Drinking Meals As A Weight Loss Trend: Does It Really Work?

Drinking meals are practical in everyday life and available quickly at all times. For this reason, more and more people are turning to drinking meals to save time and lose weight at the same time. But despite the enticing promises of the corresponding marketing campaigns, there are also some factors to consider when it comes to the healthy benefits of such “liquid food”. Find out what you should consider and how healthy drinking meals really are here.

“Drinking meals alone cannot replace a balanced diet,” warns Jan Bahmann, an experienced German weight loss coach from Hanover. When it comes to his coaching sessions to achieve the desired figure, he focuses not only on mere weight reduction but also on building a new awareness of a healthy lifestyle – without major restrictions or sacrifices. That’s why he also questions drinking meals, whether they can actually work as a diet approach and what one should consider when deciding on such a drinking cure.

Drinking meals offer benefits

Undeniably, drinking meals are a successful model if you want to lose weight. And after all, they wouldn’t be if they didn’t actually offer some benefits. Of course, with any weight loss method, it is helpful to have an accurate overview of calories. While it is difficult to keep an exact overview of the calories consumed when eating freshly prepared meals in one’s own kitchen or when eating out at a restaurant, they can be measured exactly when drinking meals.

The simple and quick preparation can also be a real plus in everyday life and score points for a drinking diet, because often a conscious diet fails due to lack of time. Likewise, the nutrient content can speak for drinking meals, because they are often enriched with vitamins and minerals.

So why don’t we all eat a liquid diet?

As is almost always the case, the same applies here: Not everything about drinking meals is positive. They also have some disadvantages. For example, they stand in the way of a sustainable effect in weight management if they tempt people to forego a long-term change in diet. In the short term, drinking meals can lead to weight loss, but in the long term they do not replace a healthy eating style. So there is no way around a change in diet if you want to optimize and maintain your weight in the long term.

The lack of satiety during a drinking cure can also become a problem. If you do not eat any solid food, you will feel hungry again more quickly. This can have the effect that, all in all, you may even eat more than is usually the case.

The social aspect that food clearly occupies in our culture should also be taken into account. Shared meals with friends or family are an important part of the day and of social life. Anyone who forgoes them for a longer period of time in favor of a shake is, not least, also forgoing a good deal of quality of life.

There is no substitute for a healthy lifestyle

What to look for when ordering drinkable meals online or buying them in stores: Many are also loaded with artificial colors, preservatives and even sugar. What you should also know: There are numerous secondary plant substances that we are not even aware of yet and therefore cannot be produced artificially. Which in turn means that such complex plant-based ingredients cannot be ingested through a shake either. Conclusion: Vegetables and fruits remain simply indispensable components of a balanced diet.

In summary, it can be said that drinking meals are a practical alternative that are also justified when taken temporarily. But one thing is certain: In the long run, they cannot keep pace with a balanced diet. After all, enjoyment and joie de vivre are just as much a part of a good meal as the right ingredients.