Meal replacement shakes-good?

jennydelgado09

I had a baby 4 months ago and since I have been struggling to lose the baby weight. I'm back at my pre weight but I lost so much muscle. I'm all flab now. And I can't seem to lose it. I haven't been very consistent with working out but I still get 2 or 3 days in. I'm running and crossfit. Last week I worked out 5 days and ate good I thought. But gained weight!

So now I'm thinking of trying a meal replacement shake. Maybe every other day I can have one for lunch. For breakfast I do ok on calories. And lunch I usually do ok. Dinner kills me though because I'm cooking for my family too and don't want to make seperate food. So I eat less calories during the day to make up for it. But I'm stuck and I can't stand it.
So meal replacements shakes? I found one I like that is 190 calories with 20g of protein and 20g of carbs. Thoughts?

janejellyroll

190 calories doesn't seem like much of a meal. Is the thought to have a lower calorie lunch so you can eat more at dinner?

Old_Cat_Lady

The protein powder I use gives me 20 grams of protein w/ only 110 calories. Try to find a better one at your store? I have them as a snack (at 10am). Takes that snacking craving right away. NOT a meal replacement.

jennydelgado09

I was thinking of maybe adding a fruit or small salad with it.

I guess I'm thinking I'm eating more calories at dinner than I thought I was. So maybe that's why I'm not losing anything. Its easier to fix things that I eat at breakfast and lunch though when I'm eating alone.

janejellyroll

jennydelgado09 wrote: »

I was thinking of maybe adding a fruit or small salad with it.

I guess I'm thinking I'm eating more calories at dinner than I thought I was. So maybe that's why I'm not losing anything. Its easier to fix things that I eat at breakfast and lunch though when I'm eating alone.

Is there a way that you can improve your logging for dinner so you have a better idea what you're actually eating?

jennydelgado09

Probably. I don't have a scale right now but that could help.

But it also confuses me. If I make a large batch of something, like sloppy joes how do I measure that? If I mix a can of sauce with a 1lb ground beef how do I measure that? Would I need to set aside the portion I'm eating of beef, measure, then set aside sauce, measure and then mix it seperate from the large batch to feed everyone else?

Or like fideo and meat. The fideo is added to the meat and has to sit to soften the fideo and then tomatoe sauce is added. How do I measure something that's already mixed?

Silentpadna

TheWJordinWJordin wrote: »

The protein powder I use gives me 20 grams of protein w/ only 110 calories. Try to find a better one at your store? I have them as a snack (at 10am). Takes that snacking craving right away. NOT a meal replacement.

Meh....it's just food. In the context of a smoothie with fruit and yogurt, it is a meal for me sometimes. But meals are just food. Snack is just food. It all counts.

janejellyroll

jennydelgado09 wrote: »

Probably. I don't have a scale right now but that could help.

But it also confuses me. If I make a large batch of something, like sloppy joes how do I measure that? If I mix a can of sauce with a 1lb ground beef how do I measure that? Would I need to set aside the portion I'm eating of beef, measure, then set aside sauce, measure and then mix it seperate from the large batch to feed everyone else?

Or like fideo and meat. The fideo is added to the meat and has to sit to soften the fideo and then tomatoe sauce is added. How do I measure something that's already mixed?

A scale could probably really help you get a handle on what you're eating. With a scale, you can enter the food into the Recipe Builder, weigh the finished results, and then use that to understand how much you're actually eating.

jgnatca

One way to simply count the calories for a single portion of a family meal is to put the whole recipe in to recipe builder on MFP. Then weigh the final product. Edit the recipe for number of servings for the total weight of the recipe.

All you have to do then is enter the number of grams of your meal as the number of servings (i.e. 29 grams is 29 "servings").

ritzvin

..Or cook as if for yourself at dinner time, and toss extra bread/starchy-course & extra meat at the men-folk.

ritzvin

jennydelgado09 wrote: »

Probably. I don't have a scale right now but that could help.

But it also confuses me. If I make a large batch of something, like sloppy joes how do I measure that? If I mix a can of sauce with a 1lb ground beef how do I measure that? Would I need to set aside the portion I'm eating of beef, measure, then set aside sauce, measure and then mix it separate from the large batch to feed everyone else?

Or like fideo and meat. The fideo is added to the meat and has to sit to soften the fideo and then tomatoe sauce is added. How do I measure something that's already mixed?

not unless you are doing a different ratio of sauce/meat than everyone else. Just enter the ingredients for the whole batch into the recipe builder and either [1] use total grams as number servings and weigh out your portion, [2] until you get a scale, use total volume if you can measure it or [3] set # servings as 1 and estimate the fraction of the total you ate as you serving size. (option [1] is much more accurate, and easier). (note: 80/20 ground beef, which is the most commonly bought and a lot cheaper has a lot of fat and will contribute a lot of calories to the sloppy joe).

jgnatca

Meal replacement shakes are advertised as helping with weight loss but I find them to be highly digestible and therefore I'm hungry within the hour. Also, because they can be consumed so fast, it is easy to eat too much.

If you want a skinny meal, a salad based meal where you control all the ingredients, or a soup are usually lower calorie, take a little longer to eat, are full of fiber, so tend to sit in your system a little longer.

When I was eating fewer calories I found I was much happier having around 500 calories for breakfast, a very skinny lunch, and about 400-500 calories for dinner.