If anyone’s at all interested, here’s the story of my Huel experience so far with a bit of preamble to explain why I decided to buy Huel.
I was initially very sceptical despite the very positive reviews of a few colleagues at work. I was finally convinced to give it a try by the fact my health and physical condition has deteriorated over the last few years to the point where I can’t play the sports I used to love to any sort of acceptable level. Also, my colleagues are a very fit bunch - I’m very much lagging behind!
Anyway, the nature of my job necessitates a very early start and whether I get time for lunch most days is a complete unknown. Combine that with children, a house that needs work, a car that often needs work, and extended families that live on opposite sides of the country, I typically feel like I’m falling apart.
All this has led to chronic binge eating. I’ll get home with no interest in cooking and just massively overindulge in whatever takeaway interests me that evening. I’ve been known to stop at McDonalds on the way home then order a pizza as soon as I’m through the door. It’s pretty tragic really. I’m just so hungry I need it and I need it now!
So, for the last week I’ve been having Huel for breakfast (2 scoops initially, then moving up to 3) and having a normal lunch and dinner. I’m trying to change only one thing at a time as I’ve had plenty of false starts for my transformation plans in the past when I’ve tried to change everything all at once.
It’s probably no surprise that my digestive health is terrible and I regularly have IBS type symptoms . It got so bad a while ago I had a few weeks signed off work. This led to quite a bit of anxiety about all the stories about gastric distress I’d read in relation to Huel. It turns out that, for me, Huel has had no weird effects so far.
The first couple of days I felt full for ages after drinking Huel, but it seems to have settled into a normal pattern of feeling hungry at lunch time. I think now I’ll probably need a banana mid morning. In my previous pattern I was eating crisps and croissants after starting work so Huel must be an upgrade in comparison!
I’m not having any revolutionary spikes in energy levels, probably because the rest of my diet isn’t amazing, but my theory is that at least for this initial stage my breakfast is giving me a fighting chance for the day ahead.
I’ve found the ease of making it the night before and grabbing it out the fridge as I wearily stumble out the house an absolute blessing. It also means I don’t have my usual miserable commute crippled by hunger. And I’m not tempted to buy a muffin at the station while I wait on my train.
So far it’s all good, but I have found a weird feeling that I don’t want to tell anyone for fear of being judged. I haven’t even told my colleagues and have been washing my Huel bottle in secret before hiding it… Hopefully my mental health improves along with my physical health and I can be more open with people about my use of Huel.
So there you go. Thanks for sticking with me through this monster post.
/Carrot
