Well, let us admit it; “weight loss” is the biggest dream when it comes to body maintenance. With each passing year, achieving body goals has become an intermittent challenge, even harder, and more so intimidating with colleagues uploading pictures of “near perfect, sculpted physique” all over your Facebook page.
Someone dear shared their secret with you — the now trending Meal Replacement and Diet Shakes. Is it really worth the sipping towards your slimming goals? Perhaps.
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Why Are Diet Shakes Grabbing Eyeballs The World Over?
The ideal way to control your weight is to follow a regular regimen of exercises coupled with a balanced diet that specifically aims at consuming low-fat food elements as well as lots of fruits and vegetables containing essential nutrients/fibres that aid in absorption and burning of fat. However, the progression of our demanding lives does not give us complete leeway to follow every step of a diet/fitness plan. Many dieticians and doctors, hence, recommend substituting certain meal plans with liquid meal replacements. These diet shakes taken in quantified amounts are often part of a healthy eating plan prescribed by an expert who understands your personal body type and health conditions.
However, seasoned nutritionists still believe that whole foods provide the body metabolism mechanism with the correct balance of nutrients. They disagree with the use of meal replacements, stating that real foods (whole grains, fruits, vegetables, lean meat, or protein rich dairy) have a range of seasonal choices that help one to maintain body fitness and catalyse weight loss in the right direction over a longer period.
Diet Shakes – Towards Convenient Weight Management
The existence of Diet Shakes has caused a large number of people to switch to this alternate meal replacement option. This is because have proved to be just as effective for causing weight loss when compared to the more conventional methods involving dieting charts and exercise regimens. Instilling the idea — that Diet Shakes are the simplest way to diet; the very convenience that comes in making simple diet shake recipes is an instant motivation for people to lose weight. Meal replacements come in the form of shakes, bars, soups, and biscuits that make it an easier substitute for any one or maximum two meals a day. However, one should understand that meal replacements work by reducing the entire portion size of your meal while still supplying your body with under 800kJ of energy (about 200 calories).
There is no denying that charting out the perfect diet plan to suit your body’s needs is a painstaking affair. The lack of time to shop for and prepare these balanced meals is one of the major reasons why diet shakes and meal replacements have become a boon for those concerned about their overall health and fitness.
For example, your first meal of the day- “the breakfast” is the most important for several health, stamina, and calorie burning reasons. It is indeed necessary to consume a wholesome breakfast that gives your body all the important nutrients to function with in order to replace loss of energy. Say if you find yourself consistently missing this particular meal for the beginning of the day, you are eventually barring yourself from achieving long-term weight control as well as health. A meal replacement hence becomes better than consuming nothing.
Diet Shakes and Counting Calories
For women, weight gain is a direct result of exceeding their daily calorie intake. Every person’s body has its own metabolism depending on several factors such as genes, hormones, daily eating habits, childhood fitness exposure, or menstrual cycle/after pregnancy effects. It becomes very difficult especially for women to lose weight once they crossover their calorie quota. In this case, meal replacement bars or low-fat/calorie entrees are highly useful in jump-starting weight loss or keeping a tight check on calorie burnout.
When aiming for sculpted bodies, many forget that one needs to consume fewer calories than those burning every day. For this reason, the consumption of any diet shake will not have its full effect unless you have determined your calorie allowance suited for your body’s weight loss. Slashing calories drastically off your diet will not help you, since your body needs calories to burn as well as help you stick to your changing eating habits. Exercises are a great way to aid all your diet plans, promoting good overall health, weight control, stimulating body functions and eliminating toxins or lactic acid produced in joints and muscles.
Breaking the Myth With Diet Shakes: The Pros and Cons
How Long Can You Possibly Last on Diet Shakes?
The latest trend seen amongst diet shake’s users is the replacement of their meals with these shakes for about the first three initial months to increase the quantity of their meals. After this, most people maintain steady weight loss for an account of years by substituting one meal with a meal replacement on general days. Therefore, the observation justifies that people are losing weight at a safe rate with the inclusion of two diet shakes within their meals and a decent portioned dinner on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, the question is how long can one survive on these methods? Are they in fact feasible for your body in the long run? In 2009, the American Dietetic Association published a study in their yearly journal-stating finding regarding this trend amongst women users. The difference found was that women, who attained weight loss by including a replacement beverage shake, when on a reduced-calorie diet plan, maintained their weight losses even after a year. They had replaced one regular meal with a diet shake. Whereas, women who solely stuck to the conventional — “low fat” & “low-calorie” diet without the use to replacement beverages, regained most of their initial weight.
Diet Shakes to Jump-Start Your Dieting Regimen
Diet shakes are a boon but not the ultimate magic formula in your tryst against weight loss. Despite its existence, your weight loss policy needs much natural motivation and a vigil approach to not fall under temptations and unhealthy food habits. They can have adverse effects without the consent of a certified dietician or nutritionist. However, the judicious use of meal replacement shakes are in fact a good way for your body to get you started on your weight loss targets as well as aiding in maintaining healthier weight standards. In addition, they do serve as a healthier option than most uninformed choices you could make.
