I’m new to these forums, but I have been looking for a little while. What surprised me was the relatively low count of users consuming almost entirely Huel. I had heard about Huel through an article a read a while back and kept track of it ever since. I am naturally quite a fussy eater so Huel was a godsend.
I’m a moderately active 28 year old and thought I could answer any questions from anyone considering going on a pure Huel diet. I say almost 100% because I consume four Huel shakes a day, with/without milk, and then an additional meal if I feel like I’ve missed out on calories. It’s definitely possible to survive off this stuff alone!
The first week or so was such a dramatic change to my diet that my body pretty much did not like the change and toilet-time became a bit of a nuisance. However, that all came to pass.
Huel makes up the majority of my meals (and by that I do only mean more than 50%), and it has done for nearly a year. My bloods came back perfect last week
I’ve been more-or-less 100% Huel for a few months now. I say “more-or-less” because I’ll occasionally swap out one of my shakes for something like an omelette or eggs on toast if I’m in the mood, and on Friday nights I have an Indian take-away. I also typically have a couple of snacks throughout the day - some Snack-a-Jacks, or some beef jerky or biltong. But the majority of my main meals in the week are Huel.
Other than a very short adjustment period at the start, when I experienced a headache (sugar come-down?), some excess wind and one or two days of slightly odd bowel movements, I’ve been absolutely fine on Huel. I feel great on it, actually.
I’ve been using huel for 4 weeks now and can honestly say other than the desire and want to actually chew something I’ve felt no need what so ever to eat anything else. I’m 75kg at 5ft 10 and despite having an active lifestyle I actually find that 4 servings of huel through the day does me fine and leaves me satisfied. Occasionally I’ll have a 5th as I did yesterday but that’s because I spent 2hrs at my BJJ club.
For nearly a year I’d been on a sugar free/High fat diet and although I was super lean from it I felt it nearly impossible to consume enough calories which meant I constantly felt lethargic. Now my energy levels are consistent all through the day. I also get to sleep much better than i did before. Huel works for me absolutely perfectly. It’s fits into my lifestyle, eliminates the stress of trying to eat healthily and frees up time for other things.
Nope, I don’t use flavour packs. Just the standard vanilla flavour Huel.
@rikefrejut I do have a blood test prior to start Huel! But not afterwards. Funnily enough, I’m due for one in 3 weeks. (I was quite sick before starting Huel >_< Had severe hypo-aldesteronism and postural hypertension. Suffered with it for about 3 years. Part of the reason why I’ve stuck with Huel is during the later months I felt it helped me recover.
Huel also healed me.
I suffered severe malnutrition, which made no sense since I ate ONLY good healthy foods - lots of veggies, meat, fish, nuts and a bit of fruit. I never have been one to eat take outs, snack foods, sweets, treats, condiments and all the other ‘unhealthy’ food stuffs. Somehow my body was not absorbing the nutrients from my food. I first tried taking daily vitamin supplement pills, and also took 2 huge calcium/Vit D tablets every day, but I was still severely depleted in vit D. No explaining it, other than perhaps I only eat about 1000 calories a day. I also only eat about 1000 calories of Huel per day now still, and I’m super healthy. There is something magical in Huel, that is for sure, but I don’t know what that magic is. I’m on about 80% to 90% Huel most weeks, but sometimes friends take me out to dinner, now and then. I do put milk in my coffee, but I’ve done that all my life.
About twice a week I have a shot of liquid multivitamins (organic carbon based) with a teaspoon of dried supergreens stirred in, but I only started this extra addition recently, and only because one is supposed to have 2000 calories of Huel per day, and I can’t eat that much. I must mention that I was perfectly healthy on 1000 calories of Huel per day without the supplements for months, so I probably don’t need the supplements, but I take them anyway, just in case.