I was wondering if anyone has ever seen any meal replacement pills instead of shakes?
I usually do two shakes a day and one meal, but I have tried a few brands of shakes and really dislike the taste. I was hoping there was a pill out there that would be tastless or even a flavoured water or something rather than a shake?
Meal replacement pills do not exist because they'd have to be the size of an orange to contain sufficient calories.
There are bottled protein waters that would work (like Special K's brand, I think it might be valled K protein water, maybe), but (in my opinion) they usually taste as bad as the shakes (but the texture is better).
My recommendation instead would be to try to find an undenatured (also called cold-filtered, micro-filtered, or cold processed) whey protein powder (usually an "isolate").
If a brand advertises that their protein powder "dissolves completely in water," there's a good chance it is an undenatured whey protein.
Syntrax is one brand that used undenatured whey peptein, and their Syntrax Medical is also unflavored.
I recommend unflavored because the sweeteners and artificial flavorings may be what you don't like.
Undenatured, unflavored whey proteins tend to be significantly more expensive than the more common heat-processed whey proteins, unless you can get them directly from a local cheesemaker.
The undenatured whey has a milder more, milk-like flavor. And it dissolves smoothly into any liquid that isn't too hot. If the liquid is boiling hot, or nearly boiling, the powder will clump (caused by the proteins breaking down, which is called denaturing).
You can add undenatured whey to a glass of skim milk or water andthen add a single-serve pack of beverage flavoring (such as Crystal Light or Nestles Quick).
I've even added it to bowl of soups and cups of diet hot cocoa, but only after I've let them cool a bit. If it's too hot to eat/drink, it's too hot to stir undenatured whey protein into.
I also make my own shakes in my Rocket blender (a personal blender like the Magic Bullet), using frozen fruit, undenatured whey powder, and liquid (additional sweeteners and flavorings optional).
Pina Colada - unsweetened frozen pineapple, Silk unsweetened coconut milk (drinking coconut milk, sold near the almond milk) and the undenatured whey (sweeteners and coconut extract, optional).
Strawberry and other fruit Coladas (replace the pineapple with frozen strawberries or fruit of your choice).
Frozen strawberry margarita/daquiri, use frozen strawberries and replace coconut milk with prepared Crystal Light or other margarita flavored drink mix.
I was wondering if anyone has ever seen any meal replacement pills instead of shakes?
I usually do two shakes a day and one meal, but I have tried a few brands of shakes and really dislike the taste. I was hoping there was a pill out there that would be tastless or even a flavoured water or something rather than a shake?
I am with you about the taste. Have been paid to review a meal replacement drink and I never done one before and must admit it tastes absolutely disgusting and I can't believe I've signed up to do it for a week
Tried some tablets several years ago and they were awful and were so big they made me sick. If you want a meal replacement that does taste nice and isn't huge pills I would go down the smoothie/juice diet route.
If you end up looking for low-cal preprepared meals, Innocent Veg Pots and Noodle Pots are great. About 300 cal each, often less. I'm using them for lunches, though I may go back to soup with a slice of bread when I get bored.
There are no meal replacements, if you are serious about your weight loss goals and ultimately lifelong well being. If you do however want to replace em, the best is to drink homemade juices (low in sugar) and some smoothies can be very beneficial replacement given that you make them with the right ingredients.
Last edited by healthyfitlife; 04-25-2015 at 02:34 PM.
Although unfortunately homemade juices are very high in sugar too, even if they don't have any added sugar (which commercial juices may do - I suspect this may be more of a thing in the US than where I am, but I never drink fruit juice anyway). The fruits and vegetables which are chosen for juicing are really high in sugar, and you're removing the fibre and basically concentrating it down to little more than the sugar when you juice them.
I get the impression you have a better chance with smoothies. I did buy a smoothie maker a while ago, and messed around with putting in the likes of soya milk (I'm vegan), spinach, sometimes protein powder, oats, a bit of fruit, that sort of thing. I found it hard to avoid putting in more sugary stuff than I'd like, and more to the point, I found that I was just as hungry afterwards, despite ingesting a fair number of calories. So smoothies were not for me. I've got the smoothie maker in a cupboard in case I ever need dental surgery, or end up losing my appetite in a big way due to pain meds. They evidently work for some people, though.
