Dietitian shares truth about meal replacement drinks and weight loss

Doctor Xand has issued a warning to anyone who is drinking meal replacements. Speaking to expert Laura Clark, known as The Menopause Dietitian, the pair said many people are not using them correctly. On series on the , the experts make it "clear" that many people are not using them for weight loss, but instead convenience.

Laura noted: "Let’s be clear about the term meal replacement drinks. I think traditionally meal replacement drinks came under the weight loss industry umbrella.

"Now, fast forward a few years we’ve got much more products available and we have meal replacement drinks, which are not necessarily targeting the weight loss market, but they’re targeting the busy consumer who is keen to not let their food decisions or food intake get in the way of their productivity."

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Do meal replacement drinks work for weight loss?

Dr Xand asked if there was any evidence they work well for weight loss and sustaining weight loss. The dietitian replied: "I think the appeal of them is that people who are trying to manage their weight tend to lose trust in their ability to regulate their weight themselves.

"So there’s something about someone else having done the hard work for you that makes them believe that’s going to be an effective strategy. In reality, it's a weight loss diet.

"It’s a calorie restricted diet and we have ample evidence that calorie controlled dieting in the traditional sense does not create sustainable weight loss." Warning people that it might work down the road, she warns: "So really, really big picture, it might work in the short term but it doesn’t work in a long term.

"That's what the evidence shows."

Meal replacement drinks - the ingredients

Talking to the member of the public who have tried them, a number of people on the show attribute the words "ghastly powders" and “dodgy ingredients” to the drink replacement meals. In response to their thoughts, Dr Xand, who often appears on BBC Morning Live, said: "Personally I agree with you" when talking to a woman who said she thinks the ingredients are questionable.

He continued: "I think reading the ingredients is really important and there’s a lot of strange things in a meal replacement drinks." Pondering whether or not they're really that healthy, the doctor asked the dietician that some claim to have "100% of the nutrition that you need" which are often "printed on these bottles".

However he felt "that does not feel true” with Laura explaining: "Well, if a company has analysed that product and we can see that there are a certain number of vitamins and minerals such as protein, fats, fibre and carbohydrates, they will have nutritionally analysed that product and they will then be able to make that claim about what it contains ."

In his response, the Morning Live doctor said: "So chemically fat, protein, sugar, fiber, vitamins, minerals - they can list them all and go 'no chemically it has everything you need'. But is that what food is?"

Dietitian on meal replacement drinks

The doctor replied: "No exactly, it's not. What's really interesting about food and health is that there’s something beyond the nutritional value of food which confers a health benefit to us.

"There’s something about the way in which food interact as they are being digested absorbed by our bodies that brings the benefit so we don’t want to be shrinking our nutritional health down to it's micro-components within a bottle. It’s disconnecting us from food and that is not good thing.

"We should be able to build a healthy food relationship and connect our mind and body together, and these sort of drinks are not enabling us to do that."

Is there an alternative for meal replacement drinks?

If you're wondering whether or not there is an alternative, the dietitian noted that the basics are the best. She explained: "I think we need to dial it back to basics.

"I think we need to remember that a meal does not need need to provide us with all 26 vitamins and minerals. Our diet generally, bigger picture, is there to provide our nutritional requirements.

"As a good rule of thumb, we want to be making sure we’ve got some sort of protein in there, some sort of fuel which is going to come from carbohydrates and we’ve also got a crunch so that’s a fibre." Addressing people who take it as a "shortcut", the doctor stresses: "If you are obsessed with productivity, you are going to get a bigger productivity gain by feeding your body properly."

Laura said similar, urging people: "It’s worth thinking about the shortcut. Think about what’s motivating your desire to create that shortcuts and often it is a sense of toxic productivity.

She suggests taking 20 minutes away from your screen as "that is a definition of a healthy food relationship, not something that we’re knocking back at our desks whilst distracted with doing something else."

Concluding the segment, Dr Xand said: "You can’t really replace a meal. A meal has to be a meal." You can watch .