What's Wrong With Weight Loss Shakes?

Have you tried all the different weight loss shakes and wondered why they work only temporarily? (or not at all!)  Or maybe they’ve worked, but you’ve ended up feeling sicker than you did before you lost the weight? 

Here’s 5 reasons why I am not a fan of any of the weight loss shakes I have come across so far (I have many more, but didn’t want to bore you all):

1 – They’re not REAL food.  I could literally go on for DAYS about the nasty stuff put in most of these shakes (in fact – if you ask anybody else who works here, they could probably recite some of my rants off by heart!).  There is something fundamentally wrong about adding sugars to ‘weight loss’ products – whether it’s fructose, or glucose syrup, or some other form of sugar they’ve decided to hide behind a scientific name.  And for those of you thinking – ‘but mine has no added sugar’ – it probably uses artificial sweetener instead – that’s just as bad!  Aside from the ever growing evidence of the dangers to our bodies from consuming these toxic products – the research now shows that artificial sweeteners can cause (yes – CAUSE!) weight gain by messing with the hormones that regulate our appetite.  Most also have many toxic food additives added to them which you can look up the effects of on an app like Chemical Maze. 

Here’s just one example:

2 – They contain misleading information.   There’s always a nice long list of added vitamins and minerals in many of these products to make you think you are doing something good, but there are a few drawbacks….

-        they are often in inferior forms that are not readily absorbed by the body

-        the amounts are so miniscule most of the time that by the time you factor in the lack of absorption, they may as well not be there at all

-        there’s no synergy – syner-what I hear you ask?  Synergy!  Synergy is the concept that the combined effect of the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts put together.  Basically this means that eating an apple is better than eating a food which has had the main vitamins/minerals found in an apple added to it.  An apple is more than just isolated vitamins and minerals – there STACKS of other nutrients in each bite that all work together and complement each other so your body can get the most from that apple…..and that is why drinking a weight loss shake fortified with vitamins and minerals is not the same as eating food!

3 – Weight loss shakes can’t be sustained long term.  There are not many instances where I think it is advisable to adopt a ‘diet’ that shouldn’t be sustained long term (there are exceptions but I won’t get into those today…..)  and even the weight loss shake companies will tell you that these ‘diets’ aren’t good to stay on indefinitely.  Isn’t it better to adopt a new lifestyle that is sustainable and focused on good nutritious meals that feed our bodies what they need?  The weight might not come off as quickly initially – but when it comes off it will stay off.

4 - Meals are to be eaten – not replaced!  Now don’t get me wrong – there’s nothing bad about a green smoothie or a homemade smoothie full of almond milk, berries, chia etc – but they are a world apart from weight loss shakes.  By drinking ‘fake food’  you miss out on all the beautiful nutrients mother nature provides us and the fantastic benefits that good whole foods can give to us.

5 – THEY’RE NOT REAL FOOD.  No – that’s not a typo – I know I already said that – but it is just so important that I felt it deserved 2 places on this list (in fact all 5 of my points really boil down to this!)  EAT REAL FOOD!


Rebecca Milham
Naturopath & Nutritionist