Diet Shakes: Overall Sustainability
Diet shakes are after all “meal replacements” and can never contribute to your body system the same way good, natural foodstuffs do. These are synthetically produced and at its core aim to reduce/monitor weight loss. Therefore, entirely depending on meal replacements to lose weight does not prove to be a sustainable strategy. The consumption might even show drastic changes to your physique, but one needs thorough understanding of its use with a professional expert’s point of view. Most public health advisors state that a successful and durable weight maintenance programme involves regular physical activity, the support or quality medical care backed by detailed weight loss diet plans intended towards healthy, wholesome living.
Certain subjects have also shown gain in weight once they snubbed the use of diet shakes to replace their meals. This means that diet shakes exhibit short-term weight loss, the people under research happened to gain weight right back after returning to their regular diet. This proves that meal replacements are essentially person-to-person dependant varying over a range of factors that need regular modulation.
Understanding that there are innumerable brands producing diet shakes today, choosing the one that follows specified medical standards is essential. They are also known to have downsides and side effects which makes it important that you get plenty information before making the right choice before adding them to a diet plan. Diet shakes are quick, portable, and convenient to use making them an ideal choice for weight loss and maintenance. Many scientists have affirmed that the intake of proteins proves to be more satiating than fats or carbohydrates. Protein shakes are therefore under consumption by most people for meal replacements giving good results.
Nutrition & Diet Shakes
Dietician Katherine Zeratsky of Mayo Clinic has written in her blog that one cannot fully depend on shakes to provide all the nutritional components that come with whole foods. These components include antioxidants and other protective substances like vitamins and minerals that are essential to absorb as well as breakdown the proteins, carbohydrates and fats consumed. A serving of brown rice or portion of fruit salad paired with a meal replacement diet shake makes for a nutrient-powered, low in calories food for mealtime.
The habit of skipping meals through the day and finally coming to eating only dinner at nights is a hazardous lifestyle. People choose to eat at night to relieve themselves off stresses occurring through the day. This way the body goes through hunger cramps and eventually destroys the sensation of feeling hungry, adversely affecting weight management. Just as in the case of dehydration, your body stops asking for what you are not providing it. Wiping out the calorie deficits that contribute to healthy weight loss, only eating at dinnertime can have irreversible effects. You can limit your dinner intake to full-fledged, sensible and healthy low fat that includes poultry, sea food, lean meat (the proteins); with medium baked sweet potatoes, pasta or rice (the carbohydrates); and a portion size of boiled broccoli or other vegetables all eliminating excess calories. Only sticking to a meal replacement diet shake for dinner can potentially spell doom for your body’s health needs.
Diet Shakes: The Final Verdict
The makers of some ready-to-drink meals recommend sipping one each for lunch and breakfast, and eating a healthy or sensible low-fat dinner, keeping preparing food to the very least. You may make it through the full day on programmed pilot by relying on diet shakes; nevertheless, you cannot completely escape considering calories and other nutrients. Even though diet shakes stand set for two out of three meals, you still need to interpret “sensible” and “healthy low-fat” when deciding dinner. Shakes have a particular advantage over full meals as it pertains to convenience. They are easy to have along, quick to drink and easy to prepare. Often, no preparation in any way is involved. Because, they certainly provide some nutrients and can help to keep you full, shakes are better than skipping meals totally, if you are travelling or looking for quicker methods.
Meal replacement shakes is fast becoming an industry to lure people in to buying expensive products, advertised in a format that comes across as the perfect solution. Be aware that they are sold under MLM (Multi-level-Marketing) schemes and not all companies are looking towards making you healthy but rather making money for themselves. These pyramid schemes only manage to work if people are in constant engagement of buying. The goal is to lure you in on a programme and keep you yielding out payments for more meal replacements. High amounts of protein consumption in the long-term have been recognised to cause kidney and liver failures, most occurring due to extravagant intake of diet shakes. Do not fall for this mayhem causing strategy. Including them as part of your diet is a good choice.
Despite all the mixed reviews, one thing remains clear that meal replacement shakes due to its low calorie material does catalyse weight loss but with varying levels of effect on triggering vitamins and mineral proportions adversely affecting metabolic processes. Hence, once the intake stops, person experience prompt weight gain. This is because diet shakes are meant to be absorbed easily by the body, which means lower burning of calories during digestion.
Before you commence regularly replacing meals with shakes, get approval from your physician or a registered dietician. When you are buying your meal replacement, check for all its nutritional value thoroughly. Make sure that the combination provides 200-300 food calories of minimum energy out of which not more than 30% should exceed fats limitation. If you are using shakes for weight loss, achieve this limited to the short-term and in combo with other healthy strategies. Finally, always look for shakes that feature whole food ingredients, have a number of minerals, vitamins, and contain only smaller amounts of added sugar.