Too much caffeine

And every daft blogger and Youtuber in the world.

I’m consuming mostly Huel and most days I do 100% Huel products and water (3.0 Powder, Bars and H&S).

However, in a social world, it’a impossible to avoid “normal” food entirely. And we don’t want to do that, as this will affect our mood and will make it very hard to stick to in the long term.

Even that, for the last 3 years, I usually eat at least 95% of my weekly calories from Huel products, I think the key is not to private you from anything you like, and I don’t think someone can stick to a real 100% Huel and water for more than 4-5 weeks (due to psicological effects and social pressure)

Those of us who are 100% are definitely a small minority. There are however many who are around 90% for a long time too. (I say 90% as a guesstimate to imply using Huel for vast majority of calories.)

I’ve been eating Huel for 100% of my calories (with no exceptions) for 5 years now, and still used to take part in all typical social activities before corona. Never experienced any psychological effects nor social pressure - can you expand on what you mean by that?

1 Like

Uau, you have a very strong will power @rikefrejut What I meant by that is that it’s very hard to drink just water when you go out with friends.

Maybe the expression “psychological effects” sounded too heavy, but in general, I believe that restricting me for something for a long time will make me feel depressed (I had this feeling with the forced lockdowns for Covid as well). I prefer to use Huel for convenience, health benefits, environmental benefits, etc. but still don’t be “forced” to stick to it (and feel free to eath other things whenever I want).

2 Likes

What happens if you get asked to go out for dinner?

Social pressure is an issue, you’re right. But it is possible to join activities without eating “normal food” like everybody else. People might ask weird questions or might not be happy about it, but honestly it’s their problem, not mine. And as soon as people know what to expect from someone they stop asking. So it is possible to live on a full liquid diet in a social world without being anti-social.

Are you offering them out?

1 Like

Technically you are right in what you say but on a social level if you go out for a meal with friends part of the social experience is everybody having something to eat together. If you don’t eat then even though you are there you are still being anti-social to some degree.

If your friends have a problem with you not joining in then the problem is directly their problem and not yours but it becomes your problem indirectly because that is what people will think of you. Whether you care what they think of you is something else entirely.

Imagine going on a first date with someone and you go out for dinner. They eat and you don’t. You sit there watching them eat and they sit there watching you watching them eat. It’s just awkward, is it not?

As I understood it the caffeine content is 66mg (Black Edition) or about 90mg (v3) per 400 kcal, right? So for 2000 kcal one would get 330mg or 450mg of caffeine for a daily consumption of 2000 kcal - which means that only Black Edition would be below the maximum value that one is allowed to consume per day. Just not in the evening - but theoretically it would be possible to live on the caffeine-containing flavours only; at least if the other drinks are decaf. And with dinner(-shake)-skipping there should be no problems with sleep quality.

Or am I wrong?

And is there some way of antagonizing the effect of caffeine?

Nothing in the normal toolkit.
Activated charcoal - not recommended
Laxatives - even less recommended.

How much caffeine do you tolerate without negative side effects? And what is the latest time you can consume caffeine without getting sleep disturbances?

In the Coffee Caramel and Coffee varieties, yes.

Sorry if I’ve missed this, do you drink coffee generally? My only thought is around how you accurately measure the other caffeine in your diet. In Huel we can be precise, but I’m about to go and make a filter coffee, the caffeine quantity will totally depend on a load of factors (brew time and quantity of coffee I use to name just 2).

Varies massively by person. I’m 85kg and can take on about 300mg before a gym session with no detrimental side effects. 400mg+ seems to fatigue my brain before I even arrive and the comedown is SAVAGE.

Depends on body mass etc.

If I drink ~100mg after 3pm it affects me at bedtime circa 10pm.

On the other hand, I work in Tech and a neckbeard in my office (remember offices :frowning:) can slug ~3 Monster Ultras throughout the day and be fine. He’s pretty yuge though.

On the subject of neckbeard… everyone should enjoy neckbeard deathcamp. One of my favourite bands

1 Like

What was your motivation to add caffeine to a meal replacement? Do you consider it “normal” or good to have caffeine in food?

Many are having Huel for breakfast, so adding caffeine makes sense so people can have their morning coffee and Huel together. I think also that ordering a coffee flavoured version you would expect it to contain caffeine.

4 Likes

No, I wouldn’t. Flavour does not mean the real thing.

It depends on the form of the flavour you are adding. If you are making a bacon flavour then you wouldn’t expect a rasher of bacon inside but coffee is already a powder so to make a coffee flavour without using coffee would seem odd.

2 Likes

Has anyone here got problems from the caffeine? When is the latest time that you use a caffeine-containing flavour usually?
Did you adapt to the higher caffeine intake after some time (assuming that everything else was left unchanged)?

This is too funny! Coffee at any level gives me major downers! I had my first bag of coffee black a few months ago! Had no idea about the coffee! I can’t remember detecting it in my behaviour! But am going to test it now that I know (placebo?)