Can people lose weight with the meal replacement products that people who lose weight are eager for?
”One bottle contains 30 kinds of nutrient elements and can be full for 5 hours; effective weight loss without rebound; 6 kinds of flavors to drink.” An anchor sold a meal replacement milk called Smeal-NOTO series in the live broadcast room of the e-commerce platform Xi. The seller said that this meal replacement milkshake is “a global body management tool”. A bottle can provide 200 grams of oyster protein, 1,000 grams of vegetable dietary fiber, 20 vitamins and minerals. The product introduction page also says: One bottle saves you 1 hour of exercise. On this e-commerce platform, monthly sales of this milkshake are 39,000 bottles.
Meal replacements have now become the new favorites in the weight-loss circle. Products such as meal replacement powders, meal replacement shakes, and meal replacement porridges featuring “low calories and strong satiety” have emerged one after another. So, can the meal replacement products that people who lose weight rush to lose weight?
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Eating meal replacements is equivalent to dieting in disguise
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”Use meal replacements to lose weight, mainly by reducing calories and nutrition Need to achieve the goal of weight loss, improper use will affect health.” Zhang Tian, a nutritionist in the Clinical Nutrition Department of Aviation General Hospital of China Medical University, told reporters that the meal replacements advertised on the market cannot completely replace normal meals. In order to maintain the body’s basic metabolism and normal activities, a healthy adult woman needs to consume about 1500-1800 calories per day, while men need 1800-2200 calories. It is recommended to reduce 500-600 calories on this basis for safe weight loss. The amount of calories, and to ensure a reasonable ratio of nutrients. “But most meal replacement products do not meet the calorie and nutritional requirements for safe weight loss.” Zhang Tian said.
Taking the Smeal-NOTO series of net celebrity meal replacement milkshakes as an example, a bottle (75g) of Ceylon milk tea flavored meal replacement milkshake has 275 calories. The seller said, “One bottle replaces one meal, and any three meals a day can be replaced. It is recommended to replace two meals a day, lunch and dinner. It is recommended that you do not eat meal replacements and you should use less oil during normal meals and keep six to seven points full.”
According to the seller’s recommendation, drinking two bottles a day can only consume 550 calories. “This calorie is still very low. Even special obese people need to lose weight in such a low-calorie way under the guidance of a doctor. Eating meal replacements is equivalent to dieting in disguise, by increasing the required calories and the actual intake of calories. The difference can achieve the goal of weight loss.” Zhang Tian said that the very low-calorie weight loss method is not scientific and difficult to last. Once stopped, it is easy to cause weight rebound.
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Long-term consumption is easy to cause malnutrition
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nutrients required by the human body must meet a certain proportion. According to the recommendations of the Chinese Nutrition Society, in the essential nutrients for the human body, lipids should account for 20% to 30%, protein account for 10% to 20%, and carbohydrates account for 50% to 65%.
As a mixture of various foods, can meal replacements be scientifically matched? Meal replacement foods include solid, semi-solid, liquid, etc., and are usually a mixture of various foods. “Meal replacement foods are often based on carbohydrates such as whole grains.” Zhang Tian said that long-term consumption of meal replacements can easily cause nutritional imbalance and malnutrition.
The Smeal-NOTO series of meal replacement shakes claim that each bottle can provide 200 grams of oyster protein (about 22 grams of protein). But its ingredient list shows that 100 grams of meal replacement milkshake only has 8.6 grams of protein, so a bottle (75 grams) can only provide 6.45 grams of protein. “The daily protein requirement of a normal human body is 0.8 to 1.2 per kilogram of body weight. For example, 50 kg of body weight requires a daily protein content of 40 to 60 grams. The protein content of this meal replacement is not as good as a pack of ordinary pure milk. Or an egg has a high content. Regardless of the number of meals, the protein quality of each meal cannot meet the needs of the human body.” Zhang Tian said that consumers without a background in nutrition can easily be confused by publicity.
”However, it should be noted that one cannot simply evaluate the quality of a food. For the human body, it is necessary to see whether the food structure can meet the needs of the human body as a whole.” Zhang Tian emphasized that using meal replacements with other foods in the diet, as long as nutrition Balance is also possible.
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Dietary fiber makes people feel full
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In addition to low calories, satiety is another label that meal replacements are proud of.
The feeling of satiety, in general, is the feeling of being full even though you haven’t eaten a lot. “Meal replacements are mainly starchy foods such as coarse grains and konjac, which are characterized by high dietary fiber content. If you eat too much dietary fiber, you can control your desire to eat.” Zhang Tian told reporters that the meal replacement Satisfaction is dietary fiber at work.
