m also trying that and feel your pain:-)

I have my fitnesspal also. I do prefer the FitBit app though. I can log food and exercise with that also. So far so good to be honest with the Huel / exercise and diet although i do have a craving to eat something! Thats more a habit than the need to though!

So after 2 full days of Huel for Lunch and Dinner i am quite happy. I haven’t felt any negative affects in terms of energy etc and haven’t felt hungry. I have been able to maintain a 5km each morning.

I hopped onto the scales and there was a 1.7lbs loss in weight.

So far so good. The taste is actually quite nice, it reminds me of Ready Brek! I’ll keep Hueling it for this week, to see if there is further loss.

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Thanks for the update and I’m starting this journey too. I hope you keep updating.

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Still hitting the Huel, its going well. TO be honest i thought i would struggle with not actually eating much food, but there has been no drop in energy levels and i have been able to maintain going for a daily run on the treadmill.

Tomorrow i will hop onto the scales and see if there has been any further loss.

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