Are Meal Replacements a Good, Safe and Healthy Way to Lose Weight?

Just as important as the amount of calories in a safe and effective diet is the make up or composition of those calories.  Protein, carbohydrates and fat make up the macronutrients in our diet.  Diets with less carbohydrate and more protein, keep metabolism a bit elevated (good effect) as well as turn off most fat storage (also a good effect for weight loss).

Obvious to those who have been on many diets is the fact that the full act of eating includes: shopping, storing, cooking, eating and finally the cleaning up of your food.   All of this takes a long time and costs plenty more than we think it does.

Four Benefits of Healthy Meal Replacements:

1. Low Carbohydrate (but not so low as to achieve true medical ketosis)
2. Higher Protein  (especially in the branched chain amino acids)
3. Some but not too much fat (usually the essential fats)
4. Proper portion

Many patients tell me that they know how to diet but just don’t do it.  Meal replacements help with dieting and therefore weight loss by giving the proper quantity of carbohydrates (carbs), protein, fat and portion along with the complete assortment of vitamins allowing patients to eat meal replacements exclusively for a period of time.  The use of full meal replacements (shakes, soups and bars for all meals) improves health and obviously nutrition with a minimum of effort.  Seeing a doctor for your weight loss allows he or she to use the proper mix of meal replacements to compensate for many medical conditions that you may have including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and digestive problems.

A last thought on meal replacements and a big benefit is that weight loss can be rapid.  During rapid weight loss there is the possibility of getting yourself into trouble. Obesity medicine physicians should be very knowledgeable of how your body and the current medications that you take will react or respond with weight loss and how to adjust these medicines and support you.