I’ve come to have to face the hard realisation that I am addicted to food and eating: once I take the first bite I feel like I cannot stop. That takes the form of grazing & bingeing for literal hours, leaving me barely getting any work done, avoiding all of life’s problems, my room a sticky mess filled with embarrassingly shameful crumbs, and of course an alarming weight gain trajectory.
I’ve just started going to OA out of desperation, and one thing they’re talking about is coming up and sticking to a “Plan of Eating”. I’m scared because I find it difficult to stick to anything, I have so little discipline. But this feels like my last hope.
I was wondering if anyone has used Huel on Overeaters Anonymous or think its possible to incorporate it into the programme?
I almost feel like I don’t know how to eat anymore. Thoughts / advice welcome.
Overeaters Anonymous? Wow, I’ve never heard of that before. I’ll have to check it out!
I’m a chronic over eater. I keep eating and grazing until I cannot stand up straight due to stomach pressure, or randomly fall asleep due to too much sugar…
I’ve seen some members do this journal format here so I figured I’d copy that and document my experience (occasionally probably since I can’t seem to stick to anything sigh)
So I’ve identified that the main thing I struggle with is having proper meals and moving on with life to do actual life-stuff. I feel chained to food. And so my first main goal is to have as many successful proper meals as I can. It’s basically what my OA sponsor suggested since I despaired saying I have no idea how to eat anymore.
How does Huel come in? I suppose I’ll use it as some said proper meals. Because it’s simple, uncomplicated, straightforward, nutritious. Without biologically additive substances like sugar. I don’t have to keep second guessing whether that was a “balanced healthy meal” which keeps me stuck and paralysed and gives a lot of grey area (aka my slippery slope into grazing and bingeing)
————— Successful Lunch down—100g Huel!
3+pm: It’s now 1h 20min after I had my Huel, and I was able to go to 2 meetings without my usual constant snacking (dang COVID and virtual meetings making this even possible for my undisciplined self!) I do now feel the habitual urge to reach for something to graze on, but I know I’m not biologically hungry.
I’m proud that I could take a pause long enough to journal all this out though, I’m usually trapped in my food-filled brain fog haze.
I know some members said they didn’t like the texture, but I really quite like the viscosity and graininess of it. I like the taste a lot too actually, it doesn’t actually need anything more in my opinion (I used the Mint Choc Huel here)
Hello and congratulations on the steps you have taken so far. Hopefully Huel will be a great help you you, as it has been for me. I’ve managed to finally lose most of the excess weight I’ve been carrying for years, by replacing either 2 or all 3 of my meals with Huel. I found the things that really helped me were the hot and savoury meals which give the choice between the sweet shake or a savoury meal. Also essential for me, as I have no willpower, is not having anything in the house that I don’t want to eat - this is easy for me as I live alone and don’t have to shop for family who want to have pizza, biscuits ice cream etc about the place, but obviously not everyone is in this situation! I’ve lost 2 stone of the 3 I would ideally like to lose, but am currently in a weight maintenance phase, working on the theory that it’s better to get half way to your ideal physique and maintain it, than get all the way to your ideal but end up putting all the weight back on again. This is an idea I got from Greg Doucette on YouTube, will be interesting to see how it works out. I figure I’m ⅔of the way to my goal, so if I can stay at this weight until the new year, then I will start to very slowly lose a bit more, maintain for a month or two, lose a bit more etc and see how it goes. Don’t know if anyone else out there has any thoughts on this concept? If so, I’d be interested to hear.
I have had issues with binge eating for as long as I can remember. Earlier this year I ended up in hospital with health issues caused partly by diet. Vowing to eat better I still struggled to stop binge eating. Someone suggested going plant based and I started to use Huel x2 a day a meal and snacks and I no longer get the cravings or urge to binge. I am now eating more plant based meals and use Huel for convenience and my binge eating fingers crossed is still under control. It’s strange as I still have treats - vegan magnums are my fave but stop at one - before I would have ate the whole box.
20 Nov 2021
Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts and experiences, it’s nice knowing I’m not alone and thanks for the welcome. Happy to struggle and triumph with you all.
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One thing I’m continually surprised about is how satiating Huel is for the calories. Had a whole bunch of Huel and by midnight I was still not hungry. Not stuffed, but satiated. What a miracle!
Had another successful lunch Huel again today and then off to meet a friend! I really like that it enables me to just get my nutrients in and move on with life.
A very helpful concept by OA is the one of individually triggering foods/ingredients that are meant to be avoided - most often sugar, for some people also concentrated starches, esp. food made from white flour. (Can be other foods, too, e.g. fried ones, but these seem to be the most prevalent.)
This is where huel comes in. With its low GI (at least I assume that is the reason why) I find it not to cause cravings - classic huel working better in that regard than black.
21 Nov 2021
Another successful lunch Huel down, and I’m off to run some errands. Ordinarily I’d be stuck at my desk munching. I did feel an odd sense of grief at the end of my Huel though, because I just want to keep eating. If this isn’t a brain of an addict I don’t know what is; but I’ll just power through to get better, knowing my body is adequately fed with good nutrients, one successful meal at a time.
For now, I’m committing to having a Huel lunch everyday for consistency and structure and learning to trust myself to fuel myself properly again. Baby steps!
Quick technical Huel question: Do any of you get that weird powder clump that stays in the top of the shaker?? I have no idea how to make it mix with the rest of the shake…
Thanks everyone for the help. It does sound like it’s been pretty tough for you @ooboo, you’ve got such a positive and self-aware attitude though, I think that is so good and will help you succeed.
I know what you mean here. I wrote something similar a while ago on a different thread but find this quite helpful for me. It might not be for you though.
We also have an article here about cravings which will help you understand them better.
This is interesting and feels like it makes sense. This wouldn’t work for me personally, as I would probably then not quite hit the half way to. But great if it works for you!
Do you mean in the spout cap of your shaker? Make sure you’re using the ice grid. It will stop the powder hit the spout in one big clump!
22 Nov 2021
Another successful Huel lunch down! Brought it to a work meeting. I like how Huel gives me the flexibility to work stuff into my schedule without having to worry about how I’m gonna get a nutritious lunch in (also London is so expensive to buy food outside so that’s a great draw to save some money too!) Pity it wasn’t ice cold how I like it when I got round to drinking it xD
well done on your progress so far. I like the OA breakdown of 3,2,1 for meal plans and think I will save that!
I wanted to comment as your description of grief after finishing your food is certainly one I can relate to - I know i’m not biologically hungry but I want to carry on eating.
I find carrots and chewing gun helpful if I crave some chewing. Huel is going to help fir sure. The satiating thing is what does it, versus the crave inducing sugars.
Making a quick evening meal also helps. You can buy/download a few vegan in 15 minutes cook books which are great for keeping you lurking in the kitchen.
23 Nov 2021
Thanks all for your tips and resources, I’ll definitely look into them!
Huel lunch again. I admit today I didn’t want to Huel I wanted to binge or stress eat because I’m moving and that’s my default way of dealing with stress. But I had a successful Huel and am going to try to deal with the moving stress in more adaptive ways (aka actually just doing the tasks that need to be done instead of trying to escape via food.)
One technique that helped me a lot was viewing it from the point of view of, you have 3 meals per day and snacks to master. You could say, 4 things to master.
And then based on that, starting with just the first one, breakfast. Still doing whatever you want for lunch and dinner and snacking.
And then moving onto lunch and getting that mastered into a healthy alternative. until eventually you have mastered all 4.
for me it made a daunting task of changing my eating habits feel very simple and achievable.
24 Nov 2021
Was tempted to skip my lunch Huel because I felt very peckish and didn’t wanna be eating Huel AND overeating with snacks, BUT I didn’t want to disappoint you guys so I guess the accountability helped me today! Okay so I did still end up eating Huel and many snacks, but I didn’t go as overboard as I usually would and Huel helped me affirm to myself that I am still making a valiant to effort to get my nutrients in.
Hi @ooboo Your doing really well and you are bound to have days when u go overboard. Think some of us put hot and savoury into a food flask which is an option for you if u dont feel like a shake. Remember 1 day at a time and if not there is always tomorrow. We are all hear to listen and help if need be.
26 Nov 2021
It’s so tempting to skip breakfast/lunch especially when I overeat at night (I tend to fall prey to night eating…) and am not very hungry, but I know skipping lunch will probably perpetuate the night eating or bingeing at night cycle. And so I dutifully make my Huel shake the night before, as a promise to myself that I will keep feeding myself nutrients regardless of my “mistakes” the day before. For consistency and structure and health.
Also salted caramel Huel is bombbbb. I drank this and then productively finished a work task! Woohoo.
Successful Lunch down—100g Huel! 