Professor Ai Hua from the Nutrition Research Office of the Institute of Sports Medicine of the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University explained that the dietary fiber in the meal replacement has the effect of absorbing water and swelling, and it has a satiety effect while not being absorbed by the body. When dietary fiber is excreted through the intestine, it can also adhere to some fats, thereby reducing energy intake.
Take konjac as an example, its rich glucomannan is very absorbent, so a small amount of solids can form a large amount of konjac gum, giving people a strong feeling of fullness.
However, the dietary fiber provided by meal replacements may not be enough to produce satiety. Taking the above-mentioned net celebrity meal replacement milkshake as an example, according to the taste composition table of Ceylon milk tea published by netizens, the content of dietary fiber in every 100 grams of goods is 1.8 grams, while generally 100 grams of vegetables contain about 3.5 grams of dietary fiber. Therefore, this bottle of meal replacement milkshake (75 grams) does not provide the dietary fiber amount of 1,000 grams of vegetables mentioned in the promotion.
In addition, in daily life, there are many coarse grains that can provide dietary fiber, such as corn, sweet potatoes, oats, brown rice and so on. In comparison, meal replacement foods are likely to lose the anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-oxidant, and anti-aging substances contained in natural foods during the production and processing process.
Zhang Tian also reminded that excessive consumption of dietary fiber will affect the digestion and absorption of other foods, leading to unbalanced nutrition and affecting health. “We usually recommend that everyone eat coarse grains rich in dietary fiber, not more than half of the normal diet. However, the dietary fiber in meal replacement foods must exceed this ratio, which is not conducive to the absorption of other nutrients by the body.”
For people with metabolic disorders, health risks may arise due to improper use of meal replacement foods. In 2018, a citizen in Loudi City, Hunan Province, to lose weight, ate only one meal replacement biscuit and a few vegetables and fruits per meal during the two-month period of eating meal replacement. Eventually, cardiac arrest was caused by malnutrition.
Earlier, the British “Daily Telegraph” published a study by Oxford University. Researchers found that meal replacements can indeed reduce human body fat, visceral fat and liver fat, but myocardial fat has increased. This means that long-term intake of meal replacements has an impact on heart function. Researchers warn that for people with heart disease, dieting may worsen the condition and exacerbate heart failure symptoms such as shortness of breath or arrhythmia.
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Past and Present of Meal Replacement Food
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In fact, the birth of meal replacement food has nothing to do with weight loss.
The initial product of the meal replacement series is a beverage meal replacement, and its concept can be traced back to the early research results of some physiologists. In the 1940s, some researchers first identified the main nutrients needed for human survival during periods of strict food restriction. Space flight in the late 1950s required the development of highly compact liquid meal substitutes, and an aqueous mixture was born.
At present, in the meal replacement family, beverage meal replacement has occupied an important position and has become one of the tools for managing overweight and obesity.
The “Meal Replacement Food” group standard issued by the Chinese Nutrition Society will be officially implemented on January 1, 2020. The standard states that meal replacement foods are specially processed and formulated to meet the nutritional needs of adults for one or two meals during weight control. A food that controls energy.
Zhang Tian said that under the guidance of doctors and professionals, obese and overeating people choose some nutritious meal replacements with a strong sense of fullness in their overall diet to replace part of the meal, which can help to lose weight. “But it is not recommended to follow the trend or blindly adopt extremely low-calorie, unbalanced weight loss methods. Such low-calorie weight will definitely be able to get down, but the weight will definitely rebound. If you want to lose weight healthy and not rebound, you must respect science and emphasize Build a healthy lifestyle. If you are a healthy person with a normal weight, you can eat well and you don’t need to use meal replacement foods to manage your weight.”
”A bottle of meal replacement milkshake with about 300 calories can use 50 grams of meat + 250. Ke Cai + 2 corns / 2 slices of bread / 50 grams of oatmeal + 5 grams of oil instead.” Zhang Tian said, “Those who eat meal replacements too late to cook can learn some quick meals. At least milk, cereals and eggs in breakfast Waiting is guaranteed.”
As the market scale of meal replacement foods gradually expands, chaos in the industry gradually breed. Some exaggerate the publicity to cater to consumers’ weight loss psychology, some are produced in small workshops but pretend to be big names, and some are even “three noes” products. In addition, the national health literacy is not high enough, causing many people to fall into the trap of meal replacement.
Zhang Tian said that you can use the “Chinese Resident Dietary Guidelines” to balance your diet and achieve a balanced diet. “Actually, on the basis of a healthy diet, eat a few bites less with each meal, reduce the time of sitting, and gradually lose weight. Weight loss also requires patience.”