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Diet Shakes? Herbalife? Juice plus? Vi? Almased? Lighter life? etc.....

I'm following these threads with interest to see if anyone else has had the same thing that I'm going through. I've tried the Herbalife shakes and my partner has lost a lot of weight on them so I'm not knocking them, however i've found more recently that I've been getting pins and needles in my heels at night. This is being looked into by the doctors but one of the things I've eliminated to see the difference is the shakes. The reason why is because they have an incredibly high sugar count. I'll set up another post as I don't want to hijack yours though I'm curious to see if there is a link.
 
Do you have a blood glucose meter?
 
I almost have one that I ordered. I was testing before to see how I react to different foods then the diabetic nurse said that I didn't need to because I'm on Metformin. However, with what has been happening recently I want to see how I'm reacting to various things.

My last HBAc1 was 49% so I'm boarderline.

Your signature is impressive btw. I'll update mine to show my history.
 
Can you not exercise?

I use my fitness pal to log exercise and food.

Burn more than you eat, and weight should reduce.

I went from 18 stone to 14.5 stone doing this
 
Thanks. I'm concerned that the pins & needles in your feet may be the beginnings peripheral neuropathy due to high blood glucose levels. I remember reading somewhere that peripheral neuropathy can strike people who are "pre-diabetic". The best defence against peripheral neuropathy is to keep your blood glucose levels in the normal range.
 
That's my concern as well and I will keep you posted. I came off the shakes straight away and will be monitoring my reaction to various foods. MD I love MyFitnesspal and I'm a yoga teacher as well as being a stay at home mum looking after an energetic toddler. What happened with my feet has been more of a wake up call and I'm continuing to lose weight, especially as I'm getting married in May! I'll still keep in check.

I didn't mention above that I had my dad about the foot thing and he said that he got it when he didn't keep his sugar in check.
 
That's like that joke, I'll have to find the picture of the person shown throwing chairs because they have tried hard with their eating all week and someone else has gone and had two takeaways and lost. That would be horrible but fortunately I'm not in the situation. When I gain it's completely my own fault.
 
Well, I lost a lot of weight (50 pounds) by not exercising and switching to LCHF a few years ago. I was eating about 2,700 calories a day, around 75-80% fat calories, around 15% protein, the rest carbs. I've kept most of the weight off. I'd never been able to sustain weight loss by calorie restriction, although I could lose weight by cutting my calories to less than 1,800 per day. Eventually I'd give up as feeling very hungry all the time was not something I could continue indefinitely. More importantly, as soon as I started LCHF my blood glucose levels dropped.
 
I used Tesco shakes with no issue.

Have a read of the Newcastle diet on here.
It's 800 calories a day, and as you are very calorie deficient, most (if not all) of those doing it see their BG decrease very quickly.
 
I've tried most methods of losing weight over the years and I seem to be able to put on weight on most of them. Exercise gives me muscles and a ravenous appetite. On Atkins I found that I have a low resistance to weightloss, and I can eat anything but carbs and lose weight, though I could cope with up to 80 gm of carbs a day and not put on weight. I tried a drink made in a Nutribullet using salad stuff rather than fruit, and that caused a rapid increase in BG levels, faster than eating the same thing as they had been prior to blitzing. If I ever have to cope with hypos I think I'd try a blitzed green salad drink - or perhaps beetroot - I've been thinking of experimenting with beetroot icecream.
Shakes sweetened with sugar - even that 'healthy' alternative, honey, seem to be just setting up the consumer for failure, as it doesn't reduce the craving for sweet things.
 
If not dieting was easy, we'd all be doing it.

Food is too easy to find, we need to re-educate our minds that we don't need to continuously eat, and hunger is just another healthy good feeling.
Human beings are hunter gatherers, they aren't supposed to sit on the sofa, feeling satiated all the time.
 
I've never used protein shakes, but in the last 12 months or so have lost weight by going low carb medium fat and restricting calories lost about 8 stone approximately 51 kilograms or 112 Lbs. Doctor told me today I am if any thing still slightly overweight at 10 st 10 lb go figure.
 
If trying to keep carbs down it's worth looking at the nutritional values of any shake. I've just looked at the stuff I have used in the past, 25gms per serving, so I was a bit surprised. Slightly off topic but with my BG going up and down when it's not expected, that little bit of carb may not be so bad.
 
I was told that I was fat when I weighed 10 stone 7 lb and had a 24 inch waist. I used to go sailing most weekends and had muscles - the suede miniskirts I wore would just about make a decent handbag, so I'll never wear them again - however, I have noticed that my feet have shrunk. I have thrown away a couple of pairs of shoes and sandals as they no longer stay on my feet. My feet are narrower and also shorter by about one whole size from 6 and 1/2 to 5 and 1/2.
 

I think I would have hit him with a comment like that after success like yours!
 
IMO- shakes should not be used as meal replacements. As has been said here already, eat real food. You could use a good quality unflavoured whey protein powder (Clean one without all the garbage that is in most of them) as the protein part of a meal and cook the rest of the meal, veggies, or salad etc. You can flavour your own shakes with cacao powder, a sweetener you like if you use one. You can add things to them, peanut butter for example. If you are following a LCHF diet. You can make your own if you prefer, there is nothing magical about a protein powder or shake mix.

Some are very expensive.

Some are not bad.

They can be used as a quick 'on the go' top up when you don't have time to cook or running late for work etc.
 
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