The man shake is it worth it?

I've never had it, but from looking at their web site, it doesn't seem any different from other weight loss shakes. If you've looked into how those weight loss shakes work, you basically replace two whole meals with one of those shakes. The Man Shake appears to be no different, other than offering "macho" branding so you don't feel bad about drinking something with a name like "Weight Watchers" or "SlimFast".


The website gives a bit more insight to how it really works - a calorie deficit. They basically tell you to cut out some meals, drink the shake instead, eat a small snack between meals, and then make a high protein, low carb 400 calorie dinner. So they have you consuming about 1500 calories a day.

http://www.themanshake.com.au/assets/images/Meal Plan WEB.jpg

Now what I have done is a program called medifast. It was basically the same idea, a meal replacement. Instead of eating breakfast or lunch, Id eat one of their 100 calorie shakes/bars/etc. 5 times a day and then a tiny 500 calorie home cooked dinner made up of a protein and veggies. I did that for several months before I realized it was bull, and I could just do all that on my own without an expensive meal replacement program.

Long story short, dont fall for meal replacements. They dont help you. You'll lose weight at first, but once you stop and go back to eating the food youre used to, youll just gain all the weight back. Best course of action is to change up your eating habits. Eat more veggies and fruits, throw in some proteins, some fat and a few carbs. But most importantly, weight everything, watch how many calories you eat and keep yourself in a sustainable calorie deficit - too low, and youll be hungry all the time and probably quit.

Weight loss shakes are designed to help you manage calorie intake.....period. Meal replacement shakes are just trying to make weight loss easier, while the creators make money.

But, if you can take the time to measure and log real food you don't need shakes. Measuring an logging real food is an eye-opening experience. Seeing calorie counts and nutritional information for food you actually like teaches you so much (you need to know for maintenance).

The only thing that works for weight loss is being in a caloric deficit. If you choose to achieve that caloric deficit using shakes, then yes, you will lose weight. However, you likely will not learn portion control or other skills that you'll need to sustain your weight loss over the long term if you rely too much on shakes for your calories. Remember that after you lose weight, you are not going to be able to go back to the way you used to eat. If you do that, you'll just gain the weight right back. You have to make a permanent change to your lifestyle if you want to keep the weight off. Most people will not want to spend the rest of their lives drinking shakes instead of eating food.

It's no different than any other shake...it's just macho marketing.

All weightloss shakes do is help you control calories.

A big con for me would be that I get satisfaction from eating and chewing, so a shake would be pretty anti-climatic for me.

Another issue people have is that they ultimately don't learn how to eat properly to control their calories going into maintenance because they've been heavily reliant on low calorie shakes. For me, learning to eat, portion control, etc was a big part of the overall process.

Shakes are just food. They can't do anything special to cause weight loss.

That said, some people find calorie restriction easier with shakes, and some shakes are more filling than others.

I personally had a Vega One shake with plain yogurt every workday morning for years because it was the only meal that could keep me full for a solid 6 hours. I had no option to snack at work.

The concept of marketing a shake as specific to men though is ridiculous to the point of absurd.

Look at the ingredients, compare it to other high quality meal replacement shakes like Vega One, and then make an informed decision as to what product you want to buy.

But at the end of the day, it's still just food and it comes down to whether you prefer processes powdered food or more whole foods.

For me, the utility of the shakes was 100% the convenience. I worked 10-14hr days and didn't have time to make breakfast. Now that I'm retired, I never use them.

So figure out what/if the utility is of ultra-processed powdered shakes in your health routine.

Lastly, there's a very, very, VERY good reason why so many health/weight-loss companies market powdered shakes as part of their programs, and it has NOTHING to do with them having any special properties for health or weight loss.

It's because they're shelf-stable, light, and easy to ship. This all makes it a cost-effective product.

Powders aren't sold because they're better than less processed food, they're sold because they're convenient to sell.