Does Herbalife Nutrition Work for Weight Loss?
Herbalife is a company who provides a weight loss service featuring meal replacement shakes to help dieters lose weight. Herbalife products can be purchased through the Herbalife website and through certified retailers of their products.
The company features three programs which vary in price anywhere from $150 to $275 a month depending on the intensity of the program. The Quickstart Program is the base, providing meal replacement shakes, drinks, and multivitamins and metabolism boosting supplements. The Advanced Program is similar, and adds supplements for increased energy. Finally, the Ultimate Program has everything listed so far with additional supplements to manage digestion and blood sugar. Clearly, these products are for overall health and not specifically weight loss, so this needs to be taken into account when deciding if any of the programs are correct for you.
The feature of the Herbalife diet is you replace two meals with Herbalife shakes, while also taking the supplements provided with the program. Then, in addition to these meal replacement shakes you follow typical rules of dieting such as consuming large quantities of water and having small, natural and healthy snacks throughout the day to keep a high level of satiety and take in essential bodily nutrients.
Each shake is a powder with only 90 calories which can be combined with milk, typically lowfat, to give a total calorie count of 170 per meal. This is significantly lower than other meals, and therefore will help with weight loss purely due to the caloric deficit of the shakes compared to a normal meal. Again, this is good for initial weight loss but after this initial period it is more beneficial to switch to a more natural and free program, while mixing in a more active lifestyle which could be easier following the initial weight loss.
However, there are also some negative factors to consider with the Herbalife plan. First, the shakes are highly processed which gives them a high content of added sugar. Also, they only have 170 calories and the powder contains only 9 grams of protein. Therefore, with the low calorie and protein totals, it is very difficult to feel full throughout the day. This is where drinking lots of water and having other little snacks throughout the day becomes crucial to the diets effectiveness. The final drawback is the cost. However, even though the cost seems high, since the program should only be used for a short period of time this should not be too big of an issue.
Overall, the Herbalife program should be used in the initial stages of weight loss to lose weight quickly over a short period of time. However, due to the highly processed nature of its products, it should only be used for the initial weight loss and once the process has started, users should switch to a more traditional diet with more natural foods. If used for this initial stage, the hardest part of the weight loss process can be completed, and it can be easier to accomplish your weight loss goals and stick to a less rigid program.
Visit Herbalooza.com if you’re planning to purchase their meal replacement products online.
