Think about the number one reasons why individuals are fat nowadays. Overweight people fall into one of two various categories. Either they have an unhealthy lifestyle – working long hours, eating out all the time, not getting sufficient exercise – or they basically consume too much, often in a compulsive way. This type of eating – eating when one isn’t hungry, as, or eating for emotional reasons rather than physical hunger – is really a type of addiction. It should be understood as an addiction, and it often is. For example, the group Overeaters Anonymous functions on many of the same principles as AA or other twelve step programs. Excessive eating is treated like an addiction since that’s just what it is.

But if that’s the case, it’s easy to see why this addiction might be harder to treat than some others. The way to deal with an addiction is to stay away from the behaviour that’s out of control – alcoholics can’t touch alcohol, for example. The plan is to not do it at all until the addiction becomes a thing of the past – in fact, for many addicts, they can never indulge in their addictive behavior again, not even once.

With food addiction, though, that’s obviously impossible. Individuals have to eat – there’s no getting away from it. That’s why food addiction, though it’s an addiction to a non-lethal substance, may be the hardest of all to deal with. And that’s also why companies such as Slim-fast, who produce and market meal replacements for weight loss for people to use while dieting to lose weight, actually achieve success in helping some people.

The plan behind meal replacements is that you don’t really eat at all for a good part of the day – instead, you have a particular shake or other product that gives you all the nutrients you need, and stops you from feeling hungry. This works in two ways: first, it controls the calories you take in, since the meal replacements are quite low calorie. Subsequent, it breaks the cycle of addictive behavior since you’re not really eating. You can get away from the behavior much as an alcoholic can (and must) get away from alcohol, and that gives you a better chance of breaking the addictive process.

Though most meal replacement plans do suggest that you eat one ‘normal’ meal per day, some people who are serious about losing weight don’t do even that. That’s exactly how Oprah Winfrey once lost lots of weight – about fifty pounds. She said that she found it easier not to eat at all (subsisting on meal replacement shakes and bars) than to control her eating. When you know that you won’t be eating ‘real food’ at all for a while, it takes the guesswork out of it. Everything becomes very easy, and it’s a truth that many people have lost weight using this method of weight loss.

There are downsides, though. For one thing, while a weight loss plan is supposed to explain you about how to eat for the rest of your life – to establish healthy habits, in other words – using meal replacements clearly doesn’t do so. Once you go back to eating real food, you might find that your problems with controlling your food intake are still there. Though you will have lost weight, you are more probable to gain it back if you haven’t learned healthy eating habits.
Besides, there’s a danger that some people will keep on using the meal replacements for extended periods of time, just since it’s easier and more convenient. Thought they re designed to give you the least level of calories and nutrition, meal replacement bars cannot substitute for real food over an extended period.

However, if you know or think that your problem with food resembles an obsession or compulsion, it may be worth your while to think about using meal replacements for a while in order to lose some weight. Try to make the time you spend using them as productive as possible, though. In fact come to terms with your past behaviour, and learn what it feels like to be full but not stuffed. Figuring out the answer to these and other aspects of healthy eating will aid make your weight loss lasting.