Well I am a British army veteran who got injured back in 2014 and was medically discharged in 2015. I had always planned to be a chaplain so after leaving the forces I decided to go to uni and get a degree. Literally went from daily physio to sitting at a desk all day.
I am 5ft 9” and within a short period I had gone from weighing 75kg to 95kg. Most of it is fat! I went to my GP and she was surprised to see how much I had gained and said I was at high risk of type 2 diabetes. She said it is not a question of if I will get it, but when.
Gotta say I was pretty stunned, so I joined a gym and started watching what I ate, which brought me down to 91kg. I have officially plateaued and no matter how I mix up my diet or what exercises I do, the weight won’t shift. I did some tracking and discovered that my diet isn’t has healthy as I thought and it seems like I’m eating just enough of the wrong nutrition to hold on to the fat, without gaining muscle.
I looked on the NHS website and came across total meal replacements. I did some digging and discovered Huel. My first order will arrive tomorrow.
My plan, is over the next week, to transition to eating 100% Huel and eat only Huel for a month or so, and then slowly reintroduce healthy foods for dinner.
Calculated that I will need to consume between 1200 to 1500 calories per day.
Welcome and well done on your progress so far (it may seem like you’ve not made much progress but losing 4kg is a great start, and you’ve made lots of lifestyle changes and you’ve made your mind up to transform your diet and your health, so you’ve actually done the most important steps already)
It sounds like you have a good plan.
The only thing I’d recommend is to transition onto 100% huel a little more slowly - maybe over 3 weeks rather than one week because it will take a while for your digestion to become accustomed to the high fibre diet. Jumping straight in could cause loads of gas and diarrhoea and other unpleasant symptoms that will take longer to disappear than if you ease yourself in more gradually.
Maybe one huel meal a day for a week then 2 meals a day for a week - something like that. Don’t be too strict with yourself initially, just see how fast your body becomes used to it.
Maybe have it as your goal to be 100% huel within a month. After all a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Another thing I would check out is your calorie intake. Is 1200 correct? It seems quite low.
I’m 5ft1, 40yrs, and female and my days are sedentary apart from some planned exercise. I would struggle on 1200 calories a day. Just double check it and adjust if you need to. No point making it too hard for yourself. A daily deficit of 500 calories a day will give you a steady consistent weight loss. More than that and it will be almost impossible to maintain for more than a few weeks.
Lastly, maybe (if you want to) allow yourself some fresh steamed vegetables on top of you huel diet. It can help a lot allowing yourself something to chew, and vegetables are really low calorie and super healthy.
That depends on your personal preference though - some really need some solid food to stay sane!
You have a great attitude and I’m sure you will succeed. Keep us posted on your progress!
Oh and if you struggle to like huel initially (its a bit of an aquired taste - most people don’t like it at first but then love it after a while!) then search the forum for ideas on how to find a mix that suits your taste buds - there’s loads of ways to improve the texture and flavour, from adding plant milk to fruit or cacao or flavour boosts etc.
Definitely a must though: don’t get excited and mix it and drink it straight away!!!
Follow the instructions to mix it up, then leave it in the fridge for at least 4 hours.
This is essential really - the soaking makes for a smoother texture and the flavour also mellows out and improves. It’s also nicer cold!
The most important tip I can give you is to experiment to find out how you like Huel best, cause otherwise if you don’t like it it’s gonna be hard. For example, chocolate is the first flavour I can drink 100%, before that I’ve sort of struggled with other flavours for over a year. Also, I definitely farted (and worse) a lot for the first year, so repeating the advice above ease in slowly and expect some… wind.
How I experimented:
different flavours
different mixers ie water/milk/soy milk/etcetc
different liquid to huel ratio (i like it really quite liquid, ie 425ml water + 75g huel.)
I’m sure you can think of more, there’s also tips on the forum here like leaving it in the fridge, or using green tea to mix etc etc.
Oh, and never have sugary stuff before Huel, your tastebuds will be disappointed otherwise.