I’ve been using Huel for a couple of months (well, started before Christmas but ate what I wanted over the holidays!). Starting weight around 107kg, now hovering around 102kg. I’m a fairly broad, big boned guy - I like to think I carry it well, but definitely still flabbier than I should be. Once or twice a week I do a short, Doug McGuff style workout (one super slow set to failure on various push/pull machines), hopefully to maintain or even increase lean muscle whilst I aim to lose 10-20kg.
Now, I can be very disciplined, but best in short bursts. Currently, I use Huel for 2-3 days a week to limit kcals to 500 on those 2-3 days. I workout after a fast day usually, and then eat a bigger, “cheat-ier” meal. I’m more relaxed at weekends, and then back to the fast-500 on Monday morning.
However, I’ve noticed this does come with significantly fluctuating energy levels, and despite what I expect should be my caloric deficit, I feel I’ve stalled at 102kg for a few weeks (I’m always trying to weigh in the morning after a low-cal day, to standardise how glycogen-replete I am at weigh-in so I don’t get bummed out by water weight fluctuations!). I’m also a bit worried about lean muscle preservation if going to low; I’ve seen people talk about a 1600kcal minimum for guys but don’t know where this comes from.
I’m really interested to know what people’s experience of a 5:2 versus every day approach is. I can keep going - honestly, I think if I knew it was working I could push cals as low as I wanted (I know, this sounds a bit disordered - I promise you it isn’t, I eat normal meals regularly with my family!), but I’m wondering if taking in MORE protein but spreading deficit across the week might be better. Like, 800 kcals from Huel each day for breakfast and lunch, which will give me 80g protein, then a normal meal which hopefully will be <1000kcal, and maybe an extra treat on workout day…?
Has anyone switched between these types of weightloss approach and wants to weigh in (ha ha) either way?
I don’t know about the 5:2 diet, but I can imagine the effect on energy levels. Everyone’s different but (for what it’s worth) what I’ve found best is to get into a routine that fluctuates as little as possible so it feels comfortable and easy to maintain. 500kc less per day than maintenance requirement is a good rule of thumb.
Is the super-slow weightlifting the only exercise you do? It might help to shift the scales to add something more cardiovascular: walking, running, cycling, rowing, etc.
I did 5/2 for a decade. I started having carefully counted 600 calories on fast days but after a short while went to zero calories two days per week making a fast of 30 ish hours (eg Sunday evening until Tuesday morning).
I lost some weight but like you it stabilised as I was eating more of other days.
However, I felt full of energy and very well especially in the evenings on fast days when I would play football etc and be very light on my feet.
I had stopped this for 2 years (stopped in pandemic - at home all the time and various other issues going on).
The on late ‘22 I had to lose weight for health reasons.
I did this very successfully by counting every calorie. I used an Apple Watch to measure the calories I was using (it’s very accurate for me at least - I know this as I could control my weight loss quite clearly by comparing calories in vs calories out)
Huel was super helpful in counting calories and making sure I have good nutritional benefit for them.
I believe the only real way to lose weight is by calorie defect. I went quite hard but a deficit of 500 ish is generally accepted to be sustainable until you reach target weight.
I used NHS weight loss app (as I trusted it) to count my intake - though it’s far from perfect (it’s I built in calorie amounts are unclear and/wrong so you have to search and save your own but once you’ve done this for a week or two you will have most of your regular foods/meals saved)
I found exercise as much as possible helps - it raises your calorie burn but most importantly it makes me feel good and that is motivating.
Of course it’s all different if you have any diabetes or health conditions.
That’s really helpful Jeff, thanks. Sadly I think you’re right - I say sadly as I’d really like to be able to keep losing weight just using fasting days, but something’s not quite working.
I’ve downloaded MyFitnessPal, and starting calorie counting on that. One big motivator is simply avoiding the effort of calculating cals! There was free pizza available at work today but because it would be too much effort to find an equivalent and input, and chances are it’d ruin progress, I avoided it - definitely would have had multiple slices before, as it would be a non-fasting day.
I’m shooting for a 750 deficit, but with an extra 400 on workout days. As you say, Huel makes it easy, and it means I can still regularly have my bacon sandwich and flat white on the way into work in the morning.
I think shooting for too much too fast is what led to problems; hopefully doing it a bit steadier but more consistently will see some results.
Remember that research is suggesting there are other very significant health benefits to fasting.
So that’s a factor too.
Also not sure about the built in calories amounts in my fitness pal but always check against packaging/supermarkets own info (online supermarket sites usually have calorie listing on the item info page). I’ve found that several apps with pre loaded calorie amounts and either just wrong, use inconvenient units, or different varieties. Eg houmous can vary a lot depending on brand.
Good luck.