I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday! The Kid and I had a great time without too much boredom. I took two walks yesterday – one with Thing Two and one with The Kid. Dinner turned out amazing so look for some recipes soon. I’m trying to figure out how to put them all into one downloadable booklet for you. Stay tuned.
Now it’s time for a chat over coffee. Yesterday online I was approached by someone who works for a diet shake company asking if I’d help promote their amazing weight loss shakes and a before/after contest they were running. I politely replied that I didn’t “do shakes”, but thanks anyway.
They countered back that they didn’t want me to use them, just help promote them to my friends and followers. Wow, I was actually surprised and thought this worthy of a blog post today. First off, I would never promote or recommend something to friends, tweeps, blog readers, or even strangers that I haven’t tried myself. If I’m not willing to try it, why would I risk my reputation telling others how great it is. If you read about it here, I tried it myself and am giving my real thoughts.
Secondly, I know some of you will be making New Years Resolutions to lose some holiday gain, drop a few pounds, get in shape, and so on. Bazillions of us do this each year. I’m going to state the obvious here… you need to do this with real food not liquid food. You aren’t going to drink two or three meals a day for the rest of your life, so why try to lose weight doing it?
Lose weight the way that you will eat for the rest of your life. Eat several meals a day of healthy, whole foods and stay within your calorie range and the weight will come off. Yes, you will lose weight with shakes but it’s because they lower your calories enough to cause the weight loss or because your tummy is empty(!). Not because they are the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World.
Eating real food has several advantages. You will be eating balanced meals that provide the vitamins and nutrients that you need. It’s worked for centuries. You will be able to eat enough to fill you while keeping your calories lower. Who doesn’t like not being hungry. Most importantly, you can lose weight while learning eating habits that you continue forever.
No bounceback or weight regain once you come off the diet. You don’t come off a diet, you just eat more of what you’ve already been eating. Plus you’ve already built healthy habits and knowledge along the way. That’s your magical fix – it’s called healthy eating knowledge. (I just thought of that brilliance on the fly. ;-))
Finally, I’ve nothing against shakes and do drink the occasional protein shake pre or post workout or as a snack on the go. They can be much easier on the stomach pre-workout than something that will sit in there like lead. They even make great tasting smoothies when mixed with fruit. I just think they aren’t a great weight loss tool and don’t think they should be relied on as such to replace several meals a day for days/weeks at a time.
What are your thoughts on shakes for weight loss? Do you use shakes for snacks or workout recovery?
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