My Huel journey (aim: 40kg weight loss)

I too have had problems for years with an eating disorder found huel awhile back after putting on weight after losing my son love the ease and nutrients of huel trying not to worry about the numbers and being more healthy going to try 100% huel for a couple of weeks see if I can lose a little bit of weight as well

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Great updates again and well done on your weight loss- you must be so chuffed!
I like reading peoples blogs including food etc for inspiration- im just back from holiday and need this motivation to get my butt back into gear before my next holiday in 5 weeks! eek! Id be keen to see what you are eating etc from the food diary youre keeping

Thanks! I like numerology, though my focus right now is astrology (in those terms, I started on this diet when Uranus went into my 6th House of health and nutrition… fancy that!).

And good luck with your quest! At time I admit the best thing Huel can do is sit on my desk in case I need something that feels substantial and will fill me up for several hours - I don’t always drink it then, as I’m training my body to deal with the sense of emptiness, so sometimes I just don’t do “breakfast” or a very late one at 10-11. My big thing was overeating, so portion size and stop eating when I’m not really hungry was big. All about learning to listen to your body, really.

The career change might get accelerated by Brexit, lol, especially if it’s a no-deal “hard” Brexit, and I’ll have to leave the country. But I made my peace with it as much as one can, really.

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Yep! It just takes the worry out of eating, I find. Good luck! How are you doing?

Thanks! Feeling good! :slight_smile:

What I eat - most mornings, I start with 2.5-3 scoops of Huel with water (I sometimes adda little coconut milk when I’m really hungry, but mostly it’s water). I have a cortado on the way to work (not a lot of milk, but less of a punch in the face than an espresso - I used to be a “Big latte, pls” person, so saving a lot of calories on the milk and portion size!) . That’s about at 7:30 in the morning.

The Huel keeps me going until about 14:00-14:30, which is when I take my lunch break. I tend to hit one of the food places around work, and these days it’s mostly sushi - I try to eat about 550 calories of sushi/salad or meat-filled dumplings (itsu is my go-to place); in winter I think I might go with a soup and side salad or similar. I’ll have a black coffee with a dash of milk if I need a boost to get through the rest of the work day.

If I feel peckish late in the afternoon, I might eat a Huel bar, but that hasn’t happened recently as my body got used to just going 6 hrs or so between meals without hunger. But I carry a bar in my backpack because I seem to have a psychological thing about worrying that I’ll get hungry and “stocking up” or “pre-eating” in case a famine breaks out between office and home. (eyeroll)

Since we’re both working and my partner is very weight conscious due to having to hit weight class for his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competitions, we’ve decided on a generally “low-ish carb, lots of vegetables, decent level of protein, no sweets/desserts” approach for dinner.

We used to subscribe to HelloFresh, but the truth is, while it’s tasty, they use a LOT of white rice and pasta and you easily put away 800kcal for an evening meal or worse, so we’ve switched to a delivery box service called MindfulChef, which supplies British athletes. The recipes are around 450-600 calories, absolutely loaded with vegetables and all the meat is great, but they also do vegetarian options. I think you can get the same effect with a decent cookbook that focuses on not using a ton of cheap carbs in the recipes - we use the boxes because we’re both working ad busy and it takes the “what shall we make for dinner” question away at least on work nights, which makes things easy. I was struck by how a chicken breast and courgette can really fill you up.

Weekends, we free-style a bit more. When I need to get a ton of work done, I might just go 100% Huel, mostly doing that when my partner is off in training camp (I’m not super into cooking for just one person). I might go to the local cafe and have an omelette with salad when I’m on my own, and largely just keeping within my calorie allowance. If I eat more, I ramp up my walking - skipping the bus, walking a few tube stations, skipping the bus, that kind of thing. Oh, and we have no sweets or cookies in the house - at all - and apart from the food boxes, there’s just milk, butter and, I think, a forgotten packet of halloumi in the fridge. Also avoiding all “ersatz” type products, such as “diet sweets” or “diet bars” or anything with sweetener - we’re trying to eat as natural and unprocessed as possible. (Yep, Huel is processed, but it does help.)

