So…help me out here. 53 years old. Been on the Huel thing for 2 weeks. Following 3 x per week workout routine with Freeletics. Huel Black edition 2 per day for 5 days. 15000 steps per day on average…weight has gone up by 1.6kgs and body fat up by 5%!!!
maybe ur special
Probably not - just looking for some genuine insights as to why this might be happening
theres got to be more factors to it than that… what else has coincided during this time?
Not enough information to speculate really. A few questions to narrow it down:
- What do you mean by been on the Huel thing? Specifically what are you eating each day? How many scoops/weight of Huel, are you mixing with water or milk, adding anything else? What are you eating apart from Huel for meals and snacks?
- What do you drink each day? Tea, coffee, soft drinks, booze?
- What were you eating before?
- What is your height, weight, age, gender? Do you know what your TDEE is?
- How are you measuring body fat percentage?
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- What do you mean by been on the Huel thing? Specifically what are you eating each day? How many scoops/weight of Huel, are you mixing with water or milk, adding anything else? What are you eating apart from Huel for meals and snacks? 2 scoops of powder in ice cold water for Breakfast and lunch. evening meal is generally something healthy (fish, chicken or steak with salad) Weekends are Huel free and will be a balanced diet.
- What do you drink each day? Tea, coffee, soft drinks, booze? Have a gin and tonic now and again. 2 or 3 cups of tea a day. the rest is water
- What were you eating before? I have dropped bread and pasta out of my diet.
- What is your height, weight, age, gender? Do you know what your TDEE is? 171cm - 87K - 53 - males
- How are you measuring body fat percentage? Renpho scales
TDEE is 2474 - I am aiming for 1850, which would suggest circa 0.5KG loss per week
By no means is this meant to be unhelpful, but if you’re weight is increasing and the Renpho scales are correctly measuring that it is a fat increase (and I’ve no reason to doubt that) then the calories in are in excess of what you need.
Are you using My Fitness Pal (or similar) to record your daily calories?
Thanks for the reply. I am using My Plate (the Livestrong app) to track calories. My concern about going too low with the suggested calorific intake is that my body stops being efficient and is actually counter productive
Quite agree, slow and steady is absolutely the best way.
My near 16,000 steps yesterday, according to Apple, accounted for 450 active calories but my stupidly long progressive-overload based gym session accounted for only 200 active calories. I give those values a nod of appreciation but know that they can be out by a good few % and don’t factor them in for my calorie target.
Personally, I would aim to try and find the maintenance calorie for definite then work a deficit from that. I know it might add another week onto things but better to know for sure.
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Have you factored in any medications that may support weight gain? Are you getting enough sleep or experiencing any daily stressors?
There are a few things that could be going on here, so I’ll throw out some suggestions and see if any apply.
- Your hydration changed between your first scale reading and your last one. Weight can fluctuate fairly significantly day to day depending on hydration and water retention. This will also affect how your scales calculate body fat %. Try weighing daily for a week to get a feeling of normal fluctuations for you. This can be very much impacted by alcohol intake, so even the odd G&T can show up as a false weight gain the day after due to water weight.
- Your TDEE is lower than you think. I put your numbers into an online calculator and the sedentary figure was 2015, so it might be lower than you’ve been working with.
- Your calories from Huel should = 800kcal per day based on what you entered. Are you tracking ALL of the rest of your calories? Milk/sugar in tea or coffee, salad dressing, croutons, a sprinkle of cheese, oil or butter in cooking (1 tbsp oil = c.120 kcal), is that steak really 200g or is it nearer 300g? Do you count the calories in your G&T? It only takes a few small things to wipe out any deficit.
None of the above might be relevant, just some suggestions.
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Most importantly don’t get disheartened, you’ve only been drinking Huel for 2 weeks. I think many people use Huel as a weight loss tool, and it works for them. I don’t use Huel to lose weight, but I did want to lose a few kg a couple years ago and it did make it easy to calorie count.
Unfortunately not every one is the same, and you may not need the recommended daily calories to maintain weight anyway. Just tweak things a bit and see what happens. People here are generally supportive.
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Thanks Liath. I do try to count all the calories I am taking in. I will try the daily weighing idea. The water intake is an interesting view, I have been consciously upping my water intake. I would have thought this would be a positive as I am more focused on BF % dropping as opposed to weight. I also exercise 3 times per week (weights and 6k walks) so put that into the TDEE calculator. This show 1820 to drop 0.5K per week
Water is indeed very important for a whole host of reasons including, specifically, it is a required piece of the puzzle in terms of metabolising fat into energy for the body.
Two weeks isn’t a long time, but the basic law of thermodynamics tells us that the clear and single most important thing about weight loss is CICO. Calories in vs calories out. If your general and exercise output is higher in energy use than the caloric input you consume then you will lose weight.
Get a kitchen digital scale and count absolutely everything, because you’re missing something here. Don’t forget to include sauces or oils used in cooking, look at any alcohol intake.
Sodium intake can prevent some weight loss due to the body retaining water. Likewise with workouts and exercise, ever fee sore afterwards? That inflammation is the body flooding the area with water to help rebuild the muscle and dilute lactic acid. But this is not enough to mean that you shouldn’t be losing weight.
A 500 daily caloric deficit = 3500 calories over the course of a week so you should be on track to lose a lb a week or thereabouts. You must be counting the calories wrongly somewhere, go back and take a long hard look at your food, include everything even milk in tea.
Best of luck, let us know how you get on!
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One other thought. It’s entirely possible to wipe out 5 days of deficit over the course of a weekend. Might be worth looking at your weekend Huel free days to get a better idea of the calories.
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Nailed it here.
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Try weighing the scoops. If you want to count calories, its important to weigh, because sometimes the huel becomes very compacted in the packaging - you may be consuming extra calories 
good luck