My Story, First Impressions, and Couple Questions

Experiences
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I’m a 37-year-old office worker. I’m 5’9" and 200lbs even. When I graduated high school almost 20 years ago I weighed 165 and was as skinny as a rail. I have no doubt put on some muscle, but I’ve also managed to put on a bit of fat. As busy as my work/life schedule is, I don’t have much time to exercise. I get up at 4:30 every morning and go to work, when I get home I have to pick up my daughter from school, help her with homework, entertain her or do some other things around the house, and then by the time my wife gets home it’s already evening and there are more chores around the house that need doing. I do get a little bit of time on the weekends to ride my recumbent trike, but not enough and rarely does the weather cooperate around here. I have some other physical issues with my back, hence the recumbent rather than a standard bike. I have no intention of getting back down to 165, but if I could get down to 175 or 180, I’d be happy with that.

I know a big part of the reason I weigh what I do is because of the way I eat. It’s not healthy at all. I’ve tried making attempts to eat healthier in the past, but I hear nothing but complaints about the food. To me, it’s perfectly tasty, but no one else seems to like it and I don’t have time or energy to make two meals. So I started looking for quick alternatives and I came across Huel.

I received my shipment today of two bags of vanilla and a chocolate flavor booster. In case you’re wondering, I ordered last Thursday and here it is Tuesday. No shipping nightmares for me. I mixed it up per the directions without the flavor booster first to see what the vanilla tasted like. The vanilla was very faint and it wasn’t nearly as sweet as I was expecting. It was extremely nutty and gritty though. Overall, not bad, but not great either. There was no way I was going to get through a whole serving of just plain vanilla so I mixed in the chocolate booster. One half teaspoon is not enough. I couldn’t even taste the chocolate. Next time I’ll try a whole teaspoon. Obviously the flavor booster did nothing for the texture. So, I put it in my Magic Bullet that my in-laws gave us. May as well use it for something. It helped a bit, but it was still pretty gritty. The thickness was really good after that though, and I actually wouldn’t mind it thicker, so I’ll also have to let it sit in the fridge before consuming next time. Has anyone found a method to completely remove this gritty texture? Would an immersion blender work better?

Something else I was curious about was how people with hypoglycemia have handled switching to Huel. I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia a couple years ago. It’s not something I have to take medication for, I just have to pay attention and when I start feeling a crash eat something. Most of the time I can make it from breakfast to lunch, but having to get up so early, I occasionally need something in the middle of the morning to get me through. My plan right now would be to swap out my lunch for Huel. Rather than eating something less than nutritious for that mid-morning snack, I thought I might have some Huel then as well. I would assume that a small ‘snack’ of Huel mid morning and then a small one for lunch would be the recommended approach rather than a small serving and then a full serving, but was just looking for advice from others who also have been diagnosed and how Huel works for them.

Thanks in advance!

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My tips for Happy Hueling:

Always try to let your Huel sit over night.
I’m not a fan of grit either, for some reason drinking through a milkshake or smoothie straw helps negate that gritty texture for me.
If your looking for flavor boosts - try some OJ. I can drink the vanilla Huel with 2oz of Orange Juice for every meal and be totally happy with the flavor. Try to find the diet OJ if you can (50calories per 8 oz) that way your not throwing off your calorie count per shake!!

Hope this helps a little!!

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@Buzzard

I’ve been using Huel for about a month now. I find that using my Ninja blender to mix it together gets rid of the grittiness almost completely.

I haven’t been diagnosed with Hypoglycemia, but I did have some trouble when I tried to workout with only having a single Huel shake in my system. I got really dizzy and nearly passed out the first time. What I do now is I’ll eat a Cliff Bar an hour or so before I work out and that helps me out without putting too many calories or fat into my system.

Alternatively, you could have a two scoop Huel snack and that should work just as well. But obviously I’m not a doctor or anything.

