In modern days people are extremely busy with their work schedule and life. Cooking meals nowadays for many seems like a waste of time.
They prefer substitute readymade food items or drinks and shakes that have all nutritional values similar to their meal. Market understood the demands of such customers and now has launched many meal replacement and protein shakes which address the concerns of consumers.
Now you can save all the time you initially wasted in grocery shopping, vegetable shopping, cutting chopping, and cooking a meal before eating them.
You are just a gulp away from fulfilling all nutritional values of your body depending upon your choice of meal replacement or protein shakes.
Although both meal replacement and proteins substitutes are available in shakes there is a huge difference between meal replacement and protein shakes.
Let us talk about the basic definition, advantages and disadvantages of consuming meal replacements or protein shakes in detail.
What is Meal Replacement Shakes?
Meal replacement shakes as the name suggests are ready to eat man-made health supplements that have all the essential nutritional values similar to our daily meal.
It has all nutritional values attributed to that present in meals but they are low in calories when compared to what we eat daily.
Eating low-calorie food supplements is beneficial for our body especially when someone is aiming for weight loss.
There are many products in the market that promises to be the best meal replacement shakes for weight loss. PhenQ Meal Shake before and after results and users feedback states of being one such effective replacement shake.
Many people ponder over some questions like are meal replacement shakes healthy?
Or what are the side effects of meal replacement shakes? Few of those who are aiming to lose weight by using meal replacement shakes may have doubts about how to use meal replacement shakes for weight loss?
We shall now address all the above-mentioned concerns one by one to its conclusion.
Advantages Of Having a Meal Replacement Shake:
- They don’t need cooking and hence saves lots of time: About 85% of American hates cooking food and some attribute the habit of not cooking to their busy work schedule. Meal replacement shakes are convenient in preparation and easy to consume.
- They are good for those who face difficulty in chewing and swallowing solid food items. There are many old and sick people around the globe who cannot afford to chew or swallow food at their convenience.
Meal replacement shakes provide all the essential nutrients required by the body in liquid form and so it is easily swallowed and digested.
- Having a regular meal daily allows us to consume more calories than what our body needs, and therefore results in weight gain. These meal replacement shakes come with low-calorie content.
Thus, despite providing all nutritional components to our body it does not allow extra calories to accumulate in our body and hence helps in weight loss.
- They can cover almost every nutritional deficiency. Even when we take three meals a day it is not possible for us to make sure that we get all types of nutrients from our meals.
One or the other nutrients does skip from our daily meal and it is very difficult to keep a track of it.
- It also contains multivitamins, omega 3, and high fiber all essential for the complete nourishment of the human body and mind.
With every advantage, there are some disadvantages also related to meal replacement shakes. So before one makes up the mind to completely rely on meal replacement shakes. Here are some of its disadvantages to take note of.
Disadvantages Of Consuming Meal Replacement Shakes:
- Phytochemicals are not present in meal replacement shakes. Nutrition is a complete package of calories, macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fats), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), fatty acids like omega 3 and omega 6, and Phytochemicals.
Most of the meal replacement shakes focus on fulfilling calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients. Thus these replacement shakes are sometimes devoid of fatty acids and Phytochemicals.
It is not suggested to completely ignore the food meals. Because it will lead to scarcity of a few vital Dietary Supplements such as omega 3 and the antioxidant lycopene. It can impact our health in a long run.
Therefore one should not completely ignore their meal even while consuming the meal replacement shakes.
- They are low in calories and hence are not suitable for an athlete or a sportsperson. Even those whose work involves a lot of physical work will not find these meal replacement shakes as useful as their food meal.
- Chewing the food leads to satisfaction and psychologically satisfies the hunger. Since these meal replacement shakes are not chewable, one may always feel half-filled and hunger returning every now and then.
- These meal replacement shakes can be low in protein as their main focus is to provide all the necessary nutrition to the consumer. So the protein level is at minimum requirement of what an average person requires for his daily needs.
If one needs to work on muscle building or weight gain they either have to include a protein-rich food diet along with the meal replacement shakes or have to add on protein shakes to achieve the desired result.
After carefully analyzing the pros and the cons of meal replacement shakes. You must be wondering what to look after while buying the best meal replacement shakes as there are so many products claiming to be the best in this category.
Here are a few pointers that should help the user while buying meal replacement shakes for their use.
Things to Look for While Buying A Meal Replacement Shake:
There are few things which you should surely follow while going for any meal shakes or similar such supplements.
