Just drink protein shakes to jump start weight loss

linsey0689

I have been trying hard to decrease my weight for about 3 weeks now. Doing my walking videos for 20 minutes 3 days a week and really cutting back on what I eat and changing the foods I’m eating too. I haven’t seen a change in the scale but maybe 2 lbs. Im almost 350 lbs F 5’ 9” & 30 y/o, I feel like I should be seeing major changes on my weight.

Im debating on just drink protein shakes for a week or two to try to jump start my weight loss. Im just trying so hard and I don’t want to give up but at the same time I expect to see some type of change by now.

Has anyone done this type of thing to jump start their weight loss?

Hiawassee88

There's really no need to jump start weight loss by dialing your food down into drinks. It won't last. You don't need a reset or a restart mode. Try not to think of exercise as a way to out-exercise your food choices. Those are just more dieting thoughts that will take root in your head.

Moderate your portions. Sit with your food. Reduce your stress. You don't need the added pressure of drinking your food. Think long term about the rest of your life. Major changes in three weeks are highly overrated.

Start small. Tiny steps for tiny feet. Small measurable, new habits will be easier to maintain. You could begin with your maintenance setting calories and experience changes. Start with the amount of food to maintain your body weight. Let your body calibrate this reasonable deficit. You can reevaluate many months or a year from now.

tomcustombuilder

Protein drinks are a supplement to a diet that lacks protein from real food. Drinking calories does not satiate well and when you process food in a blender it actually has more net calories than if you just ate the food you’re blending.

You can’t jump start Fatloss with shakes you need to just take in fewer calories, probably a LOT fewer. At your weight you don’t need a ton of food. You have stored fat on you to survive on. You should be losing 2 lbs a week. If no further loss in another week. You need to drop about 750-1,000 calories a day from what you’re taking in.

neanderthin

Are you calculating the amount of actual calories your eating? Cheers

AnnPT77

I agree with others that it's not a great idea for the reasons they've given and others . . . but will say this, too: If you decide to try this, please use "meal replacement shakes" not "protein shakes". A short stint on shakes only won't kill you (probably), but do choose shakes designed to have a reasonably complete nutrient profile, not just protein.

At 30, you're young enough to still have menstrual cycles. If that's true, 3 weeks isn't a giving your new routine a fair shot. Some women only see a new low weight once a month, because hormonal water retention cycling can be that weird (even though that's not the most common pattern).

On top of that, it's common for anyone to see some water weight loss at first, then water weight rebalancing that looks like regain after that for a couple of weeks, so anyone (not just premenopausal adult women) ought to be looking at 4-6 weeks of consistent experience data before making a change.

Are you actually calorie counting? If so, how many calories are you logging on average daily? Twenty minutes of walking videos 3 times a week is a good thing, but realistically the number of calories it would burn isn't huge in the big picture; and "cutting back on eating" won't result in weight loss unless calorie intake gets meaningfully below total calorie burn. (That's true whether you're counting the calories or not.) "Changing foods" has no direct impact whatsoever on weight loss, though positive changes can help us feel more full while losing, or improve nutrition so be better for health in the long run.

Have you been weighing yourself under consistent conditions, like first thing in the morning after bathroom and before eating/drinking, in the same state of (un)dress? That's the best way to get a picture of weight loss rate.

Most of us find that our bodies fluctuate by multiple pounds from day to day because of perfectly healthy, normal changes in water retention. If you only weigh in once a week or every few days, you can accidentally pick a low day at first, then a high one the next time, and be misled.

People who find weigh-ins very stressful may need to weigh less frequently, but for those who aren't stressed, daily consistent weigh-ins will help create familiarity with the totally-normal up and down patterns (that will gradually trend downward if actually losing fat). Fat loss plays peek-a-boo on the scale with water retention fluctuations, but it's fat we really want to lose, yes?

That's part of the reason why a 4-6 week (whole menstrual period) average is a better gauge of weight loss than a shorter time period.

I'm not trying to be mean in saying all this. If you actually lost 2 pounds in 3 weeks, that's a good thing, pound and a half average per week . . . by the end of a year, around 78 pounds, eh?

There are quite a few of us here (me among them) who got through losing to a healthy weight, are now long-term maintaining, who would say that the best route is slow and steady loss that a person can stick with long enough to cause a meaningful total amount of loss.

"Lose weight fast", treating it like a fast project with an end date, can be a trap. It can be that a slow but manageable loss rate gets us to goal at an earlier calendar date than some extreme approach that includes periodic "off the wagon" overeating or "cheats", or makes a person give up altogether.

You can do this. It's going to take time and patience. It doesn't necessarily require extreme tactics, I promise. Extreme tactics can even backfire. Give it a think.

Wishing you success, no matter how you decide to proceed!

ehju0901

The others above have all made great points, but I would like to add to invest in a food scale and log accurately if you have not done so already. Serving sizes on packaging are merely an estimate and you would be shocked with how far each way it can sway your calorie count.

Keep it up though!