I’ll also mimic what @Huel4life said about the orange juice. It makes it taste like a Creamsicle milkshake and I don’t even notice the grittiness even when I just use the shaker bottle to mix it together. What I do is I put in the 400 mil of water, add the 3 scoops. Shake the hell out of that and then fill the entire bottle to the spout with orange juice and mix again.

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@Huel4life, @A_Rogers,

Thanks for the input! When I got home from work this afternoon I mixed up another one. This time I used the blender to mix it and poured it into my Blender Bottle with one of the stainless steel balls. I’ll leave it in the fridge and just sample it later this evening to see if it’s improved any and I’ll plan on taking it to work for lunch tomorrow. I don’t mind the flavor at all, it’s really that gritty texture I don’t care for. I know there are certainly better and more interesting recipes than just Huel by itself or with a flavor booster so I’ll have a go at some of those this weekend. If I can just get through that grit, I’ll be alright.

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I had to look up the term Reactive Hypoglycemia. Interesting situation. Apparently, some people can paradoxically become hypoglycemic after ingesting food. Possible causes seem to be excess insulin secretion from the Pancreas and/or low Glucagon secretion later on after the meal has digested (Glucagon counteracts some of the effects of insulin). I’ve been a hospital pharmacist for 18 years and this is the first I read about reactive hypoglycemia.

Well, firstly, do you have a glucometer? I would think that this would be very useful. If you experience the symptoms (increase heart rate, sweating, feeling dizzy, feeling jittery, feeling foggy, nervousness, etc.), you could get your blood sugar reading immediately to know how low you are.

Has your doctor given you guidelines about when to treat hypoglycemia? In general, any blood sugar below 60 in the hospital, we treat. And if the patient is symptomatic and sugar is below 70, we treat. Not much carbohydrates are needed to treat hypoglycemia, especially since the blood stream can only hold a small amount of sugar anyway.

So, I am not an expert on this subject. However, has your doctor or nutritionist talked to you about the glycemic index and glycemic load? The article I read on reactive hypoglycemia seems to suggest that these patients may experience hypoglycemia more often after ingesting food with a lot of sugar or high glycemic index. The food causes the pancreas to release a large amount of insulin, and somehow this overdoes it for these patients.

Just be aware that Huel is not low carb. It contains oat powder by 40% weight. However, the glycemic index of Huel is only 28 or 29. That’s pretty modest compared to most food. For comparison, white bread is like GI of 90. Breakfast cereals have GI above 80, most of the time. So, I’m going on a hunch here, but I would venture that Huel may not cause this reactive hypoglycemia that you suffer from. Especially if you stick to 2 or 3 scoops per serving. It’s modest glycemic index should only invoke a moderate insulin release from the Pancreas. But if you have the glucometer, you can easily measure your blood glucose to test it. Try doing a 1-hr and 2-hr blood glucose test after a serving of Huel. Then on another day, do a blood glucose reading before lunch. See what your numbers are and then you can be confident going forward.

Are there any specific foods or times of day that you have gotten the hypoglyemic before? In other words, are there certain things that have triggered it before?

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Weird tip, but try blending in one or two tablespoons of applesauce. Just plain, unsweetened applesauce. It’s flavor mixes well with the vanilla and oats. And the texture of the applesauce seems to smoothen out the Huel mixture overall. I notice when I do, it “seems” less gritty.

But I’ve been drinking Huel for almost 3 months and I don’t notice any grittyness no matter what I mix with it. I think that I have gotten so used to it, that my brain doesn’t notice.

