Can shakes help you lose weight?

Can shakes help you lose weight? It depends on what’s in them. Here, we set out the key elements of shakes that work.

In 2015, when Michael Mosley published the story of his own weight loss, he realised that he had found a way of eating that could revolutionise dieting.

Old-school diets told us simply to ignore the urge to eat all of our favourite foods. Inevitably, this sets you up for a fall. With The Fast 800, you don’t have to ignore your cravings. Instead, you erase them at the source, reprogramming your body and brain to enjoy healthy, balanced meals.

This depends overwhelmingly upon a single principle: keeping away from sugar-laden, processed foods.

Shakes: Your diet survival pack

Taking the time to prepare fresh ingredients, and to enjoy eating them, is fundamental to restoring an appetite that knows instinctively when to stop.

Beyond the limits of your own kitchen eating the right food is a tough call. 21st century living is an obesity-generator, dominated by powerful junk food marketing.

However, this isn’t always achievable, and there will be some days where it just feels so much easier to grab a sandwich or order pizza rather than cook a healthy, balanced meal. And it’s during these more busy/stressful times that meal replacement shakes can be a useful tool to help you lose weight.

Backed by science

A growing body of research supports that meal replacement shakes can help you lose weight. In 2008, the American Dietetic Association found that compared to dieters using real food alone, dieters using partial meal replacement shakes lost more weight at 12 weeks, lost more weight over one year, and had a significantly lower drop-out rate.

However, you may have heard that some meal replacement shakes are bad for you, and you wouldn’t be wrong in some cases. A lot of meal replacement shakes on the market are full of sugar, high in carbs and full of preservatives.

Choosing a meal replacement shake that contains low amounts of sugar is particularly important. When you consume a shake with high amounts of sugar your blood sugar levels will increase. To help regulate this, the pancreas will release insulin, which will convert the sugar in your blood to energy.

The problem is that when you continually consume products that are high in sugar, your pancreas has to produce more and more insulin to help regulate your blood sugar levels, which can lead to insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is problematic as it will keep you feeling hungry and will encourage fat storage, which isn’t ideal if you are trying to lose weight.

Ensuring that the meal replacement shake that you use is low in sugar is therefore essential.

Shakes that are high in protein and contain quality fats will keep you feeling fuller for longer and aid in muscle growth and maintenance, which again will be essential for your weight loss strategy.

How The Fast 800 shakes can help you lose weight

Very few of the main meal replacement brands out there aligned to our recommendations – low in sugar, high in protein, full of natural ingredients and with a good supply of vitamins and minerals in 800 calories.

So we made our own!

The Fast 800 shakes were developed to aid people to achieve their goals when implementing the principles of The Fast 800 lifestyle. They are designed to be a convenience shake as, whilst we usually recommend cooking and using fresh Mediterranean-style ingredients, we realise this isn’t always possible. So instead of reaching for the phone to order a burger, or rushing out to grab a pie for lunch, you can opt for The Fast 800 shakes.

Our shakes use natural ingredients, are low in sugar, high in fibre, and contain good amount of protein and quality fats. This means that the shakes will aid you in your weight loss journey, and can be a really useful tool for the days where cooking just feels like too much hard work.

For more information on The Fast 800 shakes, head to the FAQs on our product page, or contact the Team via shakes@thefast800.com.