How much weight can I lose with meal replacement shakes? | IMPERIUM GRP PTE LTD

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How much weight can I lose with meal replacement shakes?

3 mins to read

There are plenty of diets out there to try but many are interested in having a meal replacement shake diet to help us lose weight.

There have been plenty of studies that show how drinking meal replacement shakes can assist in weight loss but before we reveal the findings. Let’s find out more about replacement shakes.

What Are Meal Replacement Shakes?

Meal replacement shakes are often confused with protein powder or whey protein. Protein powder can be used as a meal replacement if it is mixed with other whole foods such as eggs, oats, vegetables, fruits and others. However, it is mostly used to create a lean body mass or to gain muscle rather than to lose weight.

Unlike protein shakes, meal replacement shakes are specifically designed to be liquid meal replacements for times when eating healthy meals is difficult. It is usually used to replace one or two meals in a day as part of a weight loss program or it can be used for weight management.

They usually contain a mixture of carbohydrates, protein and fat as well as added vitamins and minerals that comes in a ready-to-drink liquid or in a powder form that you mix with either water or some kind of low-calorie milk, like almond milk.

Benefits of meal replacement shakes in aiding weight loss

One of the biggest benefits of meal-replacement shakes is convenience. They help to simplify replacing meals by taking the guesswork out of figuring out how to stay on a reduced calorie diet so you don’t have to spend any time cooking.

Other benefits of using meal-replacement shakes include:

Reduce decision making fatigue
Less contact with tempting foods such as fast food and junk food
Low-calorie meal with predetermined portion control
Contains essential nutrients that can help burn fat such as caffeine
Easy to incorporate into a meal plan as it’s easy to transport
Has minimal cleanup and preparation

Meal replacement plans have also been widely used for diabetic patients as research has shown that meal-replacement shakes encourage healthy eating by triggering something called sensory-specific satiety.

This means that when you eat or drink the same foods over and over again, you develop a reduced sense of pleasure in the taste and smell of the food. When this happens, you start to eat or drink just to satisfy your hunger, instead of looking to excite your taste buds.

This may help the average person who is trying to lose weight create a new relationship with food by focusing more on eating to live, rather than focusing on their old eating habits that encourages the live to eat type of attitude.

How much weight can I lose with meal replacement shakes

The general understanding of how meal replacement shakes work as weight loss shakes is that the consumption of fewer calories or staying in a caloric deficit will ultimately lead to weight loss.

If your goal is to lose weight and lose it fast, meal replacement shakes can help in overall weight loss.

There is plenty of research that has shown that compared to a regular low-calorie healthy meal diet, using meal replacement shakes three times a day led to greater weight loss (especially fat loss) and a more significant reduction in food cravings over a period of three weeks.

Another study showed that, over a period of four months, dieters in the meal-replacement plan lost 12.3 percent of their body weight, while dieters in the food group lost only around half that, or 6.7 percent.

When dieters who had previously lost 5 percent of their body weight started either a regular low-calorie diet plan or switched to meal-replacement shakes for six months, the regular food group lost an additional 1.3 percent of body weight, while the meal-replacement group lost another 3.2 percent.

There have also been instances where meal replacement shakes have helped individuals with much more regular bowel movements which can help in losing weight.

Downsides to meal replacement shakes

Although there is plenty of research that shows positive weight loss results in the consumption of meal replacement shakes, the results are often short-lived and much more suitable for short term weight loss rather than one that can become part of a lifestyle to maintain a healthy weight.

The Diabetes Spectrum report notes that when returning to regular food, many people tend to put the extra weight back on because they haven’t effectively learned how to prepare healthy meals.

As a result, they tend to underestimate the number of calories as they no longer have a nutrition label to follow and tell them how much they should consume at one time.

Another reason is that calorie restriction, which is the basis of weight loss for meal replacements can change your hormones and your metabolism; which makes it difficult to sustain a healthy weight after losing weight.

By consuming fewer calories, a hormone called gherine that is responsible for sending hunger signals goes up while another hormone, called leptin, which is responsible for telling you when you are full — goes down.

This hormonal imbalance will affect your hunger pangs and change your eating habits as you may think you are hungry when you are actually not!

Your body also adjusts to calorie restriction by decreasing the number of calories you burn, a process called adaptive thermogenesis.

Over time, these two factors will jeopardise weight loss efforts. That’s why many people on a calorie-restricted diet such as a meal replacement shake diet COULD end up gaining the weight back almost immediately after they lose it. Therefore it is important to be aware of the signals your body is telling you, and track your calories stringently to avoid such a response.

Should I use meal replacement shakes as a method to lose weight?

As mentioned before, it has been proven that you can lose weight especially when you are drinking meal replacement shakes three times a day instead of eating a healthy meal that is under a caloric deficit.

Not all meal replacement shakes are created equal. It is known that some meal replacement shakes contain high fructose corn syrup and this can cause further health issues especially for diabetics because it can affect their blood sugar levels.

That is why choosing a trustworthy brand that is transparent about the ingredients they use is crucial to your weight loss goals.

It is all about balance

Meal replacement shakes Singapore should be included as one of the permanent healthy meal options available within your weekly dietary plan rather than the only meal you can have within your day when you are on a diet.