Anyone try protein meal replacement?

I've never tried shakes, but getting more protein into your diet could be a great help to you. Do you know that you eat enough protein now? For many people, that helps them feel fuller for longer. (suggestions I've read on here says you should eat 0.8g of protein for every lb that you weigh)

Is the 'eating the wrong things' and 'failing with your evening meal' linked to you starting exercise this week? Even if not, are you eating your exercise calories as well?

Before you start buying (expensive) shakes, could you make tweaks to your diet with real food to see if that helps? As you eat your main meal at lunchtime, what happens if you have a bigger portion of protein and a huge pile of veg and just a small portion of carbs? Do you have any protein for breakfast?

Do you have to cook that third meal? Could you make a big bowl of salad and add protein to it? A large bowlful, that'll do you for 2 or 3 days, can sit in the fridge - and you could add different proteins so you feel like you've had a different meal.

Can you have alternative snacks around to grab if you get hungry? An apple or a small bag of popcorn or a pre-prepped portion of grilled bell pepper chunks might just be enough to make you think "OK I've had a snack, now I can stop".

Doesn't really answer your question if you really want to try shakes, but how long will you use them for? What'll happen when you go back to 'real' food? Seeing if you can make changes, that keep you feeling fuller, might help more in the long term.

Tired has often been a trigger for me to over-eat.

You may benefit by taking a step back and looking at your complete situation.

The kids will be there and will require chasing. That's a given that you probably cannot change anytime soon.

Can you change your go to sleep time or your awake time?

Can you pre-plan or pre-cook certain meals and basically have them ready or almost ready to go either cold or quickly heated? You could even pre-portion them and pre-mark them with a sticky and logging info.

If you can find time in between chasing kids, having pre-portioned, batch-cooked meals done already should be really helpful - you can't then just add another spoonful / empty the saucepan onto your plate because there's "not much left".

You could also pre-bag your snacks for a few days at a time. Presumably the kids eat - could you have an apple, or a (weighed) handful of nuts at the same time, even if you don't have time for a proper meal?

Most days, I pre-log what I'm going to eat - I've batch cooked for years so selecting the relevant curry / stirfry / bolognese sauce / fish pie / whatever, from my Recipes tab, is going to be an accurate reflection of the number of calories in the main element of my dinner. I rarely have potatoes, rice or pasta as I prefer to cook a bed of veg instead. Although I weigh and update my log, I know roughly how much broccoli / cauli / cabbage will get used. I can then see how many snacks I can / can't have or whether I need to spend a bit longer in the gym!

Another option, depending on how you have your MFP goal set, would be to reduce the rate at which you've said you'd like to lose weight. That would give you more calories. It's better to be losing slowly than to be slowly gaining.

I pre-cook and pre-freeze the dog's meals Either already together, or the individual ingredients pre-prepared. For myself, I often nuke a 400 to 750g bag of veggies in the morning when i get up. Split it into a couple of containers. It's sitting there available to either go in as a side of something more involved that I prepare, or with a frozen dinner that I nuke (6.5 minutes from getting up to getting to eat), or with a soup / noodle package, or with instant mash (the last two again requiring about 6.5 total minutes of prep time including filling the kettle and boiling the water... apparently we've defined my maximum attention span!

As an interesting discussion that I recently had, apples are something I often used to take the edge off while preparing and logging food. And of course the idea discussed above of having pre-packaged snacks is awesome. I certainly did that in the beginning when I was more likely to keep eating past the first handful of nuts without realizing the calories I was consuming.

That said.

I've yet to discover a substitute for sleeping as a solution to overeating because of lack of sleep.

DeButterflyx wrote: »

Thinking of trying protein works meal replacement shakes as I'm just failing with my evening meal and forgetting to eat at times also and ending up hungry, eating wrong things and binge eating as I'm just too busy with young kids.
A big thing this week is I have started exercising having done none for a long long time and I'm feeling better that way. But the food is a struggle.
I am thinking of having a certain kcal for breakfast, then a shake in between 214kcals and 24g protein, then certain kcals for dinner and then a shake in replacement of my supper (we have our smaller meal in evenings) and then a small 150kcal snack before bed. I crash a lot during the day and end up binging and I leave gaps as I'm always chasing kids around. I feel the shakes will ease the load of cooking 3rd meal and bridge a gap for me.
Anyone else used this or something like this?

If you're going to supplement with protein and don't have time to mix or forget a lot about filling your mixer cups, just get RTD's instead. Buy them by the case and just bring them with you. I personally like the Labrada brands as they all taste pretty good.


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I've used meal replacement formula in the past, and didn't find it especially filling, and it was very expensive.

For years I made smoothies which included protein powder. In order for these to be filling, I added fat and fiber. I've since kind of lost my taste for protein powder, even the unflavored one I get.

I find rotisserie chicken to be a great time saver and ready source of protein. I can make a wrap for snacks, sandwich for lunch or dinner, or use it as a base for a recipe.

Do you need to cook three times per day? In most European countries the general population only has one cooked meal per day, and maybe a simple muesli/oats/whatever for breakfast and a slice of bread with cheese, coldcuts or other things inbetween. If that's too simple then why not get some good baguette, some butter and good, thick-sliced ham, or a ready-made tuna salad, or something like that? It really frees up a lot of time.

If you really feel you need to eat something warm several times per day then you could possible precook a bit pot of soup or stew.

I have either a Muscle Milk or Premier Protein shake for at least breakfast or lunch daily. I will also have one if I am feeling hungry and don't want to turn to higher calorie or unhealthy options. They have 160 calories and between 25-26 grams of protein per shake.

JaysFan82 wrote: »

I'll have a protein shake post workout with my breakfast but I would never make it my meal. I would be starving after. Not a meal replacement shakes fan. They don't teach you how to eat properly

It's crazy how everyone is different in regards to what makes them full. I can literally drink one of my shakes and feel full for 6-8 hours. If I'm extra active I will have one of those Muscle Milk Pro series that has 220 calories and 42 g of protein. But protein has always been the most satiating in my case

yirara wrote: »

Do you need to cook three times per day? If you really feel you need to eat something warm several times per day then you could possible precook a bit pot of soup or stew.

I tend to cook "warm meals" several times a day! Usually shove a 400 to 750g bag of frozen veggies in the microwave while making coffee so that they are "quick to warm up" later. These bags tend to be in the ~2-400 range. Then add them throughout the day to ~3-500 Cal frozen dinners, or eat with ~360 Cal bags /4 portions of reconstituted mash potatoes (I tend not to use milk or butter with them though I sometimes fold in some greek yogurt), or with a ~3-500 Cal can or package of soup/noodles/ramen heat as is or add water and wait an excessive 3 to 5 minutes before heading back to the desktop to eat! I also do re-heat my own pre-made soups or stews like you suggest though and while losing weight I had been known to pre-portion them and mark them with weigh and Cals on a problematic to secure sticky.

My attention span being short I try to keep the whole I got up to get food to I am sitting down eating process to 10 minutes or less, unless I feel like spending more time on it, of course