What Is A Meal Replacement Shake?

Part 1 Of A 3 Part Series On Meal Replacements

Everyone knows a meal replacement shake is well, a shake to be used in place of a meal. Doesn’t take much brainpower to figure that one out.

However, ask someone what’s inside a meal replacement shake or how it’s different than a protein shake and you’ll get more confused looks.

A meal replacement shake is NOT a protein shake. A meal replacement shake can and should have an adequate amount of protein, but a meal replacement shake is much more than that.

Meal replacement shakes help you replace high-calorie or unhealthy meals with a lighter, more balanced option. They make the nutrition part of losing weight simple.

Since meal replacement shakes are meant to replace a meal they contain essential nutrients, carbs, fats, and protein equivalent to a balanced meal. Meal replacement shakes designed for weight loss should also contain hunger blockers to keep cravings and appetite under control.

A meal replacement shake:

• Turns an unhealthy meal into a healthy one (Replaces breakfast, lunch, or dinner)

• Includes a healthy balance of protein, fats, and carbohydrates

• Comes fortified with vitamins and minerals

• Includes fiber and other ingredients to block hunger and reduce cravings

To continue....... Part -2

Written by,


Dwight Obey, Independent AdvoCare Distributor

Personal testimonials reflect individual experiences of AdvoCare Independent Distributors and are not necessarily typical of the results you may obtain. Results vary with individual effort, consistency of use, body composition, eating patterns and exercise. AdvoCare makes no guarantee as to the results that you may experience. AdvoCare encourages healthy, sustainable weight loss with consistent healthy lifestyle activities over a period of time. If an individual has a medical condition or is pregnant or nursing, AdvoCare recommends that the individual consult his or her healthcare professional before starting an AdvoCare Product regimen. Individuals should always read the product label before use.

Women And Weight Gain After 40 - Part 4 - Final Part

The following post is the 4th in a 4-part series about hormones and weight gain after age 40. Parts one, two and three can be read by clicking on the links below. 

• Part 1: Women And Weight Gain After 40 - Part 1
• Part 2: Women And Weight Gain After 40 - Part 2
• Part 3: Women And Weight Gain After 40 - Part 3

Part 4: Weight gain and sleep

After hot flashes and night sweats, what are the two most common complaints of peri-menopausal women? (other than husbands who can’t seem to clean up the counter or put the toilet seats down after themselves…)

I’ll give you a hint; one tends to go up and the other, down.

Weight gain (especially around-the-belly poundage) and sleep (or lack thereof).

Did you answer correctly? And did you know that the two might be related?

Study after study of sleep duration and body mass index show an inverse relationship between the two; people that get less sleep also tend to be overweight.

When we eliminate the participants whose disordered sleeping is a consequence of being overweight (recall that correlation can’t, by itself be used to infer causation; check out my post on understanding the results of human health studies if you’re unclear on the concept), we find that moderate sleep deprivation disrupts a number of hormonal systems, several of which are involved in appetite, carbohydrate metabolism and fat storage.

• Cortisol. Production of cortisol varies rhythmically throughout the day, being highest upon waking and declining to its lowest levels of the day at the time you typically go to sleep. Chronic, moderate sleep deprivation interrupts this diurnal cycle, causing end-of-the-day cortisol levels to remain high. Over time, elevated cortisol levels can lead to insulin resistance (the body’s inability to respond to insulin’s message to store nutrients), obesity and diabetes. Elevated cortisol levels are of particular concern to menopausal and peri-menopausal women, as the combination of high cortisol and low estrogen contributes to middle-of-the-body weight gain (aka the “muffin top”).
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• Leptin. Secreted by fat cells, leptin is the satiety hormone, telling your brain when you’ve consumed enough calories and reducing appetite to prevent overeating. Leptin regulation is markedly affected by sleep duration. Chronic sleep deprivation results in lower circulating levels of leptin, increased appetite and higher caloric intake, even in the absence of increased physical activity (i.e., short duration sleepers have potentially more wakeful hours to be physically active; in the studies cited above, they weren’t, either because they chose not to be or their activity was restricted by the researcher). Given that many menopausal and premenopausal women experience insomnia and middle-of-the-night awakening, even those that attempt to get an adequate number of hours of sleep each night may not.
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• Ghrelin. Working in opposition to leptin, ghrelin is secreted by the stomach and stimulates appetite. Short sleep duration is associated with elevated ghrelin production and increased hunger and appetite, in particular an appetite for foods high in carbohydrates (hello chocolate!). Similarly, declining estrogen levels (both during the period leading up to menopause and during the second half of the menstrual cycle in regularly cycling women) also trigger an increased appetite for sweet and starchy foods.
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• Glucose tolerance. The sweet and starchy carbohydrates you consume are broken down, by the gut, into smaller, glucose molecules, to be used as fuel by our muscles and brain. Excess glucose is stored as fat, a process triggered by the release of insulin by the pancreas. Chronic short sleep duration results in a marked reduction in acute insulin response; glucose remains in the blood stream for a much longer period of time after consumption leading to a pre-diabetic state after as little as a week of sleep restriction.

