Hello, I’m Richard and I’ve come to Huel to fix my calorie deficit.
I’m studying at Cambridge and row with my college, I’m also trying to bulk, of myself and for rowing. The end requirement for this is at least 4500 kcal, but I think probably 5500-6000kcal in reality. I have been eating 3-5 meals a day and whilst 5 was working, I just lost too much time from my degree and also digesting it all was a problem.
In a couple of hours I’m going to take my first meal of Huel which is quite exciting. I wanted to know if anyone else has done the same - has it worked? I also wanted to know what you thought of my plan:
kcal on RHS (hopefully - tell me if wrong)
Cereal, often porridge, always with honey, or sometimes peanut butter & Nutella. ~1000
Protein shake if rowed in morning ~400
Lunch (cooked moderate size) ~ 600-700
Huel 1: 5 scoops with milk to the top ~ 1000
Dinner (cooked bigger than lunch) ~700-900
Protein shake if gymming close after dinner ~ 400
Protein shake after gym if I can handle it with Huel as well ~ 400
Huel 2: 5 scoops with milk ~ 1000
Total kcal: 4700-5400
I hope these estimates were as conservative as I think and actually this will be much more.
This brings up the questions:
Do 5 scoops work ok?
Does milk work well (vanilla Huel)?
Do I need to worry about overloading any nutrients, in particular: is whey pointless with 300% protein? My real food will contain some but is not a reliable source.
It has become very clear that 5 scoops is too much, at least in one go.
Edit: Further update. Maybe this is my own fault but I’m suffering serious nausea and after taste. Its stuck to the back of my throat and nothing is moving it
If you use a blender it will be smoother and easier.
I can get 5 scoops in a blender you, need to add a little water first, say 300ml, then 3 scoops, shaker, add some more water and 2 more scoops, then shake, then add more water.
Adjust the amount of water and you should be fine, I add more water to mind as I prefer it thinner.
A normal whey protein shake yields around 80g of protein from 400cals (100g). So if you really are having 3x 100g protein shakes a day in addition to Huel and your other protein sources, then it is probably excessive (dependant on your bodyweight, I’m assuming you’re not huge). Whether that is harmful is debatable but at the very least it is probably a waste of money (you could just use a cheap calorie source like oats to hit your calorie goals).
That said it would be good to get @JamesCollier’s input
If you’ve never tried rowing you won’t realise, but even at the casual level it’s intense. One hour of erging can burn 1000 kcal… then I’m trying to bulk too! Every day is a rowing day and 3 days are gym days, sometimes more.
I’m 185cm, 77kg (and going up I hope), extremely lean, very very very fast metabolism.
Typical week:
2-3 hour outing (i.e. actual rowing)
1 hour erging
outing, gym in evening
gym
erging
outing gym in evening
rest
Hi Richard - I know it’s one of the most enduring, but that that’s still a lot of food for every day. With that amount of exercise, no wonder there’s little time for your studies!
Huel will definitely help make things simply. I would maybe knock back around 10 scoops per day maybe:
