Sebo's Hule experience thread

Experiences
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I’ve created this thread to track my experience of using Huel as a replacement for two meals a day and also to provide feedback to @Julian and @JamesCollier on my experience of Huel as a brand / business. I am in the throws of helping my wife to set up a small business so I am acutely aware of the costs, time and effort involved in marketing a new venture. The content will be boring to most but I’m finding it cathartic to get everything down.

Background

Now aged 33, I spend 10 to 12 hours a day sat at a desk. The brief moment I do get to grab lunch, only affords me time to eat in the company canteen which doesn’t offer the greatest range of healthy food (cheesy pasta, wedges and garlic bread is one of their speciality dishes) so I tend to eat a chicken salad baguette on most days. I tend to make excuses as to why I don’t bring my own lunch in but the reality is - on certain things, I am lazy,

Things weren’t always this way - between the age of 17 and 22, I trained in the gym and the kitchen obsessively and maintained a decent physique. I followed a very clean diet, trained hard, rested and stretched. Ok maybe I didn’t stretch…

This was the period where I became familiar with the Muscletalk forum. A superb source of information and a great community - particularly James. His advice and guidance to many hundreds (probably thousands?) of people on the forum was phenominal.

Now

Fast forward 10 years or so and I’m a (much more rotund) shadow of my former self. A growing family, sizeable commute and chained to a desk have built me up to 15 and a half stone with 3 inch love handles and a gut that a darts champ would be proud of. It’s harder to shift the pounds and easier to add to them (though I am lighter than my heaviest at 17 stone… I really was in a bad way then)

Why Huel?

Until last week, I was completely unaware that complete food shakes existed. I’ve used various protein shakes and meal replacements over the years (Whey, Soya, Colustrum, Casein etc) but never a product that has claimed to be able to completely fulfill a person’s nutritional needs, if they so wish. Over Christmas, Huel popped up on my Facebook feed (i’ve since seen it on 9GAG but whether this is as a result of cookies on my phone due to being on here) so I had a read. Being someone that suffers from Iritable Bowel syndrome - or at least iritated by wheat and dairy, the idea of a vegan calorie controlled meal rang out to me. The ease of making the shakes also appeals to me, particularly as I plan to build up to replacing my breakfast and lunch, both of which are whilst I am at the office. I also noticed that James is part of the team behind the product which was a ringing endorsement.

Next Steps

I’ve ordered 1 week’s supply of Huel. I figured that I’ve tried lots of protein powders over the years and even the very worst are just about palatable. Hell, I used to drink 3 raw eggs for breakfast (it was just a phase…!) so Huel can’t be worse than that.

I appreciate that Huel isn’t designed as a weight-loss product but I plan to use it in conjuction with myfitnesspal to help me reach my goal.

My order should be here next week and I’ll ease myself into it by replacing one meal a day and tracking my progress here.

2 Likes
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Hi Sebo - thanks for the post and good to have you here. What was your username on MuscleTalk?

Are you going to be training regularly too? Why not start a progress journal on MT too? Other members can motivate you.

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Hi James

I am / was Sebo on muscletalk too. More of a lurker than a poster - I normally found the answer via the search function…

I am going to be doing as much training as I can fit around work and home life - mostly walking, running and cycling I imagine but may get in the office gym from time to time. It’s been quiet today actually so I’ve managed to do 30 mins on the treadmill and some core work.

I’ll have a think about the MT journal. It’s not a bad shout, I do recall losing many an hour on MT though… :slightly_smiling:

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ok, great - well any questions, do just ask

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Hi Sebo,

Your story is very familiar to me. I’m 36, with a sedentary job and looking wistfully at photos of myself from 10 years ago. I recently experimented with calorie counting using an app to track everything I ate. This worked brilliantly and I learnt a lot - but I was still spending tonnes on readymade food from shops and the canteen for the same excellent reason you have (lazy!)

I think you will find it straightforward to lose weight with Huel. If you can bear to eat nothing else then I think it’s extremely straightforward - once you’ve established your ideal target calories - to measure our the exact amount of powder each day and spread it out over the course. That’s what I’m doing and so far it’s working well. It just needs a bit of willpower and maybe some flavours for variety. Colleagues know what I’m doing so there is no mystery why I arrive at work with an empty shaker every morning :slightly_smiling:

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Day 1

The Huel arrived yesterday within the 1 hour time slot, as advised in the morning by the courier company. All well packaged, including the complimentary tee shirt. I have one week’s supply of vanilla V1.2 Huel and it came in 4 860g bags.

Opening the bag and there is a certain amount powder between the seal and tear off strip. I’d recommend you tear off the opening over a bin, or at least somewhere you don’t care about getting powder on. It’s not an issue at all, but hopefully this helps some to not open the bag over their keyboard… :slightly_smiling:

The smell is quite nice. A subtle vanilla smell unsurprisingly.

Today being the first day, I am replacing only 1 meal, my breakfast. I’ve gone for 114g / 467 calories (approx 3 scoops) and have weighed this out on a set of digital scales. I’ve mixed this with 500ml or water as I like thicker shakes.

I’ve mixed it on my shaker for a good 45 seconds to a minute and left it 5 mins to sit and then mixed again for another 20 seconds.

The conistency of my Huel is like a protein shake mixed with milk (I used to drink Cyclone with water and it was very thin and not particularly pleasant to drink).

You can see the ingredients in the shake. It’s not gritty at all but you can feel the pieces of desicated ingredients. For someone that has a pretty bad gag reflex, this is quite nice. Its a bit like a thin porridge in some respects (possibly as I’ve used less water than recommended and left it to sit for a while).

Actually, now I am drinking more of it, it reminds me of some of those “bircher museli” pots that juice bars sell. Sort of a mix between yoghurt, porridge and museli. I reckon this could be a potential meal idea - slightly less water again and blend in some berries and seed mix and eat from a bowl.

The vanilla taste is quite subtle, to me at least. I suspect it’s doing just enough to mask whatever the underlying value of the pea protein etc so adding in other flavours or powders wouldn’t be an issue I’d have thought.

Sealing the bag is ok although I’m not the best with these things anyway. I’ve improvised with some bulldog clips, not that its particularly a problem.

I’ve now finished my shake and feel a bit like I’ve eaten a bowl of porridge. Hopefully unlike porridge, I’ll feel satisfied for at least 4 hours. I seem to be able to eat inordinate amounts of porridge and still not feel full for long. Hoepfully the addition of protein in Huel will help.

I’ll report back later with the effects on my stomach (any bloating or gas etc) and for how long i feel full for.

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Hi @Izzard

Cheers for the comments, I’m interested to hear how you get on with Huel too.

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Love the blog I’m crap a writing lol I started my huel today I’m going 75% to start and I must say I love the taste.

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Felt satisfied until the middle of the afternoon. No windy pops (no more than usual) and not craved sweet things quite as much as usual. The real test will be a few days of replacing 2 meals and seeing how I get on. So far though I can’t fault the taste and the mixing.

Happy New Year all

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What I’ve found is that replacing breakfast is a doddle. Replacing lunch, too, is easy and “dinner” is achievable. Staying up late and not dipping into the snack cupboard is nigh-on impossible so far (a couple of weeks in)!

(By the way, I’m sort of keeping my own “journal” here: Riding the sweetness rollercoaster )

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Opened the second bag today as this one will be staying at home for the weekend meals and I didn’t have the same issue as yesterday with the powder being in the bit between the zip lock and the rip bit of the packaging. Another shake (equivalent to 3 scoops) made this morning. Mixed just as well as yesterday.

I was a bit windy last night but this may well have been down to my dinner ! TMI…

I’ll continue with one 3 scoop shake a day until Monday and then potentially up it so that I get 1000 cals from Huel and 1000 from solid food. The calorie counter reckons I need about 2300 a day to maintain my weight (as I am generally very sedentary) so I’ll see if I get hungry on 2000. I suspect the odd day that I manage to get in the gym or do a run will be when I’ll want some extra cals but we’ll see.

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Day 4

Still continuing with one 3 scoop shake a day for breakfast and so far so good. I can tell that another week on and I’ll be wanting to vary the flavour a bit but that shouldn’t be a problem.

From tomorrow I’ll be upping to two 3 scoop shakes a day plus an evening meal.

Including snacks and other drinks, I plan to consume between 2000 and 2300 calories a day and see what effect that has on appetite, hunger, energy, sleep, mood and finally (over the course of a week) weight.

It would be great if I felt satisfied, had no negative effects AND started to lose 1lb to 2lb a week. For me that would be the sweet spot of Huel. I’ll track everything on MyFitnessPal and can see what happens.

Cheers

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My first day of 1 shake for breakfast and 1 for lunch went ok. I was a little bit hungry between breakfast and lunch but was pretty full by the time I got to my evening meal. I have to say, I am a big eater but a 3 scoop shake in water properly fills me up - probably for 3.5 to 4 hours.

I was a little bit windy last night but not really any worse than when I was having 1 shake a day. I wonder whether I would be able to actually consume 2000 calories of Huel (4x3 scoop shakes) a day if I went to 100% Huel as it’s quite filling. 3 shakes yes, 4… not sure. A nice problem to have though for someone like me trying to lose weight.