So ‘yes’, in answer to the question posed in the title of this post, sleep does play a role in weight gain after 40. In particular when short sleep duration is frequent, consumption of starchy carbohydrates is chronic and estrogen levels are in decline.

The bottom line? In addition to paying attention to nutrition (less processed please) and adding strength training to your fitness schedule (build muscle to burn fat), developing good sleep habits appears to be key to long term health, happiness and quality of life during the midlife years. How are you going to improve yours?

How Veterans Gain Weight After Service

As much as some of us may love or hate our time in the military, eventually our time ends. And for many of us, losing the military means gaining too many pounds (I myself was one of them). 

Dwight (USAF Ret.), "1st N Weight Loss" Owner 

Dwight Obey, Independent AdvoCare Distributor

That’s not just perception or stereotyping — it’s a documented fact. A U.S. Army article released last year reported in 2014, “Approximately half of the retirees whose height and weight were measured at medical appointments in military treatment facilities that year had a body mass index that classified them as obese. Obesity rates for these retirees are significantly higher than the general population of the same age.”

Many of us who once called out others for being lazy, and overweight had become, or will become exactly that once we leave the service. 

Heres how it happens;

Someday, by choice or by force, everyone gets out. Once out, we say to ourselves, we’re tired of getting up early. We’ve given four years or 20 years of hard work to serving our country, and we decide we want to take it easy for a week or two. We treat ourselves to a few more beers than usual. 

But then that week or two of indulgence becomes a month or two. Then it’s too hard to start running or lifting again, so the month or two becomes a year or two, and soon the only way to recognize that person as a veteran is a crazy looking retiree baseball hat or military retiree bumper sticker.

It really doesn’t have to be that way. Fitness doesn’t have to be accompanied by pain, despite what some of others might lead us to believe. All you need to reap major health benefits is 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. And “moderate” includes walking. 

That’s five 30-minute sessions a week. If you can’t find that time, you’re probably lying to yourself. And if you think that’s taking away from your family or significant other, then take them with you on one or two of those walks — it can be a good way to connect with them after years of too much time away serving.

Walking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it requires no equipment and is completely free. On the other hand, many service members love to worship at the iron church — the base gym. That can quickly become an excuse for laziness once out of the service. Gyms in the civilian world can either be too expensive or not close enough. Civilian jobs often require long hours or travel, just like the military. Driving to the gym before or after work becomes the first thing to go when time gets tight.

You really don’t need to go to some commercial gym, though. Unless you are training for serious mass or competitive athletics, getting in great shape and getting pretty damn strong requires little to no equipment. If you have a few square feet in your garage or can slide over your kitchen table, there are a number of programs to get you on the road to fitness. Blogs like “1st N Weight Loss” by Dwight Obey (Ret. USAF) offer great ideas for working out, along with other useful information with no frills. These tips are handy even on active duty.

For those who don’t like to read, or who need a trainer’s motivation and can’t afford it, there are endless videos available to motivate you. Fitness videos can have some stigma in macho military culture from their association with aerobics videos of the 1980s and 1990s. Well, they aren’t your mother’s Jazzercise anymore. For example, the Insanity or P90X series of programs will challenge just about anyone, regardless of fitness level. For those without $100 or so in their pockets to spend, plenty of video programs are available for free online and via devices like Amazon Fire TV. Add just a pull-up bar and a couple of kettle-bells or dumbbells, and almost any fitness goal is within reach.

Home programs do have a weakness, though — they don’t get you out of the house. You’re out of the military now. Unless you resettled in either a military town or your hometown, you need to get out and meet some new people. There are a million ways to do that, but fitness events are a great way to do it.  Putting such an event on your calendar gives you a goal and provides focus to your training. 

Most of these events also have substantial pre- and post-event social components. There are even groups that exist to help vets connect to their communities through fitness events. Getting outdoors and meeting people is pretty good medicine for anyone, veteran or not.

All of this is basically a long way of saying that there’s no excuse for sitting on your butt and getting fat. Working out is good for you. It’s fun. And besides, you can no longer make fun of others you considered being fat, lazy, and undisciplined when you, yourself have become one of them, can you?

This post was inspired by, and is dedicated to the thousands of vets who follow my blog (Active and Retired), and have requested an article as such. I understand, and have been there. I was so concerned about ensuring the numerous businesses in which I ran were successful, that I forgot about myself, and eventually let myself go from a fitness stand point. Luckily for me I got back on track, sooner then later, and now Im able to travel the world, while helping thousands of others become successful, from both a professional, and fitness standpoint.

You may also like: "I Was That Person....This Is My AvoCare Story"

It is my hope, this post has inspired you to get up and move......."Today Iz The Day"