Meal Replacements for Weight Loss
It’s late at night and I’m driving home after a decidedly rough evening. I’m feeling kind of down and all I see is an endless parade of fast food restaurants with convenient drive-thrus beckoning. A thick, cold and creamy milk shake sounds just like the ticket. Maybe some of you out there can relate? I know all too well that a pit stop to “soothe” the pain with some junk food would, ultimately, only make a bad night worse. So instead, I decide to stick to the resolve that’s helped me to lose over 80 pounds in the past several months. Then a thought occurred to me. Why not try sticking to my diet while still having some comfort food? So I that’s what I did.
The idea of taking an unhealthy, guilty pleasure and transforming it in something that’s equally satisfying, but genuinely nutritious is a hobby of mine. I put that interest into play here. The reason I mention it is two-fold: 1) This can be a valuable strategy that can be incorporated into any diet plan; and 2) Several studies published in the past year indicate that using nutritious milk shakes (”meal replacements”) can help promote and sustain weight loss and wellness.
On June 17th, a trial was featured in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. It focused on a comparison between two strategies for maintaining long term weight loss. This is a very big issue in the arena of weight management. So called “yo-yo dieting” (repeatedly losing and gaining weight) is known to put individuals at greater risk for numerous health conditions and increased mortality. (1,2) Yo-yoing can be a vicious cycle.
This particular examination followed 62 volunteers who had achieved at least 5% weight loss via diet over a period of 6 months. The group was then split into two. One section received a once-daily (liquid) meal replacement in addition to a low calorie diet. The remainder of the participants followed a low calorie diet exclusively. All of the volunteers were monitored for a total of 6 months. (3)
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