Meal Replacement Shakes for Weight Loss…Do They Work?

There are a lot of products on the market that claim to help you lose weight, including protein shakes, meal replacement bars, supplements and teas.  Do these things really help you lose weight? 

Ok, sure, these tools can play an important role in your weight loss lifestyle and they can even mean the difference between success and failure for many people, but they only work if you know the secret ingredient to making meal replacements work…

Why Meal Replacement Shakes Work…

Most of these products are designed to help you reduce your calorie intake by offering a convenient alternative to higher calorie meals and snacks.  For example: If a typical meal for you contains 500 calories and you replace two of those meals each day with a protein bar or diet shakes that contain 200 calories each, you’ve cut 600 calories from your diet without much effort or deprivation.  That could certainly help you burn fat.

The Secret Ingredient…

In order for people to use meal replacement shakes and protein bars successfully; they must be used as support for a REAL FOOD DIET!

If you expect to live off of a diet of protein bars and shakes, it may work for a while, but eventually your body will catch on and weight loss will cease.

Real food, meaning fruits, vegetables, nuts, meat, eggs, etc., are complex foods full of vitamins, mineral, fiber, phytochemicals, fats, proteins, and yet to be discovered compounds that likely have a positive impact on our health and fat loss efforts. Your body knows when you’re eating real food and when you’re consuming fake foods…it NEEDS real food

Many of these meal replacement products are loaded with chemicals, preservatives and artificial sweeteners, which can hinder your weight loss over the long term.

The Best Meal Replacement Is…Wait For It…Wait For It…

Real food. Think about it…

The goal of using meal replacements is to consume fewer calories and to regulate the amount of carbohydrates and unhealthy fats. When you eat real food, you are almost always consuming fewer calories than what you would get out of a refined food!

Focus on eating real food.  Not processed, chemical-laden so-called “food” – but real, honest-to-goodness food straight from nature.

It has been proven time and time again that the healthiest diet on the planet is comprised of wholesome, natural foods like vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, grains, and lean protein.  These foods have been altered very little from their original form, and therefore contain the most nutrients possible.

How does this help you lose weight?

Remember this…real foods get registered!  One of the biggest problems with refined diets is that the foods inhibit the body’s ability to register calories! Your brain has a calorie thermostat that shuts off appetite once you have eaten enough to meet the body’s needs. Let’s say for example that your body’s thermostat is set to 500 calories in a meal. Once you have eaten 500 calories of real food, the brain sends out signals to stop eating…we call these “satiety signals”. If, however, you drink 300 calories of soda before your meal even gets to the table, research has shown that those calories fly right under the radar of your calorie thermostat. In other words, you will eat your 500 calories ON TOP of the 300 calories from soda that you already consumed!

Meal replacements can work when eaten as a snack or meal replacement as long as your body feels that you are getting enough real food.

When you cut out excessive sugar, sodium, processed fats and other refined foods, your body functions much more efficiently and you automatically start losing weight.  Real foods are lower in calories, bulkier (thus more filling) and contain far more nutrients than most manufactured weight loss products.

By building a foundation of eating real food, you give your body the best possible chance to return to a healthy weight and stay there – and it will usually happen much faster than it would by relying on dietary aids.

Don’t get me wrong, I use protein shakes, bars, and other supplements, but ONLY on top of a diet made up of mostly REAL food! The protein shakes and bars simply help me get my protein, calories, and snack-fixes in, especially when I am busy or on the run!