1. Look for meal replacement shakes that contain proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. One should never buy a meal replacement shake devoid of fats. And are low on protein as it does not come under balanced diet nutrition.
2. Fiber should also be present in abundance quantity in the meal replacement shake you are planning to buy. Fibers are excellent for digestive health.
3. One must watch out for the presence of vitamins and minerals in the product they are planning to buy. Try to buy a meal replacement shake that contains at least 24 types of vitamins and minerals.
The presence of sodium in the product is mandatory.
4. Watch out for the presence of polyunsaturated fatty acid such as omega3 in the shake you are planning to buy.
After analyzing all the aspects of meal replacement shake it is now our turn to focus on protein shakes. Their composition and the purpose of having them are completely different.
While meal replacement shakes may act as a substitute for a solid food diet, in protein shakes one needs to consume their daily meal.
Meal replacement shakes contain all the necessary nutrients, the protein shakes only carry a quantity of protein in abundance.
If weight loss is the sole purpose of having shakes then people can have either meal replacement or protein shake for weight loss.
Let’s discuss some of the features and functioning of protein shakes:
What is a Protein Shake?
When protein powder is mixed in water or some other solvent and some other ingredients are added for nutritional values it forms a protein shake.
It can be conveniently added to our daily meals according to our requirements.
Advantages of having Protein Shakes
Protein is essential for muscle building and gaining stamina and strength. Here are a few advantages of having a protein shake:
- Protein shakes are useful in toning the body and adding firmness to the muscles. After doing intense exercise especially weight lifting the muscle fibers gets damaged in the process. Protein shakes are the easiest and the quickest way to deliver protein to our muscles.
- You don’t have to skip meals as protein shakes are supplements and are not intended to replace meals.
- It’s very difficult to get enough protein from the diet source especially if one is vegan or a vegetarian. These protein shakes can fill in for that scarcity of protein in your body.
- Protein shakes are low in calories as one needs to have it along with the meal.
- Protein shakes contain power-boosting vitamins.
After analyzing the advantages of protein shake one may not feel it important to have it. Since protein is already present in our diet so here are some reasons why one should buy a protein shake:
You need a protein shake if:
- want to build lean muscle or tone up the physique.
- need a quick source of protein in your pre and post-workouts.
- If you need to consume high protein and amino acid but fewer calories than protein shakes is an excellent option for you.
Shortfalls of Having Protein Shakes:
Here are the certain disadvantages that comes up with protein shakes –
- Incomplete nutrition: Since these protein shakes are only rich in protein they often lack fibers, carbs, and vitamins, and thus their dependency on whole food grain meals is a necessity.
- Sustainability Issue: Replacing some meals with protein shakes may be used as part of a successful weight loss strategy.
But in long term one may develop nutrient deficiencies if one replaces too many meals with shakes or one could regain the weight lost after restoring old eating habits.
- Health problems: Protein shakes are unlikely to cause health problems on their own. But when mixed with a high-protein diet consistently they can have disastrous effects on the body.
It can lead to weight gain, high blood cholesterol, and elevated heart disease risk, and kidney complications.
After reading this blog we can now understand the different nature of meal replacement shakes and protein shakes.
And can conveniently decide whether meal replacement shakes or protein shakes are the best alternative to suit our priority.
It was not a comparative study of meal replacement shakes vs protein shakes. But an attempt to understand and analyze the different yet distinctive nature and features of both shakes.
The market is full of such products and choosing the best meal replacement shakes or the best protein shake can be a daunting task for any individual.
But after some research we finally got one such PhenQ Meal Shake Reviews. Talking about its benefits – we can say that it help in burning fats, boosting energy and controlling cravings. Also, its regular consumption can bring a positive change in your metabolic rate.
The makers consider this diet drink a complete meal shake replacement shake which makes you stomach fuller for a longer period.
After a careful study of all the products and after analyzing hundreds of reviews, PhenQ Meal Shake marked its excellence in this category.
It is the best meal replacement shakes for women as it contains all the necessary nutrients present in the solid food meal. And one glass of this product can keep hunger away for three long hours.
Conclusion
We are now one hundred percent sure that meal replacement shakes and protein shakes are two different products.
On one hand, where meal replacement shakes can completely replace our solid food diet. Protein shakes are beneficial in gaining a muscular tone-up physique.
However, we should not completely banish our meals. Because no matter how effective this meal replacement shakes or the protein shakes would become!
They still cannot fulfill all the necessary nutrition which we get by eating whole grain food and lushly green vegetables.