Protein Shake / Meal Replacement Programs - Help!

My fav protein shake/meal replacement is a mix of the protein powder I have, skim milk and a scoop of the no name meal replacement powder. I only do it if I am in a hurry because I couldn't live off them all the time. I mix the meal replacement powder with the protein on days I know I won't get enough protein from real foods.

You can make your own much cheaper than the ones you mentioned that would probably taste much better!

I would imagine that the success with these is fleeting. Yes you can lose weight initially. But sooner or later you will either have to learn how to eat sensibly, or you'll gain back everything you've lost with these things. And therein lies the rub-- whether we do it now or we do it later, we still have to learn how to eat sensibly.

Why not just do that from the beginning? These products are highly processed, full of things that aren't in your kitchen and your grandmother wouldn't even recognize, and to me qualify as faux foods, in the same group as Twinkies and Kool Aid. While our bodies are quite resilient and adaptive, why not give your body what it was evolved to thrive on-- high quality clean veggies, fruits, meats, and grains?

There are things in real foods that are tremendous health givers that we have only recently discovered, and so many more that haven't been discovered yet. Just the other day I heard that the hulls of popcorn have more than 100 times the antioxidants of fruits. Five years ago, no one knew that. What discoveries about real food lie just around the corner?

Just because your body can digest these products doesn't make them food. I've never heard of anyone staying on them for the rest of their lives, and I've never heard of anyone maintaining successful weight loss over a term of years after using them to lose weight. Probably someone else here has; but doesn't that tend to make that the exception rather than the rule? If it really worked, why their stock would be through the roof, there'd be runs on the stores, and everyone would be thin.

In real food is ancient wisdom and natural evolution. Learn to eat real food, and eat well. You can't beat the contents of the garden with the contents of a test tube.

Like Michael Pollan says, "Eat real food; mostly plants, not too much."

Do you guys actually feel full after drinking these?

Personally, I find solid food keeps my hunger in check as it takes longer to digest. I *DO* supplement my diet with shakes to meet protein goals though, but I don't rely solely on them for meals.