It may sound surprising to some that remembering to eat can be more difficult than it sounds. But the fact is that for some of us, eating isn’t necessarily a major priority, at least not all of the time. It can be easy to miss a meal when you’re working out, or on the job, or even simply taking care of personal business. Many find it difficult to make the time to cook or even prepare a meal. Though dinner can be easy to remember and prioritize, as a lot of us actually have the time to relax at home by dinnertime, breakfast and lunch can often fall by the wayside.
This is when meal replacement drinks come in handy. They shouldn’t necessarily be used when people are attempting to change their diets, but rather when you are at a good place with your diet but don’t always have the time or appetite to eat three full meals a day. You need the nutrition that comes with a meal, and furthermore, you need to train your body to expect that nutrition three times a day, rather than skipping it once or even twice a day. This will help regulate your metabolism and keep you healthier and feeling better. Furthermore, long term meal replacement options are much healthier than the other drinks or snacks you may use to sate your appetite or to replace a meal. But not all of them are as good for you as they may seem to be, and you need to choose your options carefully. With that being said, let’s look into how you should choose your long term meal replacement drinks.
1. Choose Powdered Drinks
Although we refer to them as drinks, it’s best for you to choose a powdered form of meal replacement which can then be converted into a drink when mixed with liquid. Oftentimes, these come in basic flavors; you can often choose between a chocolate flavored meal replacement powder and a vanilla flavored meal replacement powder. The advantage of powder is that it’s less wasteful. Rather than carrying around cans of pre-mixed drinks and creating more waste, you can simply have a container of powder and mix it up, using whatever containers you would prefer. This also ensures that you always have exactly what portions you want and need for your long term meal replacement. Furthermore, if you’d like to cut in a bit more water for a different consistency or strength of flavor at times, this can be done. It simply gives you more options for customizing the meal replacement in order to make it suit your needs and likes.
2. Check The Sugar Content
The sugar content of a long term meal replacement can be much higher than you think. This is because meal replacements are often flavored to be sweet, which masks the heavy protein levels and makes them more “fun” to drink. Now, a sweet flavor is not necessarily a bad thing. If a meal replacement drink is sweetly flavored, it might make it easier for you to replace your soft drinks with meal replacement drinks. Soft drinks, despite their high sugar content and general lack of nutritional value, have become increasingly popular over the years, rising from two servings a week in 1942 to two servings a day in 2000. If you remove soft drinks and drink vanilla meal replacements instead, then all the better. But some of those meal replacements also have a high level of sugar, and that may cancel out their nutritional benefits.
3. Zone In On Protein And Fiber
A meal replacement drink is not supposed to replace every meal that you eat, and it can provide you with all of your daily nutrition. However, it can give you the protein and fiber that you need to get through the day. Check your chocolate or vanilla meal replacement powder to ensure that it at least satisfies this nutritional need before you give it a try.
Choose carefully from the start. The last thing you want is to be overly-impressed by a meal replacement option that won’t work for you in the long term. Fortunately, there are lots of great options available!