Starting weight: ~118kg (4 June 2018)
Current weight: 108.5kg (18 August 2018)
Lost: ~10kg
Next “minor goal”: 106kg by end-August
Intermediate goal: 94.9kg (ideally by end-2018)
Goal weight: 78kg (“stretch goal” is 68kg)

Comment: Struggled a bit the last two weeks - I was being good, and thought I was losing weight, but the scales said I didn’t, so bounced around a lot between 109kg and 110kg in those two weeks, but the last two days I seem to have cracked that first plateau. My highest weight ever was 118.5kg, so now I’m 108.5kg (as of this morning), so I call this 10kgs down and about 25% of the total lost. I’m meeting a friend tomorrow who hasn’t seen me since June, so she should really see the difference. My size 18 jeans are now really comfortable. Have been pondering pizza to celebrate and might actually do that as a “victory meal”, though I know you shouldn’t reward yourself with food - but it would be the first pizza in three months, and I can compensate that. But in actual truth I’m so relieved to be off the plateau that I’ll likely just eat my leftover pork salad from yesterday and then do Huel for the rest of the weekend. Trying to leave that plateau behind as quickly as possible and I have the ambitious goal of dropping 15kg by year-end. So I’ll be sensible and not give in. Note: “eating a little of the tempting food” doesn’t really work for me - I have to cut it out completely. Something in my family about “throwing away/wasting food”… Also increasingly using just 2 scoops of Huel for a meal instead of 3 (3 starts to feel excessive).

It’s all on track.

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At the moment bit out of control with food due to emotional issues but trying to get back on track with huel for brekki and lunch, you think I eat better ha as I’m a chef but my diet is so unhealthy :joy:

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You can do it. :slight_smile: Also, look at your emotional food triggers and deal with those? Things got very easy when I dealt with mine. :slight_smile:

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Starting weight: ~118kg (4 June 2018)
Current weight: 107.7kg (19 August 2018)
Lost: ~10.3kg
Next “minor goal”: 106kg by end-August
Intermediate goal: 94.9kg (ideally by end-2018)
Goal weight: 78kg (“stretch goal” is 68kg)

Comment: Here we go. The weight from the plateau just fell off over night, so I’m back on track. I really want to be out of “obese” by 31 December, and normal weight for my birthday in May.

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Hey Vash

Well done on your weight loss & getting through the plateau! I went through many of those when I lost the 8st & I’m sure I will this time with huel, sometimes you can easily see why it’s happening (eating more or moving less) but other times I think your body just protests a bit at constantly losing mass & you spend a week or a month or so feeling stuck & trying not to despair & then it will start moving again… I agree with the simple calories in/calories out science to weight loss but metabolism can be a complicated thing… Losing weight & altering your intake changes your metabolism & sometimes I think it can take a while to adjust overall. Consistency seems to be the key & my no scales/no counting thing is to partly avoid plateau despair & keep focus on the wider picture of better health & sticking to good habits with food.

You’ve smashed it though so no need to worry! And that is interesting about uranus going into your 6th house… Huel has been quite a lightning bolt change for me in this arena too, & uranus is all about that & new, modern & slightly radical ideas… I think huel life fits the bill pretty well for that! Most of my friends/family/colleagues are used to me being a bit weird & wonderful so huel has barely raised an eyebrow, I had one male colleague say my cherry cacao huel looked delicious but a younger female colleague said the whole idea was “weird, weird, just weird” & seemed very off-put! :joy: She is 26 though & still in possession of a very fast metabolism, has lots of takeaways & booze but is very active so it doesn’t show… I’m 32 but it’s definitely a bit harder keeping the lbs off & losing them than it was 5 years ago… I could definitely use being more active though, huel has helped with energy for that but been working a lot so it’s finding the time!

Hope you don’t have to leave if it is a hard or no deal brexit, altho tbh if it is I don’t think you would want to stay here cos I have a horrible feeling it will be carnage & if the stuff about rationing is anything like the truth I will be very glad to have some huel in stock!! But hopefully its all bollocks & won’t be as bad as people fear… :crossed_fingers: