How different is Huel to protein shakes, that your average weights, six-pack devotee might consume?
I like Huel, but after feeling like I’m was putting on weight (I don’t do a great deal of exercise), I wondered if I was consuming something that isn’t designed for less active people.
Protein shakes are about getting additional protein into your diet so you can get mad gains after hitting it hard doing curls at the squat rack - whilst great for muscle growth, you cannot live on protein shakes alone.
Huel on the other-hand is a shake designed to help people avoid poor meal choices. Since it’s nutritionally complete, you could live off it if you wanted; but most of us use it in place of skipped breakfasts and crap lunches.
If you’re putting on weight then, simply, you’re consuming too many calories. Fill out this TDEE calculator and then adjust your daily calorie count or… do some exercise 
What he said
It might be argued that fat is the preferential energy source and that the need for carbs for a sedentary person is minimal. Without depleting muscle glycogen stores through activity a sedentary person might only need about 100g of carbs a day to top up liver glycogen stores - enough to fuel the brain and central nervous system. Huel provides 186g carbs per 2000kcal which could potentially mean that 86g of those carbs are un-neccessary for a sedentary person.
Though, to be honest, assuming energy intake and expenditure are balanced it shouldn’t really make that much of a difference.
There are a couple of “hacks” suggested if a low-carb Huel was desired.
https://huel.com/blogs/news/low-carb-huel-two-hacks
Hack 2 would seem to be preferable if you bought into the low carb for sedentary people argument.
Calories in, calories out.
I swear I wrote something similar the other day…
Huel is a complete meal, perfectly balanced, probably more so than the most healthy-eating-addicted would eat from a plate. I lost my joy in food as a result of illness five years ago and haven’t recovered it. I’ve had to use a number of workarounds to try and have a reasonable diet, complicated by HIV and diabetes. At my last HIV appointment the dietitian was finally back from maternity leave and, for the first time, a medical professional looked at the Huel site. She was impressed; in fact her only reservation was my use of fruit juice or fruit to add flavour as I’m scraping the upper limit of an appropriate sugar intake.