IdealShape Reviews: A Focus on Meal Replacement Shakes

For many people, meal replacement shakes are an appealing tool for weight loss.

But, there are many companies that produce these shakes, so how do you figure out which one to go through?

I have covered a number of different products and companies in diet reviews on this site, so this time we’re taking a look at IdealShape and their meal replacement shakes.

To do this, I’ll be talking about what the shakes contain, how they work and what the IdealShape reviews have to say.

What is IdealShape?

IdealShape is a health and nutrition company that directly focuses on weight loss. To do this, the company offers a range of key products. Of these, much of the emphasis is on the meal replacement shakes.

As you might expect, the company boasts a range of success stories, including people who lost large amounts of weight:

And people who had much less to lose:

There are many IdealShape reviews out there that focus on the company as a whole or on IdealShape’s weight loss plan. But, this review mainly focuses on the meal replacement shakes – which is a range called IdealShake.

IdealShape Meal Replacement Shakes

Meal replacement shakes work like the name suggests. Basically, you end up replacing one (sometimes two) of your meals each day with a shake.

The shakes are designed to help reduce your hunger and are also lower in calories than a typical meal. As a result, you can end up decreasing your overall calorie intake, leading to weight loss.

On paper, the idea is great and it does work well for some people.

But, it also has some limitations. For one thing, liquid calories are rarely as satisfying as calories you eat. Because of this, the shakes may not be as filling as you might expect. For some people, this means that they end up snacking when they wouldn’t normally or they eat more in their next meal.

What impact this has depends on who you are.

As the company claims, many people will find the shakes enjoyable and the process can feel like a treat.

But, if you majorly struggle with hunger, the shakes may not work as well as the marketing implies. Indeed, some people find that meal replacement shakes don’t decrease their appetite much at all.

Speaking of marketing, the company highlights something interesting about their shakes. Specifically, they talk about how the shake can satisfy you for ‘up to’ 3 hours.

That’s not actually all that long.

Certainly, 3 hours means that you couldn’t simply replace a meal with a shake. Instead, you’d need to have a snack a few hours later. This mostly defeats the purpose.

To a degree, the reason for this is that IdealShape relies on the idea of snacking. Herbalife does this too, as do some other similar companies.

The idea here is that eating frequently helps to keep your metabolism high, which then contributes to weight loss. However, the concept is largely a nutrition myth. In reality, there is little evidence that eating frequently can make weight loss easier (1).

For that matter, eating frequently increases the chance that you will overeat, simply because you have more opportunities to do so. For many people, the pattern doesn’t even decrease hunger (2).

At the same time, there are some biological benefits to being hungry (3,4,5) and some effective diets rely on this process (particularly intermittent fasting).

In fairness, eating frequently does help some people.

If you really struggle with being hungry, then the idea can work well and may even help with weight loss. But, if you don’t, the approach could mean that you end up eating more, rather than less.

So, this is something to consider when looking at IdealShape.

Personally, I’m not impressed by shakes that just keep you full for 3 hours (at best). That’s not long enough for most people and certainly isn’t sufficient to act as a meal replacement.

IdealShape Shake Ingredients and Nutrition

As for the shakes themselves, IdealShape promotes a number of reasons why you should choose them.

First of all, I’m not going to focus on the vitamins and minerals here.

Most meal replacement shakes are designed to partially replace the nutrients that you get from food. IdealShake is supposed to be better than most but this is a side note. Hopefully, you’ll be getting key nutrients from your other meals and you’re certainly better off getting nutrients from actual food.

Now, the low sugar content is good and very impressive. Many other companies (like Isagenix) contain fairly high amounts of sugar. At the same time the fat content of the shake is surprisingly low (3 grams).

On a side note, the low sugar content does make IdealShape especially relevant for anyone on a low carb diet.

These areas mean that the shakes are just 100 calories. However, they might be more when you prepare them, depending on what else you add.

The low calorie count sounds like it should be great for weight loss.

