Meal replacement diets are awesome for weight loss, you can check my complete meal replacement shakes plan. Simply exchange one or, at the most, two meals per day for low calorie shakes and you’ll lose weight quickly and easily. No need to count calories or change the rest of your diet and no extra cooking either!
However, some people experience weight gain when they go back to eating normally. Why? Because they don’t change their old diet or lifestyle to support their new healthy weight.
To avoid regaining weight at the end of a meal replacement diet, make sure you implement these FIVE valuable and effective tips.
1. Plan your meals in advance
When you were using meal replacement shakes, you didn’t have to do much planning other than which meals you were going to swap out and what flavor shake you were going to drink. Now you aren’t having those shakes a couple of times a day, you need to plan your meals in advance, 5 reasons why you should do it here, and make sure that they are healthy too.
Choose some healthy recipes, buy the necessary ingredients, and plan on which days you are going to eat these meals.
You could even go a step further and make the meals in advance too. I do my cooking for the week on Sunday so that I always have healthy meals to eat during the week.
This stopped me from gaining weight after a meal replacement diet and it’ll work for you too.
2. Take up some exercise
Meal replacement diets are often quite low in calories which is why they result in fast weight loss. When you go back to eating normally, even if you eat healthily, you will eat more calories than normal and so you may well gain a little weight.
One of the best ways to avoid this is to add some extra exercise, easy routines you can do at home, to your daily routine to offset those extra calories.
You don’t need to do a lot – 30-minutes a day will do it. Brisk walking, yoga, swimming, jogging – anything you enjoy will work just fine.
3. Pump up the protein and fiber
Meal replacement shakes are generally high in protein and fiber – both of which keep you feeling fuller for longer and help control appetite and cravings. You don’t have to go without these essential nutrients once your meal replacement diet is over although you might need to plan your meals a little more to ensure you are getting enough.
To get enough protein and fiber, make sure all your main meals (especially lunch and dinner) contains a good source of protein such as fish, chicken, lean beef, eggs, tofu, or cottage cheese and lots and lots of leafy, non-starchy vegetables. Add some healthy fats such as olive oil and you have a perfect solid version of what was in your meal replacement shake – filling and healthy.
5. Avoid processed foods and added sugar
If anything will cause you to regain weight after a meal replacement diet, processed foods and added sugar will do it the most! Processed foods are almost always high in processed fats and calories but are not very filling so it’s easy to eat a lot of them.
Added sugars are part of many processed foods and, of course, are also in sweets, soda, candies etc.
Sugar, like processed food, contains nothing of nutritional value but is very easily converted to fat while interfering with fat burning. And no one wants just a little bit of added sugar – we want a lot because it’s addictive.
Both processed foods and added sugar are the enemy of fat loss and weight control so avoid them as much as you can. This will also help reduce cravings.
If you DO have a sugar craving, do like I do and have a low calorie, high fiber, protein bar. They taste sweet but have very little added sugar and the protein and fiber will keep you feeling fuller for longer. Some are even designed to taste a little like candy bars and make for a great guilt-free snack.
Remember, if you are feeling hungry and you have nothing else available to eat, it’s fine to have one of your meal replacement shakes. You might have finished your meal replacement diet but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue to have the occasional shake to stop you from eating an unhealthy, fattening meal.
Start your no-sugar days journey like I’ve done mine, it’s easy and free. Find more about my 20-no-sugar days challenge.
Conclusion
It would be a real shame to regain the weight you have lost when you finish a meal replacement diet; all that hard work for nothing. Don’t make the same mistake that I did – put these tips into action.
And if you only do one of these things? Make it the planning tip. Planning your meals in advance is THE easiest way to make sure you eat healthily and don’t eat a bunch of unhealthy junk food that makes you gain weight.
My weight loss plan using Meal Replacement Shakes
15 Meal Replacement Shakes Recipes
Available in 2 Formats: PDF and iBooks
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