Homemade meal replacement, advantages and when is a good idea to prefer this

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 As the name says a meal replacement is supposed to be a subsitute of one of your main meal, but why would you have that and what are the possible advantages?


ADVANTAGES


Depending on your personal lifestyle and the dietary targets you are trying to achieve, a meal replacement could be a good idea if you can benefit from one of the following:


- Low calories but high in protein:

The ingredients to be used for a meal replacements are endless which means you can keep the calories low for any weight loss purpose but keeping the protein high to not lose muscles 

- Time saving:

Preparing something like a shake cuould take litearally few minutes when the ingredients are already selected and is way better than skipping a meal and avoid long gaps, especially when very busy during the day 

- Nutrients:

Being able to select the ingredients including supplements/fibres/protein can help to easily achieve the achieve any specific requirements and at the same time avoiding extra calories or anything that you are trying to avoid to keep that low in your daily diet

Most of the meal replacement are already foritied with nutrients to meet the daily needs 

You can also add speficic supplements to your homemade meal replacement 

- Cost/effect:

Cooking a home made meal might be still better but is not always that easy to find the time and energy for that and definitely this option is cheaper and healthier than any readymade or fast food consumed when in a rush 


- Planning:

This meal is going to help the planning during the day because having one meal already prepared and ready to go in minutes it means that you can dedicate more time for another meal, so to make a practical example, if you are always too busy for breakfast or lunch and often skip that meal, the replacement shake can avoid this and help you to think already about the next meal, dinner for example where you can have more time to prepare that  





Things to consider before starting:


- Quality:

When choosing something so simple to make, it all comes to the ingredients we choose and if you are not choosing just natural ingredients is very important to check any aritificial product that comes usually in powder (for exmaple protein) once again reading labels is essential to make the right decision based on your needs 


- Fibres:

Make sure that is over 3 gr per shake which is a good amount, unless you are trying to have a low residue diet with less fibres obviously 


- Protein:

To avoid the risk of loosing muscles and reduce the hunger during the rest of the day,  at least 15gr per shake are recommended 


- Sugar:

Some readymade brands might have put a higher amount of sugar to improve the flavour so try to choose something under 10 gr of sugar per shake and possibly without corn syrup 


- Snacks:

Be preapared and ready with healthy snacks to have during the day to never suffer the hunger, especally if you have never had a meal replacement before or if you are having a low caloric shake


- Digestion

Since you can easily avoid any ingredient and find a valide subsitute it means that is easier to respect any sort of allergy or intollerance, therefore easy to digest 




You can also choose to make your own meal replacement, here some ideas :


Meal replacement 1: 

1 cup of milk (you can choose a plant based option if you prefer)

half cup of rolled oats and another half of rasperries or blackberries 

1 table spoon of low sugar peanut butter 


Nutrionoal value:

Calories: around 340 depending on the type of milk used 

Protein: 15 gr (before adding any separately)

Fibers: 6 gr

Sugar: around 10 gr 



Meal replacement 2: 

half cup of milk (you can choose a plant based option if you prefer)

80 gr of tofu

60 gr of spinach

half of an avocado

1 kiwi


Nutrionoal value:

Calories: around 350 depending on the type of milk used 

Protein: 14 gr (before adding any separately)

Fibers: 10 gr

Sugar: around 10 gr 



Meal replacement 3: 

half cup of milk, in this case plant based and unsweetened is prefered

half cup of greek yogurt low in sugar 

30 gr of spinach

one quarter of an avocado

half cup of raspberries and blueberries

1 table spoon of low sugar peanut butter 


Nutrionoal value:

Calories: around 340 

Protein: 10 gr (before adding any separately)

Fibers: 8 gr

Sugar: around 10 gr 



Meal replacement 4: 

1/4 cup of almond milk unsweetened 

half cup of chilled chai tea

half banana

1 table spoon of low sugar peanut or almond butter 

1/4 tea spoon of cinnamon


Nutrionoal value:

Calories: around 250

Protein: 11 gr (before adding any separately, vanilla protein powder would be ideal for this one)

Fibers: 6 gr

Sugar: around 10 gr 



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