Body by Vi 90-day challenge: day 0

As I explained in my previous post, I’ve decided give meal replacement shakes a try to see if they can give my weight loss the boost I so desperately need. I’m still a bit skeptical about the product, but I’m going to see how it goes.

I ordered the Balance Kit early on Sunday morning. This is the lowest priced option available and is supposed to be a one-month supply for people looking to maintain their weight (by only having one shake a day). I’m going to treat it as a two-week trial and have two shakes a day (the amount recommended for weight loss).

This may pose a problem if I want to order more, as the only option when buying from the company is a monthly subscription (it can be cancelled at any time). I’m just worried that switching from one amount to another might get confusing. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The ordering process was relatively simple – from my laptop. I had originally tried to order from my mobile phone, but something went wrong. That may have been my fault for typing something in incorrectly, or it could be that the website doesn’t support my phone – but it is a Windows phone, and lots of websites don’t support it, so I’m not going to hold that against the company.

When I completed my transaction, I was taken to the standard ‘print this page for your records’ page – which I printed as a PDF to my desktop. It’s a good thing too, as I never received a confirmation email. The page also gave me a link to the website where you can sign up for a challenge to lose your first ten pounds and there was some other information on that site too – I should probably go look at it all again, when I’m not half-asleep.

Since I didn’t know when the package would arrive, I bought some bottles of SlimFast on Monday afternoon and decided to use them until I received the Visalus. I thought it would also give me an idea of what a cheaper, more easily available product was like. I was all ready to start.

I had my first SlimFast – the strawberry flavoured one – this morning for breakfast. The taste of it was okay, but I did feel that it had an odd after taste that was a bit difficult to get past. I started by guzzling it, as if it were a medicine to get down quickly, but then I reminded myself that this was all I was getting and that it was fine to take my time – so I did. I drank it over a period of about 15 minutes and didn’t feel hungry again until lunch time.

The chocolate one was a bit better, but still had the mildly unpleasant aftertaste so I was hoping the Visalus would be better.

Some time in the afternoon, the delivery arrived.

Luckily, Pumpkin was taking a nap, so I had a chance to open it all up and get a good look at what was included.

The box contained three things (as well as some packing materials and an invoice). First, there was the bag of powder

There was also small bag that contained flavour additives

The mix-in flavours are strawberry (5 kcal) and chocolate (8 kcal).

And a welcome pack.

I was glad to see the welcome pack, as I had been trying to find information online about what the official instructions are – such as how many meals/snacks to eat per day and how many calories they should contain. I figured that information would be included in the booklet (there’s also a rubber bracelet, which is supposed to help you keep motivated).

Unfortunately, the booklet was almost entirely marketing fluff. It also contained information about the contests, prizes and special offers.

I was a bit disappointed about that, so I moved on to the bag of powder. First, I looked at the nutritional content. In terms of calories, fibre and protein content, it’s very similar to the SlimFast.

The instructions on the bag say to mix two scoops (31 grams) with 250ml of semi-skimmed milk. It explains that for weight loss, you should replace two meals with shakes and have a third ‘sensible’ meal, as well as healthy snacks. Furthermore, it advises regular exercise and drinking at least two litres of water a day. This information was better, but it still didn’t give me the concrete calorie allowances I was looking for.

Next, I opened up the bag.

The smell of the powder was surprisingly pleasant. It does actually smell like a box of cake mix. Time for the taste-test.

Paying no attention at all to the amounts I was using, I spooned a bit of the mix into a glass

Then I poured in a little milk. The result was a bit lumpy – like what you’d get with a hot chocolate mix.

A quick stir didn’t get all the lumps out, but it was good enough. I took a sip.

It was delicious! I little grainy, but I’m guessing that proper mixing would remedy that fairly quickly. They really aren’t lying when they call it the ‘shake mix that tastes like cake mix’ – and I can imagine the lovely light vanilla flavour working with many other ingredients. I’m already thinking about strawberries, raspberries, bananas, maple flavouring, almond flavouring and various yoghurt flavours. (You can also use milk alternatives like almond, soy or rice milk.)

The whole adding-in of other ingredients has me a bit confused though. Nobody that I found online seems to have taken the extra calories into consideration with the ‘recipes’. I found recipes that include ingredients like coconut milk, chocolate milk, peanut butter, Nutella and even Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal bars. These all seem like very high-calorie ingredients that would quickly add up and quickly ruin any calorie-control aspects.

I think that taking advantage of the tools available can be a very slippery slope in weight loss programmes of any sort – I saw it happen a lot in Slimming World, with the over-eating of free foods. And I imagine it’s similar with Visalus shakes.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to add another tool to my weight loss regime. I’ve downloaded My Fitness Pal to my phone and am going to use it to keep track of my calories. I’ve used this (free!) app on and off in the past and it has some really good features:

• Calculates a target calorie allowance for each day based on your weight and how much you want to lose each week.
• Gives access to an extensive database of foods and has an integrated barcode scanner, making it easy to add the foods you eat.
• Helps you track your exercise and even gives you back some of the calories that you expend.
• At the end of each day, it predicts your weight in five weeks’ time if each day were like today.
• There’s a social aspect as well, as you can add friends and comment on their progress (or you can keep that information private) to help keep each other motivated.

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I’m feeling pretty positive about this combination of My Fitness Pal and Visalus, and am looking forward to starting in earnest tomorrow.

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I am in no way affiliated with Visalus, nor have I received any compensation for my reviews. The company does operate a number of different marketing schemes to get people talking about their products (such as get three friends started and get a free month supply). I’m not taking part in any of those options and all opinions are my own.