Weight Loss Experience - quitting sugar with Huel

I was a bit overweight and been trying to loose weight for years, tried lots of things unsuccessfully - my best results were from an Atkins-like diet, but couldn’t keep it up. Exercise didn’t help, I usually couldn’t summon the energy after work. Also I had really unhealthy eating habits. I hate shopping and cooking, so either went for a sandwich from the bakery for breakfast, some Indian, Chinese or Arabic takeout for lunch, usually followed by pastries because of intense sugar cravings, so I compulsively had to get some sweet desert. Similar for dinner.
In between some cookies and other sweets that are usually handed around in the office. I always had the best intentions not to partake, but when I see a cake or baklava platter I switched to auto-pilot.
Also had bad digestion problems, bloating and gas, etc…

End of last year I was at maybe 88-89 kg at 180 cm, and saw the needle jump over 90 once for the first time.

At the beginning of this year I quit alcohol, which helped a bit.
But I substituted with sweets and got even more intense sugar cravings with the usual ups and downs during the day. Quitting sugar was harder than quitting alcohol.

This is where Huel helped me.

Substituting breakfast and lunch with Huel stopped the ups & downs and sugar crashes. I don’t crave it anymore, and can finally decline when offered sweets in the office, and walk past the bakery without having to get anything. (I also have a couple of bananas & oranges lying around for snacks).

My weight is now down to around 82kg. One kg/month. People have been commenting that I look skinny already, but I still want to get rid of the the beer belly.
Also no more digestion issues, no more bloating and loudly rumbling stomach issues.

Anyway, that’s my experience until now. Maybe once I’m down to 78 I’ll check in again with some before/after pics.

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So happy to hear of your success so far! Keep going, stay strong and you will hit your goal!

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Thanks! 79 is in reach :slight_smile:

I’m also trying something new now: Intermittent fasting, i.e. skipping breakfast and only eating in an 8 hour window every day and fasting for 16 hours.

Apparently this is supposed to really help with burning fat while still maintaining your daily calorie intake.
(If anyone is interested in intermittent fasting, here are some really interesting talks that convinced me to try: The Calorie Deception - and a more in-depth scientific discussion: Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss )

To adjust I’m adding a little olive oil to my Huel now to stay satiated longer and getting some more calories … Seems to work fine 4 days in.

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Sounds interesting. I watched those videos and Jason Fung seems a cool fellow. How does your approach work exactly? Like, what window of time have you gone for? I’m quite intrigued to give it a try myself. 100% Huel in such a short window of time sounds a bit daunting… but it could be an intriguing challenge :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m basically just skipping breakfast - And I’m not 100% on Huel, I still have normal dinner.

My first meal is lunch at around 1pm, (Huel) and then either a smaller dinner at around 6-7pm and half a shake of Huel before 9pm. Or just a bigger dinner around 8. I try to get to approx. 2000 calories in total either way, usually I also have some fruit in between.

Then I’m ‘fasting’ for around 16 hours. According to the videos, after around 12 hours your body is starting to turn fat to burn for energy.

After pushing through some not severe hunger at 10-11am I’m surprisingly fine. Today I felt like I could have gone longer.

Positive side effect: I feel much more awake, clear and mentally agile in the fasting period. My mornings at work have become much more productive.

Negative side effect: 1-2 hours after I break fast I can really feel the blood sugar kicking in. Getting a bit dizzy, and feeling vertigo when standing up quickly. Have to see if that evens out over time or not, googling around a bit just now many people seem to experience this.

My recommendation if you want to try, I’d start a bit slower and not jump into the 8/16 pattern right away.
(A how-to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCRjwDs1Ek )

Appreciate the informative response :slightly_smiling_face: