Meal Replacements

Yesterday I talked about energy and meal replacement bars. I pointed out that you need to be careful what you eat. Just because these products are marketed as energy/weight loss supplements that aren’t always your best bet. I also gave you one of the snack/meals that I eat almost every day (apple, cottage cheese, and 2-3oz grilled chicken). I always try to eat “real” food such as nuts, veggies, fruit and lean meat as much as possible. It is hard to stay away from the quick convenient replacement meal that we have all come accustom to eating, but doing so will make you healthier and you will start to seeing weight loss results. With that being said, I know there are times that you just don’t have time to make or pack a healthily lunch or snack. In those times I have found a combination that I feel is a great snack or meal replacement.

I carry a shake mixer in my lunch box to work with me everyday. This is a plastic cup with a lid that has an insert that sits in the top to help mix powdered drinks. With this I can mix a Slim-Fast Optima Shake, one scoop of vanilla whey protein powder and one cup of water. This is a great tasting substitute when you just don’t have time to eat something healthier. As you can see in the table below this combination is a total of 310 calories with 21% Fat, 35% Carbs, and 44% Protein. This is very close to the 20-40-40 diet rule.




The reason I recommend adding the protein powder is because Slim-Fast alone is not a great choice because it is very high in carbohydrates and it will spike in your blood sugar without the extra protein in it to help slow the absorption of the sugar into the blood stream.

The great thing about Slim-Fast is it is available at just about any grocery store. The vanilla whey protein is fairly inexpensive and can be picked up at most health food stores like Vitamin Shoppe, GNC or Max Muscle. I prefer the Optimum Nutrition Vanilla Ice Cream Whey Protein Powered. I like it because it doesn’t taste bad by itself. Click here for their website: http://www.optimumnutrition.com/products/100-whey-gold-standard-p-201.html. By the way, drinking this won’t make you look like the guy in the picture!