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Hi Sebo,

On the weight loss front, I’ve been doing 1-2 huel shakes a day with solid (veggie) food top up since just before Christmas, and managed to lose a notch off my belt over the festive period.

Had my first session in the gym today while on Huel, and had plenty of go and didn’t get hungry. Currently doing 2 shakes since the start of the year. Seems to be going well!

Also, one of the main reasons I started was sheer laziness. I wanted to find something for when I couldn’t be arsed to cook or wash up which also helped me lose weight. Huel seems to be the answer so far!

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That’s good going, particularly over the Christmas period when most folks are putting on weight!

For me, I have 15 mins to eat my lunch before my next meeting. Normally I would wolf a baguette down and maybe a snickers or a bag of crisps but I have made myself a 3 scoop shake and am currently drinking that. At least that way, I know I will have consumed less than 1000 cals by the time I go home this evening, had plenty of protein and not loads of sugar.

I do have a concern that there’s the same amount of Sat Fat in a 3 scoop shake as is in a Mars Bar but at the end of the day, all the protein, aminos, good fats etc AND low sugar, far outweigh that Sat Fat (to my mind at least).

I’ll weigh myself on Saturday and see what, if anything, this has done to my weight, after a week and a bit

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First post! I got my first delivery of Huel just before New Year and will write up my experience in due course, but so far am having a very positive experience not dissimilar to yours Sebo.

On a three scoop shake having as much saturated fat as a Mars Bar I don’t think you need be concerned. A Mars Bar is just high density calories with very limited other nutritional value. Comparing a balanced meal (e.g. three scoop shake) which will fill you up for a period of time with a unhealthy snack isn’t fair, which you do acknowledge in your post.

Good luck with the Saturday weigh-in. I was pleasantly surprised this morning for mine!

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Thanks @tednol

So far so good. 2 shakes a day and a proper dinner has been going well. I am a bit hungrier than usual today but I was up an hour earlier than usual and got absolutely soaked on the commute in this morning and haven’t managed to get warm since!

What I really want to convey from my experience so far is just how well Huel “agrees” with my digestive system. If I was having two whey protein shakes a day, I would be in pieces.

The other thing that Huel has done is level off my sugar swings and maintain better focus mid afternoon. My usual coffee and a muffin / choccie bar has been replaced with a small handful of nuts or a banana, if indeed I am not still full from my lunchtime Huel.

I am going to buy myself some flavour mixes shortly to change up the flavour of my Huel to save me getting bored of it

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Weighed in at 15 stone this morning so I’ve lost about 6 or 7 pounds since I started on Huel on New Years Eve (10 days ago).

Naturally some of that is going to be organic weigh loss just as a result of it not being Christmas and thus no longer eating lots of Pate and Cheese but the Huel is definitely helping.

I’ll weigh in again this time next week and see if I’ve managed to maintain a sub 15 stone weight

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Great going, Sebo. I ditched the scales at the start of all this. Ultimately, I’ll know if I’m achieving my goals from how my body reacts to the gym and the notches falling off my belt.

On the mental side of things, I’ve had issues with depression and anxiety over the past year, but I’ve found that if anything, my mood has been noticeably stable since committing to it. Of course, I’ve been combining this with exercise which is definitely playing a major part in rebuilding my self esteem, but I think having a consistent source of energy that’s not too much and not too little is also helping me keep it on a level.

As for the digestive - I had a couple of interesting moments when I first started and it took a few shakes before my stomach got on page with Huel, but persistence was definitely key and now everything seems to be working just fine. Better, in fact, considering my diet of booze and shit food leading into this would create a plethora of unspeakable horrors which has probably left my toilet with PTSD.

I’ve hit the gym a few more times since my last post, and think Huel may be one of the best pre-workout foods available. The energy is consistent and I’ve got more go than I’m used to, I don’t get hungry during or immediately after the workout (this was a problem before as I’d reward a gym trip with junk), and it’s pretty damn light on the stomach so I don’t feel like I’m taking a whole house with me in my stomach when I hit the cross trainer.

Two Huels and a decent meal seems to be a winner too. I look forward to the meal more than I did before and can put proper thought and effort into putting together something healthy rather than just shoving any old crap in my face.

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Still going with 2 shakes a day plus a sensible dinner. Tried the toffee flavour pouch just now with my lunch shake - it was alright and has kept me interested as I was getting a little bit bored of just the vanilla flavour. I’ll try the Rhubarb and Custard flavour tomorrow.

I’m a little constipated in the evenings so am experimenting with adding a small glass of juice to my diet to help things along.