I confess, I find the idea of a liquid diet a bit odd. Where do you get your fibre from? And how do you learn how to eat correctly if you are dieting on something that is nothing like real food? Surely the whole point is to learn a sustainable way of eating that you can continue at maintenance level with no real change other than raising the calories a bit?
Put another way: dieting is hard work, unfortunately there aren't any ways around that, there aren't any quick fixes. But it's not as hard as it's sometimes made out to be, and you should be able to live comfortably on your diet and not have to eat weird stuff that repels you. I'm actually perfectly content when I'm dieting, I just have to get past all the procrastination beforehand and then I settle in fine.
It can be daunting learning about nutrition, and admittedly I was already on a pretty healthy diet and didn't have as much to learn as some people do. But you do manage it, and it's actually quite interesting, and before you know it you will have a range of recipes you can rely on.
Well not exactly you have to make it yourself, not use prepackaged juice mixes or powders or fruits juices.(It must be all natural fruit and vegetables, primarily vegetables). (You have to make smart choices so that it does end up having high amounts of sugar) Use real natural ingredients and use one fruit at most (best is blueberries, raspberries or blackberries(very high in anti oxidants and anti cancer ingredients)). You have to make it yourself so that it is low in sugar or has even no sugar at all. Just because you had to put in extra sugary fruits doesn't mean she has to and doesn't mean ALL homemade juices are high in sugar, just yours were and that is misleading to say that hers will be as well. Sure some people will argue that even 99% of the nutritional content is wasted when you juice because you obliterated the particles, into simple fine carbohydrates(that's their opinion and doesn't make it a fact). You still gain 99% of the amazing micronutrients within the food you just juiced, which your body will absorb immediately especially if you consume it for breakfast first thing in the morning when your body is hungry and is craving real food. But seriously real food should not be replaced, if you are going to use juices and certain smoothies (avoid protein powders - they are very bad for you)again made with real ingredients, they should be used hand in had with real food unless you absolutely have no time to make em. Good Luck!
Last edited by healthyfitlife; 04-25-2015 at 02:47 PM.
Erm, I'd never dream of using prepackaged fruit anything, and the fruits I was putting in *were* just a modest amount of blueberries... The main problem I was having was that if it was meant to be a sweet flavour, a bit of fruit didn't really do the job, and the other ingredients could get overwhelming, so it just tasted really odd until I added a teaspoon of date syrup or something, which I didn't want to do. I'd possibly have been better off just trying to make it savoury.
Yeah, I'm not sure about protein powders either. Though I hadn't heard that they're actively bad for you, tell me more?
There are no meal replacement. The taste, well everyone I know really doesn't like the taste of shakes. They most certainly no going well with my taste buds either.
If you could have a replacement, then I'd say, you can try the natural juice!
Morning i have a powdered meal replacement (black listed here) blended with blueberries, banana, spinach, almond butter to hide the spinach taste. Pretty much last me till lunch or further if needed. Did not have it during my WOE but due to medical reasons i have switched more soft and vegetarian type meals.
Last edited by TheSatinPumpkin; 04-29-2015 at 02:36 PM.
I was wondering if anyone has ever seen any meal replacement pills instead of shakes?
I usually do two shakes a day and one meal, but I have tried a few brands of shakes and really dislike the taste. I was hoping there was a pill out there that would be tastless or even a flavoured water or something rather than a shake?
Yeah ye shakes can be bad my tip would be stuck them in a blender with lots of ice and they are quite nice. I look forward to mine now
If they taste bad, and they don't help you get used to preparing balanced meals for when you're in maintenance, what's the point of shakes? They sound like the sort of thing which would make you feel really deprived and thus make you likely to regain really fast afterwards, or indeed end up bingeing during the diet.
The only time a shake makes sense to me is if you find that having a smoothie for breakfast works for you. Some people aren't natural breakfasters and just want something really light. I tried smoothies but found that they didn't register as meals for me, I ended up just as hungry afterwards, so that would only be useful if I was trying to put on weight! And I do need a filling, though small, breakfast, so I don't think they'd work for me in that respect either. I could never really balance the taste with the type of ingredients I wanted, I ended up having to add more sugary stuff than I wanted to make them palatable, though maybe I could eventually figure that out. I'm hanging onto the smoothie maker in case it becomes necessary after dental treatment (two weeks till I see the dentist, eep), or if I ever end up having serious loss of appetite problems due to pain meds. I know some people love them, though, mainly for breakfasting.
Meal replacement?
