Meal Replacements For Effective and Rapid Weight Loss

Otto Shill, DO, FACP, DABOM
Sep 26
4 min read

Fixing body composition by losing weight can be done safely, effectively, and rapidly with medical-grade meal replacements. The supervision of a board-certified weight loss physician is essential to the safety of this process.

How Meal Replacements Help You Lose Weight

In short, medical-grade meal replacements give you all the nutrition that your body needs (vitamins, minerals, trace elements, macros, etc) in an ultra-low calorie package. This allows your body to focus on getting energy from your fat stores without going into starvation mode.

Meal Replacements Are Easy

Many people love using medical-grade meal replacements because they are simple. You stop eating regular food (that's right....no more prep time!) and you use meal replacements instead. For the most part, the only choice you have to make is what flavor at each fueling.

Will I Be Hungry?

Most people find that meal replacements do a great job of helping them feel satisfied, and teaching them that as a society, we tend to overeat. By the end of a medical-grade meal replacement program, you should find yourself eating less quantity of food because you find yourself satisfied with fewer bites.

For the few people who find that they don't get quite enough, we can increase the number of meal replacements OR add supplemental nutrition like protein and greens. Remember, this is a short time sacrifice to retrain the body and brain while improving health.

Isn't Processed Food Bad? It Seems Like Meal Replacements Are Processed Food

Well...yes...

There's now question that a meal replacement is going to be processed food. That's how we make sure all the nutrients are in it. Compared to a whole foods diet, meal replacements are not ideal. However, because you can achieve complete nutrition with so few calories, the speed of weight loss is typically worth the short term trade off. Most patients who use meal replacements aren't eating a whole foods, plant based diet when they decide to lose weight. When you look at it in that light, this is a step in the right direction. Once weight loss has completed, we work on transitioning patients to their lifetime dietary choices with whole foods that come from as close to the farm as possible (plants and meat).

Do I Eat Any Real Food?

That depends on your goals. For most patients, we recommend a full-time meal replacement program initially. This means 4 meal replacements per day (for most patients) replaces your food entirely. We see rapid weight loss and lots of happy patients here (10-20 pounds lost per month), and the quick progress is rewarding. Most people adapt to using meal replacements rapidly.

Some patients have circumstances that don't allow them do completely stop food - or they prefer to continue with some food. In these cases, we use 3 meal replacements per day to ensure complete nutrition and a highly prescriptive diet of meat and specific veggies once per day. The idea is to keep the calorie count low, the nutrition high, but normalize things like date night, client meetings and family dinner. People using this approach normally lose between 7 and 15 pounds per month.

How Do I Get Started?

Simple. To learn more or get started, you can either call/text us at 509-303-4001 OR BOOK NOW on our website for an initial consultation. The best part is that the first visit is FREE!

Many Ways to Lose Weight - A Review

Here's another take on the weight loss categories I wrote on a different day with more in depth information.

Weight loss methods can be grouped into five main categories:

Diet and Exercise - we've all tried this with varying degress of success. Diet and exercise (lifestyle) changes are foundational to any of the other categories of weight loss. This can be on your own or with the help of a trainer, coach or physician.
Medical-Grade Meal Replacements - Replace your food with these products to lose 10-20 pounds a month on average (and some people many more!). These work effectively, but require a high level of discipline and physician supervision.
Medications - See my other blog posts for more information on specific medications. Suffice it to say you can get rid of medications that cause weight gain, choose medications that tend to be weight neutral or weight negative, AND consider GLP-1, stimulant, or other medical therapy to induce weight loss. Be warned though, medications are NOT a panacea for weight loss. They have side effects and downsides, just like any other treatment modality. Have a good discussion with your doctor before embarking on this journey so you can know what you're up against and take appropriate countermeasures.
Procedures - Mechanically filling the belly with something other than food can reduce the calories you consume. Some products allow you to take multiple pills multiple times daily to fill your stomach with the no-calorie products....similar to an Orbe. These are not effective, especially once you stop taking them. A gastroenterologist is able to place a balloon in the stomach to mechanically fill the stomach and reduce caloric consumption. That said, this procedure is expensive, rarely covered by insurance, and requires sedation and a professional. It also must be done in conjunction with a year-long lifestyle education program in order to demonstrate lasting results.
Surgery - A variety of bariatric weight loss procedures can help you lose weight rapidly and keep it off for good. Guidelines have been clearly established by The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. If a patient fits the guidelines, they must be carefully selected to ensure effective weight loss and to limit the likelihood of weight regain after surgery. In the properly selected patient, these surgeries can be lifesaving. Know what you're asking for though, there are life-long side effects to these surgeries, including vitamin deficiencies that require ongoing supplementation. Go in with eyes wide open, and remember to really give your all to a lifestyle change program first!