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@Deron,

Thanks for the input! I have been seeing a doctor for the last five or six years for this. I suffered from the effects for a while before we finally figured out what it was though. I do have a glucometer that I used to monitor myself that helped lead to the diagnosis. Now that I know what it is, I usually notice the symptoms starting when my glucose drops to 80-85. Any lower than that and I start feeling really bad (shakes, sweaty, cool, clammy skin, increased heart rate and BP, dizziness, etc.). I just manage it with a small snack and my doctor is fine with that. Typically I’ll have a handful of frosted mini wheat cereal or something like that. I eat something and the symptoms start to go away within 20-30 minutes. I don’t experience symptoms every day, but they are generally in the mornings before lunch. I eat my breakfast, typically a cup and a half of Greek yogurt, at 5:30 in the morning and by 10 I’m starving and I can tell my sugar is dropping. Occasionally, but rarely, I experience symptoms in the evenings. Just depends on how late dinner is and whether or not I ate enough for lunch. The only thing I’ve ever noticed that really gives me problems is if I eat pancakes for breakfast or something else high in carbs. I absolutely have to eat something else with it, generally some eggs or bacon or something else that has a good amount of protein to help regulate the blood sugar. I know it’s terrible for me, but you have to splurge once in a while.

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I avoid the grittiness by allowing the Huel mixture to “cook” in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (60 is better,) and then continuing to “swish” it around in the cup when I consume.

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How’d it work out with the Blender Bottle? I was thinking of getting one of those so I can have multiple Huel meals prepared at the same time and thought the metal blender ball would help with mixing.

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Just finished it. It was much more palatable than the first one and I drank the whole thing. I’m very satisfied, but feel somewhat bloated. I used a blender to mix it last night, poured it into my blender bottle and left it in the fridge all night and all day. I would probably still back down the amount of scoops. The blender bottle with the ball works fine, but I don’t know if there’s really any added benefit if you’ve premixed it in a blender and it’s also super thick from being in the fridge. It would be most helpful if that was your only method for mixing and you were going to drink it immediately after mixing it. It would certainly breakup any clumps.

Overall it was good. Now I just need to play with the ratio of powder to water and find some good recipes so I don’t get tired of plain Huel everyday.

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The site here has a lot of people’s “recipes” for their Huel drinks.

My frequent mixtures are:

  • Huel + chocolate flavor (or cocoa powder, or hot chocolate packet) + peanut butter or raw cashews

  • Huel + half or whole banana + peanut butter + cinnamon

  • Huel + half banana + applesauce + peanut butter + cinnamon

  • Huel + frozen blueberries + frozen strawberries + a small bit of walnut or sunflower oil

The Huel chocolate flavor boost is nice. I’ve tried their banana and strawberry flavor boosts and they were not good. The actual fruit is much better than their artificial powder counterparts.

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@Deron
Thanks for the recipe tips. Going to the grocery store to get some applesauce and bananas this afternoon. Would you still recommend mixing up these recipes the night before and letting them sit or would that be advised against?

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I mix them in the morning and put into a bottle and bring to work inside a bag with cold packs. So, in a way, my mixtures sit “refrigerated” for several hours. In fact, my dinner dose is consumed almost 8 hours after I mix and it tastes just fine. So long as the mixture is chilled or refrigerated, you can store it up to 24 hours and it should be just fine.

If I blend to consume right away, I add several ice cubes to the blender.

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So if your looking for ways to make it easy on yourself this is my method:
Buy some regular mouth mason jars ( the reg mouth is important for me because of this trick coming up.)
I have an Oster blender the kind with the pitcher and the blades that screw on to the bottom. Take the blades off the pitcher; I don’t need that part because…the blades screw directly into my Mason jars :+1:. I drink Huel for all of my meals unless I’m planning on a cheat meal that day.
The night before I mix 2.5 to 3 scoops of Huel with a splash of OJ and sometimes some frozen mangoes or strawberries if I need a flavor differential. The trick here is that Mason jars hold about 32oz of liquid and I fill those babies up to the top. Blend in the Mason jar (one less dish to wash everyday) and refrigerate!!
I have 12 jars so that’s four days with no dishes to wash and my meals are :100: portable in a cooler bag with ice packs :grin:
If I don’t end up drinking all 3 meals, say I get invited to dinner with friends or something, I just drink the leftover shake for breakfast the next day. The website says not to consume after 24hrs of mixing but honestly I’ve had no problems with drinking one that’s 36hrs old. I try not to do that too often but sometimes you gotta do what’s necessary!!

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