Huel the next step in my fitness journey!

Hey guys. I’m Seth and I’ve finally decide to start putting in the effort to get my real body back.

I’ve had quite the weird journey. I’ve always been a small dude. I’m about 5’8 or so and graduated high school at 135. Managed to get up to and maintain a lean 175 while I was in the USAF and even when I was out I had no trouble maintaining 155 with no effort. Until I got married. A combination of heavy drinking and having an excellent cook had me ballooned up to 220 in about 4 years! After our mutually beneficial divorce I managed to get down to 200 returning to my normal eating habits.

I changed career about a year ago to HVAC work and this trade has definitely enlightened me to just how out of shape I am now. I as getting close to pass out in this South Eastern summertime attic crawls. This immediately spawn a swap from smoking to vaping which did wonders. Not ideal, but better is better. I still have trouble keeping up pace in the 90+ degree 60%+ humidity we have down here. So once this summer hit and reminded me I’m weak I decided it was time to change.

Cut alcohol out except maybe 4-6 drinks on the weekends and caloric drinks are gone. I started doing some light calisthenics with some dumbbell assistance, but those gains just weren’t doing it for me. One of my buddies had been talking about hitting the gym again since he’d slacked off the passed year and I figured having someone to go with was my best bet. Accountability works wonders. I can’t just not go cause he’s expecting me there 3 days a week. It’s easier to go than come up with an excuse not to haha. We’ve just completed our first month and I feel great.

I have tried and tried to meal plan and I just suck at it. I work entirely out of a van and it’s pretty hard to prep stuff I actually enjoy eating cold, and I’m just too exhausted (LAZY) to do much meal prep when I get home from work. I started looking back into Soylent as I’d tried it before and had no issues with the taste or hunger when I was on it before. I just didn’t reorder for whatever reason. I wasn’t motivated at that point. I was looking at the macros and noticed the protein was sorta low and soy. A little research and I found HUEL. Just ordered 4 backs and eagerly await it’s arrival this upcoming week!

I will most likely go 100% straight from the start. I sort of have an all or nothing personality so this is just going to be the strategy with the highest rate of success. I had limited gastro issues on the soylent. 3 or 4 days of gas and it was back to normal. I have access to an array of probiotics if it becomes an issue with HUEL.

So for you folks with more experience:

Any side effects I’m likely to encounter aside from some bubble gut? Remedies for said side effect?

I’m not all that concerned with weight, but once I feel I’m lean enough to reenter a surplus I intend to add this surplus through protein. What do you folks suggest as a powdered protein source to add directly to the Huel? I have some beef gelatin, but I can’t even get it to work in water by itself so I’m guessing I’ll need to go with whey. Any brands/types you guys find to be reasonably “healthy”?

Regardless I’m just excited to be taking another step to get back my body. So you got a life story lol. Looking forward to checking in and letting you guys know how the product worked for me!

@GreyMatterDisturbed Hey did you wind up doing 100% Huel or did you ease into it?

As far as protein powders, I wouldn’t recommend adding more protein to Huel. It’s actually fairly high in protein as is. I only recommend adding a little more fat to it. Natural peanut butter, with all the fat, is my favorite additive. And then adding flavoring agents or frozen berries is the other recommend additive.

I ended up with huel as breakfast and lunch then I would have pretty significant helping of a meat(venison/chicken) for dinner. Last I check and I’m down about 15 pounds and my lifts are getting better!

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Hi @GreyMatterDisturbed

How’s your journey going? Did you go 100% Huel?

If you’re taking Huel at 2000 calories per day, you will most likely be having enough protein and won’t need to ‘top up’. Generally, men looking to achieve energy maintenance (i.e not gain/lose weight) are recommended to have ~2500cal/day, which will mean if you’re having a sole diet of Huel, you’ll be having more protein anyway Vs what you would have when having a 2000cal Huel intake. (Hope that makes sense!)

Having said that, you mention that you’re trying to lose weight. If you take 2000cal/day of Huel you’re most likely in calorie deficit (if you’re working out too) and still have adequate protein.

In terms of side effects, you shouldn’t expect to experience any. Some people have slight gastro-intestinal disturbances, however easing yourself into Huel by having 1-2 serves per day for a week before you build up can help.

Good luck with it all!
Rebecca