Hi All,

I’m beginning this diet/journey tomorrow and the book says you can do meal replacements that are worth about 600 calories. Are there any recommended meal replacement brands? I’m from Australia and have used Optifast before, but each pack contains 20g of sugar so I am a bit cautious.

Any help would be great 🙂

Thanks!

Hi MessyJessy – sorry no-one has picked up on your question yet, but welcome to the forum. Unfortunately I’m not Antipodean based, so don’t know what meal replacements might be available to you, however, I can say that many of those available in the UK are very high in carbs with a scarily large portion of that coming from sugars. I imagine this is probably the case with these products across the globe, so I think some online research and reading nutritional labels is a must before deciding on what to use.

Could I ask why meal replacements rather than actual food? Really, it is much easier to control both the calories and carbs if you are eating proper non-processed food, so if you think you could go that route, I’d strongly recommend doing so. However, whatever you decide to do, please keep posting and making use of the forum. Best wishes to you for your start on the BSD and I hope to be reading of your positive results soon.

Hi, I use meal replacements shakes and bars from Exante, I’m not sure whether they are available in Australia. You could also try Cambridge Weight Plan – again, not sure if that’s available where you are. Meal replacements are great if you don’t want the hassle of creating menus and trying to find accurate carb/calorie counts – it couldn’t be simpler with regards to calculating carbs and calories as it’s right there on the packet. I find trying to work menu plans out really tedious. Meal replacements are useful for getting some weight off initially and then you can transition gradually into eating more food. The first week is rough but once you’re in a routine, it’s pretty easy.

Hi, Jo19. I’m happy that you’ve found successful weight loss on using meal replacements, but I have to respectfully
disagree that this is a viable alternative to successful, long term weight loss. Losing weight is the short term goal,
but learning how to maintain that loss is only possible when we learn how to properly prepare a healthy plate
of food and make these habits ones that can be practiced for life. We learn this with practice, and I don’t agree
with the numerous preprepared meals through nutrisystem or jennycraig or any other programs here in the
U.S. that send you prepared meals, and shakes and bars fall into the same category. Long term statistics don’t
favor these short cuts, and have proven to be of little value other than convenience. I wish you the best!

Allie

I have to agree with Aliie and would add that all the meal replacements I have looked at, are scarily high in carbohydrates. As the BSD is meant to be a low carb approach to eating, I really struggle to equate meal replacements with the BSD. Of course, we are all individuals and need to approach weight loss and maintenance in a way that works for us. However, like Allie, I believe very strongly that unless we learn what a real portion of healthy food looks like and can create that for ourselves from scratch, we stand little chance of successfully maintaining our weight loss once we get to target.

I would also add that I agree and meal replacements are a quick term fix not a long term way of eating. The reason I have failed years ago in diets is that the way of eating I would choose would not be sustainable long term.