I’m been lurking around the Huel forums for a while now reading everyone’s experiences after finding the product a Twitter promoted post.
I turned 40 in November last year and since January I’ve been roughly following the Joe Wicks “Lean in 15” diet and exercise program via his book. I’ve really loved it, the combination of eating lots of great food and exercising in short manageable sessions at home. I’ve lost a stone in body weight (13.5 to 12.5) and have become leaner and fitter (noticed via more sprints in my weekly five a side!).
My weakness has been the preparation side of things. Basically Joe asks you to “prep like a boss” on the weekend so everything’s ready for the week ahead but I’m just rubbish at this. I work from home and found myself spending too much time prepping food for lunch and losing work time. I began to worry I would fall back in to the trap of eating conveniently and thus poorly.
So I then saw Huel and thought this could be the answer to my problem? After researching by reading reviews and posts on this forum I bought my first pack this week and am using it either for a breakfast (with a double espresso!) or a lunch (with frozen fruit). My concern is that Joe says that “dust doesn’t burn calories, real food does” and whether taking Huel will impair the process of getting lean.
I’m hoping that from reading other people’s experiences it won’t and will actually be complimentary to what I’m already doing and prevent this “poor prepper” from slipping back in to bad lunchtime eating habits.
If anyone else is on the same dual path I’d be interested to see if the two are complimentary.
Cheers!
Paul
EDIT - actually my quote was a bit incorrect and I was paraphrasing - it should be “real food, not dust, burns fat.”
I’m not sure what that even means. Huel is real food, just in a powdered form. Besides, eating food, any food, doesn’t burn calories. That’s what exercise is for. Still, logic like that doesn’t sell loads of books I guess.
Personally I’ve been using huel for a little while now and I’m losing around 1kg a week (for a total of around 12kg) - this in spite of very little exercise. So I know it can work.
My advice is to try it with huel for a while - if it works for you and you enjoy it, then stick with it, never mind what a guy in the business of selling diet books says.
I wouldn’t knock Joe Wicks, he’s an honest enough bloke who’s doing a good service that people like and respond to and is being rewarded for it.
I assume he means the body works harder digesting chewed food rather than powdered food? Someone here will probably be able to shine more light on the topic.
Joe Wicks makes a million pounds a month selling cookbooks and diet plans which revolve around cooking traditional full meals so I’m not sure Huel fully fits in with his philosophy.
“Huel could be described as nutritionally complete flour. Huel may not be a whole food but 97% of Huel is made from six main food ingredients: oats, rice, pea, flaxseed, sunflower and coconut which have been processed but the processing is kept to a minimum.”
From a personal point of view Huel has been great for me and without any other significant lifestyle changes over the past couple of months I’m feeling fitter and have been consistently losing weight.
I used to end up buying supermarket sandwiches and quick lunches pretty regularly but Huel gives me another option. When I eat a full meal I probably enjoy it more as it’s something I want to eat rather than just eating because I’m hungry.
I’m a new user of Huel and on the exact same boat as you!!
Start of the year I purchased lean in 15 and I’ve got into really good shape. I’m using huel for breakfast and lunch and having a lean in 15 meal for my dinner (not always lean in 15 but a healthy dinner).
This is my first week of Huel and I’m feeling fuller and have more energy during the day! I’ll snack on almonds as I miss chewing food during the day.
As other users have said calories don’t burn themselves.
I’m currently doing a “beach body” routine as I’m away to turkey in 4 weeks so I’m going to post before and afters so keep an eye out for my post
All the best, I hope you pick Huel as so far so good for me!
Thanks for your reply. I got my first delivery of Huel this week so the decision has been made and am glad to have found someone on a similar path with positive experiences!
I’m just starting with 1 Huel meal a day for now but interesting to see you’re having two and are going great. Cheers for the feedback.
I started on three 500 Cal Huel a day, but found after three days of that I was beginning to lose the plot, so I stepped back and now do two a day and a healthy evening meal. In the first three days I lost 9 pounds (not unusual for me). Since then around a pound a day. Coming up to the end of my first full week and really enjoying it - like the fact that lunch is sat in the fridge at work, no shopping needed. Breakfast and lunch take around a minute to make in total and the unflavoured Huel really grows on you. Like double cream with digestive biscuits crushed into it.
Huel is real food, just in a powdered form. Besides, eating food, any food, doesn’t burn calories. That’s what exercise is for. Still, logic like that doesn’t sell loads of books I guess.