Using Huel powered meals to lose weight

I didn’t realize that I had been consuming 30% more calories a day than I needed to maintain my weight until I started this process.

It all started with Soylent

My journey with Huel began with Soylent back in 2016 or so.  I heard about Soylent from a colleague, who chugged bottles of it each day, and I thought "No way".  But then I researched how the idea was first conceived and its product evolution and I saw its brilliance.  Suppose we can feed ourselves consistent nutritionally complete food (like how we feed our pets 🐈). Shouldn’t it significantly reduce cognitive load, generate less food waste, normalize our weight and bodily functions, and ultimately make us less sick?

So I started testing Soylent later that year.  I thought it was quite tasty, and began having one for breakfast and sometimes lunch.  Each meal filled me up for several hours afterward.  I had trouble downing the meal, it took me more than an hour to finish a bottle of 400 calories.  I had it while I was walking around or finishing up something.  This was a huge time saver.  I even brought them to Burning Man 2016, helping me save on food prep.  That was the height of my consumption.

Due to social reasons, and a lack of an end goal, I reverted to eating real food more and more, until one day I stopped the subscription.  It was a gradual decline, I can’t point to exactly when that happened.  I was also beginning to develop an allergy to soy, which is a primary ingredient of Soylent.  And thus my journey with Soylent ended.

In the spring of 2024, I was living alone, working long hours at my startup, and eating poorly.  I was gaining weight and losing hair, and my skin felt crummy.  I had stalled on my climbing progress, and my body hurt— back, shoulder, elbow.  I thought it was just a symptom of aging and climbing too hard, but my mom continued to have luscious skin and hair through her 70s.  I decided I needed to eat better.  

I want to be lazy and healthy, damnit

I have no time to cook, and it's too hard to keep track of calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients from groceries or eating out. It just turns eating into a chore. Soylent is a non-starter because of my soy allergy, and they are explicitly GMO, which I hear isn't good for us (though I'd love to dig deeper here).  Are there other options?  I eyed my cat's wet food with envy.

Huel is the new Soylent. Each meal is nutritionally complete, and they use natural vegan ingredients. They're now available on Amazon, as well as through a subscription direct from their US-based warehouse. They sell quick powdered meals, savory chewable meals, bars, powered greens, etc.  They even have a high protein line called Huel Black. Each meal amounts to about $3-4, which is extremely cost-effective. I decided to give them a shot as they seemed to tick all my boxes.

Through their website, one can only order through a subscription, but it's cheaper than buying individual packs from Amazon. I quickly got a starter kit of Huel black, daily greens, some savory meals, and a variety of ramen cups too. They have 9 flavors for the Huel black such as vanilla, coffee caramel, chocolate, unflavored, etc. I chose one unflavored and one flavored, intending to mix them 50/50 per meal to reduce the overall stevia sweetness. My subscription was set to renew every 5 weeks.

I didn’t realize that I had been consuming 30% more calories a day than I needed to maintain my weight until I started this process. I'm 5'2", 40-something, and moderately active with more muscle than a normal woman, so my basal metabolic rate is likely around 1600. My weight peaked at 128lbs before starting this diet, and my goal is to get back to around 118lbs, which is what I weighed 10 years ago (back when I was climbing harder than I do now). I know with mindful tracking of calories, plus daily walking and climbing 2 times a week, I can get to my target weight without significant muscle loss.

I tried to do 2 Huel servings a day and a normal meal, for a total of about 1600 calories a day, which should yield a deficit.  It’s a Huel Black serving most mornings, followed by either a normal lunch or Huel savory lunch serving, then followed by a normal dinner or Huel savory dinner serving. I found it easy to maintain this due to the variety of Huel flavors and textures, and I can still eat a normal meal once a day. I even became more choosy about what I ate for my only normal meal.

Feeling good and 6 lbs lighter

I’m currently on month 2 of my Huel diet.  I discovered that this does indeed yield a calorie deficit and caused me to lose about 0.5 to 1 lb per week, with the most pronounced loss at around 3 weeks in. I have now lost 6 lbs total.  I also found my sleep quality is better, my skin feels more supple, and my climbing has improved without changes to my schedule or training. I feel slightly stronger and have more endurance, likely from carrying less weight around. This also means that I haven't lost muscles that matter to my climbing. I still have aches and pains, so maybe I need more time to see what happens with that.

One unpleasant side effect of starting Huel was a bubble gut. I read that due to the high fiber content, for some people it could cause problems until the gut normalizes. For the first few weeks, I had loose stool, bloating, and terrible gas. I had to pull back some days and consumed one Huel meal instead of two, just to give my gut a break. But after a month, it started to get better, and by month 2, my gut problems had mostly disappeared. My poop is now a beautiful bristol 4.

The weight loss seems to have stalled at this point as I’m currently weighing 122 lbs for the past 2 weeks.  I think it's time to get a BMI scale and schedule a DEXA scan as that will present a clearer picture of my fat, bone, and muscle composition. I'm also going to start a 16:8 intermittent fast, which involves fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window each day. Combined with walking at least 7000 steps a day (which is about 60 minutes), I think that will shock my body to get past the current plateau.

At any rate, I’m quite pleased with how Huel has helped me so far. I'm excited about getting closer to my weight goal, climbing harder than I've ever done before, and just feeling more energized in general. I'll share an update in a few months.