How diet shakes changed my life and upset the family. Taking on a diet is a personal crusade however you can take hostages with you
Are diet shakes good for you
Well, they must be because the packet tells me so. However, I needed to do a bit more research to get the correct answer.
I started at the chemist shop reading labels and they told me how good they were so it had to be true. However, the best results come from practical experience so I started the journey
I am not grossly overweight so why do this
As an older guy who does not mind the odd beer and glass of wine, I carry around a pot tummy, nothing too big but enough to notice. I was at about 83 Kl
so tending to be above the ideal weight for 71 inches in height. (180 cm)
My waist was just on 41 inches (104Cm) so a bit above the size 36 jeans I wanted to wear.
The shake chosen said I did not need to change my lifestyle however I thought I should help the process by cutting down on a few things.
Instead of two or three biscuits for morning and afternoon tea, I settled for just one. Chocolate intake was cut to a square at a time which is just a sweetener.
A glass or so of wine remained on the menu.
Other considerations
I don’t use sugar having given that a miss for many years and my salt intake is fairly limited. I chose to change to both Black coffee and tea because of my minor intolerance to milk.
Furthermore, I have always done some exercise mostly walking three or four km a day and that was retained.
My weight had gradually increased over recent years so was generally on an upward trend and needed the breaks put on.
My choice was the Man Shake because it said I could still have a drink and lose weight.
The passage was to have a shake every morning and to retain all the other meals without change.
However my main concern was my sensitive stomach, could I survive the morning without food and stomach pains, I had some doubt about this but went for it anyway.
One solution was to have a banana mid-morning to tide me over so that concern was allayed.
What was I hoping to achieve?
First of all, I had a destination weight of 77 kg a size I had not been in many years, and to take a couple of inches from the gut so my shirts looked a bit flatter.
All the vitamins should help with any tiredness and give me a whole bundle of energy to go forward.
The cost was a concern as I was replacing a breakfast of Porridge ( it was mid-winter) with some fruit so very cheap.
A replacement meal was going to cost $2.93 unless I could find it at a discount.
Not a high price but hey every little count and the $44 hit was a consideration.
How diet shakes changed my life and the experience gained
What was the experience like?
First of all, I took to it with optimism and believed that it had to work however long the journey was.
In my first packet (15 days worth) I tried the Vanilla flavor but changed to the coffee flavor after that.
Then I left weekend meals as before where we had a small portion cooked breakfast of eggs and something else.
Trouble started with the shaker I was using, it was not getting rid of all the lumps to Off I went to Big W and purchased a $2.00 shaker with a wire ball inside. This fixed the problem and is still working many months later.
Man shake sells you one for about $15 for the logo on the side. so you can avoid that
Predictably I actually enjoyed the shakes and looked forward to them as a meal replacement
The results of the first round
Finally, I was happy with the results after about a month. I went down to 76 kg and lost about an inch from my stomach measurement so really achieved what I set out to do.
Drinking a shake a day was no problem and importantly It was a preferred way to start the day.
How diet shakes changed my life
What shake did I choose and did I change
I decided to change to see what else was available and tried the Optiman shake, the Aldi shakes and the fast 800 to have a variety.
Price is pretty even however Aldi is the cheapest although at the bottom of my list. I have gone back to the Man Shake as my preferred option.
Conclusion
The journey has been a few months now and is just part of my life.
My weight consolidated at about 77 KG which is just on my BMI recommendation.
Too skinny never looks good however carrying a whole bundle of weight is unhealthy so find a balance that lets you live a life
Writing your experiences
This is all about blogging and can be learned at Wealthy Affiliate in another review I did