Trying to lose some weight for the Summer can be the first step towards achieving your personal health and fitness goals, but what if you need a helping hand to start you on your way? This is where Shake That Weight comes in.
Dieting is hard. Whether you want to lose a couple of pounds or twenty, it takes effort and determination. I've struggled with diets in the past and have now adopted a more long term 'lifestyle change', but I know that for many people it can take some time to change bad habits and get into a new, healthier routine and mindset.
When Shake That Weight contacted me about doing a two week trial of their products, I wasn't sure whether to accept as I don't believe these kinds of very low-calorie diets are useful for long term weight loss i.e keeping the weight off after you've lost it. However, after I'd looked into their diet plans on their website, I found one called 'Woman With Meal' which seemed much more do-able for me so I thought I'd try it for a fortnight as I was curious to see what their meal replacement products tasted like.
On the Woman With Meal plan, you consume 800 calories per day which includes three meal replacement products for Breakfast, Lunch and a Snack, and then you make your own healthy self-prepared meal for Dinner that's no more than 400 calories. You can also enjoy a Shake That Weight snack, and all of their products are high protein, low carb and low calorie. As always, I chose vegetarian-friendly products for this trial and taste test. Here's how I got on!
Breakfast - Shakes
Shake That Weight Chocolate Heaven Shake (135 calories / 12.5g protein)
I'm never very hungry in the mornings and often skip breakfast (a big no-no I know!), so having a shake was ideal for me and this was by far the easiest part of the diet plan to stick to. The shakes come packaged individually in sachets and you just mix them with water - super easy.
The Chocolate Heaven flavour was my favourite out of all the shakes that I tried. It had a surprisingly rich and sweet chocolatey taste which was delicious. If you're a chocoholic, you'll love it! The high protein content kept me full until lunchtime and I found that I didn't need that mid-morning snack anymore.
Shake That Weight Hazelnut Crush Shake (130 calories / 12.5g protein)
Hazelnut Crush was really good too. It blended well into a creamy shake and the hazelnut flavour was quite strong which I liked. Like the chocolate one above, I found this very sweet and satisfying.
Shake That Weight Lively Latte Shake (131 calories / 12.5g protein)
Coffee fans will love the Lively Latte shake and this was great as a pick me up when I had a busy morning ahead of me or if I was running late. It had a delicious latte flavour, but I could taste that added protein in this one.
Shake That Weight Gorgeous Gingerbread Shake (140 calories / 13.3g protein)
This Gorgeous Gingerbread shake has a few more calories than the ones above, but it also packs in more protein. Unfortunately, this flavour was much too sweet for my liking and I could only manage one of these during the two-week trial.
Snacks - Protein Bars
Shake That Weight Dreamy Dark Chocolate Bar (130 calories / 8.5g protein)
For an afternoon snack, I had sometimes had one of these high-protein bars which also serve as a meal replacement product if you don't fancy shakes or want to mix things up a bit. The Dreamy Dark Chocolate Bar really soothed my chocolate craving and stopped me from reaching for a proper chocolate bar which definitely helped me to shift some pounds! This one was very chocolatey, rich in flavour and chewy, but not too dry.
Shake That Weight Maple & Almond Bliss Bar (135 calories / 8.5g protein)
For a change from pure chocolate, I tried the Maple & Almond Bliss Bar which has a sweet, soft, slightly chewy and nutty centre, covered in a light layer of milk chocolate. This was very satisfying and helped with those sugar cravings!
Shake That Weight Honey Nougat Harmony Bar (130 calories / 10.2 g protein)
You can really taste the extra added protein in this Honey Nougat Harmony Bar and sadly it makes the bar very dry, densely chewy and not very palatable. Wasn't a fan of this one I'm afraid.