But, you’re trying to replace a meal. When you’re doing this, reducing your calories as much as humanly possible isn’t always a good plan. After all, if you’re not consuming enough, you’ll just be hungry shortly afterward.

That brings me to protein. Across the site, IdealShape makes bold claims that its shakes contain 11 grams of protein.

But, this isn’t a lot of protein.

Instead, most competing shakes contain more. For example, Shakeology has 17 grams of protein per serving and Isagenix has 11 grams. Herbalife is one of the few companies that I’ve found that has less (9 grams).

Indeed, the protein shake recommended on this site has 24 grams of protein. 

Honestly, 11 grams of protein is horrible – especially as these shakes are supposed to be filling. This alone suggests that the shakes won’t be very effective as a meal replacement, especially if you don’t want to rely on snacks.

Nevertheless, there is one other factor to consider.

The company does use Slendesta as part of the shakes. This is promoted as a ‘powerful hunger blocker’ and it is a potato protein extract.

Specifically, the extract is supposed to promote the release of cholecystokinin (CCK) in the body, which helps people to feel less hungry.

So, does it work?

Well, that’s not really clear. The company doesn’t provide any evidence for its claims and no other company uses this extract so there isn’t much research.

As the extract is likely to contain starch, it could help to decrease hunger in that way. However, that isn’t the effect the company claims.

But, clearly the extract doesn’t work all that well. After all, the company itself says that the shakes keep you satisfied for ‘up to’ 3 hours. That’s a shorter window than you would like for a protein shake – and this alone makes the shakes unappealing.

One other thing to note is that most of the shakes are gluten-free, with the exception of the Cookies and Cream flavor.

Finally, the product uses a combination of whey and soy protein. As a result, the shakes might not be a good choice for anybody trying to avoid soy.

Does IdealShape Contain Lead?

There is some debate about lead in IdealShape.

Specifically, this is because there is a sticker that says as much.

However, the company and some reviewers state that the sticker is a legal requirement for the state of California.

As the company points out, lead is a naturally occurring compound and it is present, in trace amounts, within many fruits and vegetables. However, those levels are not high enough to affect health.

Comparison Between Brands

One interesting thing is that the company compares itself to other shakes.

Of these, I’ve reviewed Shakeology before but not the others.

The comparison looks great but it is biased.

First of all, each brand here has multiple variations, which can be different than one another. For example, SlimFast has two versions, one of which does contain more protein and less sugar.

At the same time, many of the areas of the table aren’t relevant to weight loss.

For example, the money back guarantee doesn’t prove anything, nor does the nutrients per serving. IdealShape may be the only company that uses Slendesta but other companies have their own ingredients that are supposed to help block hunger.

Likewise, the table entirely leaves out protein and fiber, which are the most relevant pieces of information for a protein shake. In fact, a better comparison is this one here: 

You can also take a look at the comparison of IdealShape vs Shakeology to see how IdealShape stacks up.

The lower pricing of IdealShape isn’t as good as it sounds either. For one thing, the company is excluding many other brands, so there are lower priced options out there anyway.

Additionally, the shakes here are only meant to keep you full for 3 hours. So, they’re not full meal replacements anyway. This means that you aren’t getting as much for your money as some other brands would offer.

IdealShape Reviews

My research suggests that these shakes aren’t especially great for weight loss. But, what do IdealShake reviews have to say? After all, user experience is what matters the most if you’re going to rely on these shakes.

Well, on Amazon, the shakes do get good average reviews. That outcome surprised me, as I expected to find more negative IdealShape reviews.

There are many positive reviews elsewhere as well. 

I didn't notice many negative reviews about the effectiveness of the shakes. 

In part, this is simply because meal shakes work. As long as the product has decent protein and fiber, you'll lose weight. Some brands are much better than others but most do work to some degree or another. 

As always, there are debates about the flavor, with some people being more impressed than others. This pattern is partly because people vary in what they enjoy. 

However, some people mentioned that the formula changed in 2016, with the taste getting much worse.