Today is my first day Hueling. And I gotta tell ya, I’m looking forward to it. No fuss, no muss, just balanced meals that are drinkable. My plan is to Huel for breakfast and lunch at least 5 days a week, then enjoy a nice home-cooked dinner at home. My first meal was chocolate, and it’s not bad. Is it a chocolate milkshake? No. But
considering all of the good stuff in there with different flavor profiles, it’s impressive that it’s as good or better than a protein shake. I’m about 6’1, 230 lbs, elevated blood pressure, slightly high bad cholesterol and hi BMI. My two goals are to 1) work towards more complete nutrition and 2) lose a few lbs in the process. Anyway, I’m ramblin’ again. Catch ya a little further on down the trail. I’ll post updates and try to post some positive stuff. I would appreciate any positive messages or tips/tricks.
@FluHatinHueler - I just saw your post. I was new to Huel back in April. I started this whole thing at 248lbs and I am 6’ and 54 Yrs old. Along with Huel twice a day, I have a good meal in the evening for dinner and I am also doing Intermittent Fasting (IF). The IF I am doing is 17:7. I fast from 7:30 pm until 12:30 PM the next day. Huel @ 12:30, another Huel around 3:45 PM and dinner. I do that all week. I am now at 218.9 lbs. Down 29.1 lbs with 30.9 lbs to go.
I drink the Chocolate & Vanilla Powder with Water. I like the Chocolate as is. The Vanilla, I add 1 or 2 packets of Truvia and 3/4 tsp of Cinnamon powder. In both, I use about 6 ice cubes. Helps blend it and makes it nice and cold.
Good luck on your new venture and looking forward to your updates.
Hey, happy to have you! I started Huel a couple months ago in the same way (Huel for breakfast and lunch every workday) and I’m very happy I did. Apart from having less stressful mornings, I have wayyy more energy throughout the day and I’ve lost almost 10 without changing anything else. I think you’ll be happy too
Some things I found helpful: you might want to do 1 Huel/day for a few days to get your system used to the extra fiber. It took my stomach maybe a workweek to adjust. Not sure if you’re a coffee or tea person, but my favorite morning Huels are half water, ice, 2 scoops vanilla Huel, and filled to the top with coffee/cold green tea - I really look forward to them. Also, drinking liquid food might not be as filling as whatever solid stuff you’re used to, at least at first. I find that drinking my Huels slowly helps with this, and putting them in the fridge for a few hours gives them a thicker texture which also might help. Anyway, good luck man!
Thanks man. I like the idea of thickening them, but i’m pretty lazy, hence loving how easy Huel is. So ice cubes may have to do for now. Good luck to you as well!
Yo, G. I hate the Flu, too. Especially H1N1. It’s a killer… in some cases literally.
43 years young, about 5’ 10" to 5’ 11" tall (I may have shrunk a half inch since college). I was really big in my 20s, and peaked at a BMI of 39 at the age of 31. I did a rigurous exercise program to get down to a BMI of 27 a few years later. This program included exercise most days of the week, up to 2.5 hours a day many day. Then since I could not sustain that level of activity, the weight drifted back up to a BMI of 30. Then in Feburary/March 2018 at the age of 42, I decided to try Huel for my work dinners and afternoon snack. Soon after I started researching about IF and adjusted to a 16 hour daily IF. I also re-introduced exercise into my regimen, albiet at a much lighter load since I mostly did it while fasted. (About 30 - 45 min exercise most days of the week.) By the end of 2018 I was down to a BMI of 22. With about 10 months of Huel and IF I dropped 8 BMI units. Since January of this year I removed all meat and dairy from the diet and kept up the IF and Huel at work. I fell further to a BMI of only 20 today.
Currently I have the opposite problem. I am now a little too lean and will be implementing some extra peanut butter to get my BMI closer to 21 - 22 range. And several days of the week I now have to break my fast early with fruit before I exercise, since I am no longer fat enough to exercise in the fasted state like I was doing last year. But I feel very good and am never hungry on my program. I am eating up to 8 servings of fruit a day, eating lots of rice/potatoes/legumes for my at-home meals, and having Huel for my dinners at work. Today’s dinner is the powdered Berry Huel in oat milk+water, blended up last night and kept cold.
I’ve learned a few things in regards to body fat loss.
Intermittent fasting is the absolute easiest, best way to get rid of body fat, bar none. IMO, that is.
Your diet regimen is way more important than how much you exercise, for losing fat and staying lean. Exercise can synergize with proper diet, but plays a secondary role. Rigorous exercise can induce appetite and make it harder for a fat loss program, although it can be useful for an athlete training for a specific sport.
Removing meat/dairy from my diet made staying lean much much easier. It may not work for everyone, but it works well on me.
Once I learned about insulin resistance and how it causes obesity and type 2 diabetes (and it’s role in atherosclerosis), focusing on ways to improve insulin sensitivity became my mental framework and helped me come up with a better solution than exercising over 2 hours a day. Once I understood the science, it became much much easier to get lean and stay lean. It’s amazing to me how easy it is to be skinny and how I didn’t uncover this science before. I was doing it all wrong most of my adult life.
Thanks man. Well, ya know, the thing about the flu is that you gotta be aware, aware about the flu up in the air. I’ve been around the boards and I think if Huel gave awards for most active members, you would be a first ballot shoe-in! I appreciate it. We are all trying to do something positive here, whatever ones goals are. I first heard about IR from Jimmy Kimmel, I may give it a go, but for now just gonna take baby steps towards better nutrition through Huel.
@FluHatinHueler your two goals are exactly mine, and I wish you well on achieving both! I had gastric bypass over 10 yrs ago and through a consistent diet of BEER and bad nutrition, I’ve added 20lbs to my frame that I have decided must go. After reviewing the macros on Huel and decided this was a way forward for me to lose the LBS and improve my nutrition. Good luck on your journey!
I ordered unflavored/unsweetened, vanilla, and chocolate bags on my first order. I drank almost all the vanilla. I have a lot of the chocolate leftover, and am working my way through unsweetened.
I hated the chocolate flavor. Not chocolaty enough and way too sweet for me. here’s my tip if you find yourself getting sick of it: get some nice dutch process cocoa. It’s about $10 a box and worth the price. Add a spoonful of that to your chocolate Huel and it nicely balances out the sweetness and makes the drink a nice dark brown color.
Other advice: I like to prep my Huel the night before so that the texture is better the next day. I also use a single-serve smoothie blender instead of a shaker bottle. Unsalted, unsweetened peanut butter (you can get at Costco and Aldi and Trader Joes) is a great addition to all flavors of Huel.
I think that is all really good advice. I don’t mind the Vanilla or Chocolate so far, but if I get bored I will definitely take your advice. I did make the mistake of not putting the filter top in the top of the bottle today and had a bunch of dry chunks. Ohh well, lesson learned.