Shake That Weight Milk Choc Joy Bar (130 calories / 8.5g protein)
Milk Choc Joy indeed! This was so good and like the other dark chocolate bar, it really hit that chocolate craving sweet spot nicely. It is chewy and you can taste the whey protein, but it's also very chocolatey which helps to balance out the overall flavour. Yum!
Lunch - Soups
Shake That Weight Vegetable Medley Soup (136 calories / 10.7g protein)
For lunch, I tried a mixture of soups, noodles and rice meals. I'm a big fan of soup and regularly make my own from scratch when I have time (I like to batch cook and freeze them in portions for later), but I didn't like these ones at all. They come in powdered sachets like the shakes, where you add water and then heat them up in the microwave. This Vegetable Medley Soup was just awful flavour-wise, with the dominant taste being onion and little else.
Shake That Weight Tasty Tomato & Basil Soup (132 calories / 12.5g protein)
The Tomato & Basil Soup didn't fare any better either, with the tomato flavour being particularly weak with a slightly bitter undertone to it and the texture was much more on the thin side which I wasn't a fan of.
Lunch - Noodles & Rice Meals
Chicken Tikka Massala Rice Meal (167 calories / 12.5g protein)
I've been a vegetarian for many years now, but it never surprises me how many 'chicken' flavoured products are actually vegetarian-friendly! Pretty much all of the 'meat' flavoured meals from Shake That Weight are suitable for vegetarians so it was interesting to try some of them out.
The first one that I tried was the Chicken Tikka Massala Rice Meal which has a mixture of soy based protein, white rice and a curry-meets-tomato based sauce. It comes as a powder mixture that you stir into water and then microwave. It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't great either. The overall flavour was just too weak in my opinion and some of the rice was quite hard and bitty in places.
Shake That Weight Simply Chicken & Veg Flavoured Noodles (169 calories / 13.8g protein)
This meal consisted of low carb 'diet' noodles made from durum wheat and egg, and soy and pea based protein in a chicken soup style broth. Again, it wasn't awful, but it wasn't fantastic either - it just had a very mild flavour that bordered on being bland.
Shake That Weight Cheeky Chicken Curry Flavoured Noodles (171 calories / 14g protein)
The Chicken Curry Noodles, on the other hand, were much, much, much better! They had a strong typical 'curry' flavour and tasted similar to what you'd expect from a Pot Noodle, but without all the calories and fat. Very filling with soy protein and a good taste and texture all round.
Shake That Weight Blazing Beef Chilli Noodles (166 calories / 14g protein)
The Blazing Beef Chilli Noodles were also really good and full of flavour and I used less water than stated to thicken up the sauce. They weren't as hot or spicy as the name suggests, but they have a little kick to them which makes you feel like you're eating a much more comforting meal. Texture and flavour was on point with these!
Did I Lose Any Weight and My Overall Thoughts?
At the end of the two week trial, I hopped onto the scales and it showed that I had lost 3 pounds. I could only stick to about 60% of the diet plan and I did end up eating over my calorie limit for some of the days, so I wasn't really expecting to see much of a weight loss difference.
The breakfast shakes and swapping my regular chocolate bar treat for one of the protein bars instead, was definitely the easiest part of the diet for me. The hardest part were the lunches as I hated the soups and only really liked two of the noodle meals that I tried, so I found myself making my own lunches on at least half of the days. Sticking to a 400 calorie self-prepared meal for dinner was also incredibly hard (you really don't realise how few calories that is until you try to make a meal out of them!) and most of my evening meals ended up being around 500-600 calories instead.
As I mentioned earlier, I don't think that very low-calorie diets are sustainable in the long term, but they may help some people to kick start a diet, especially if they struggle with portion sizes and don't have any time to cook proper meals at home. Weight loss is definitely a very personal journey and there are lots of different ways to achieve your goals, so if starting on a very low-calorie diet is appealing to you, check out Shake That Weight.
*All products for the two-week trial were provided by Shake That Weight. Opinions by own as always!
Have you tried a diet like this before?
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