Recommend a meal replacement shake

[fredr123]

I am soliciting your recommendations for a meal replacement shake. Lately, I've resorted to too many breakfasts of coffee and donuts and it's showing.

In the past, I've had good success using ViSalus shake mix to help control my appetite and assist in weight loss. I am open to suggestions for better products that will help me feel fuller longer. Taste and cost are important concerns as well. Being able to buy a 5 gallon tub locally would also be a nice perk.

Thank you in advance.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I don't know how helpful this is depending on your circumstances, but my method (often for breakfast) is to keep a magic bullet blender in my office, a bag of frozen strawberries and a bottle of almond milk in the fridge at work, and a tub of whey isolate. Frozen fruit + almond milk + couple scoops whey -> blend for 30 seconds. Delicious and like 40 grams of protein.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I don't know how helpful this is depending on your circumstances, but my method (often for breakfast) is to keep a magic bullet blender in my office, a bag of frozen strawberries and a bottle of almond milk in the fridge at work, and a tub of whey isolate. Frozen fruit + almond milk + couple scoops whey -> blend for 30 seconds. Delicious and like 40 grams of protein.

What brand of whey do you use?

I need to keep it as simple as possible (shaker bottle plus powder plus milk/water) otherwise it starts to get too complicated and, knowing me, I ain't gonna stick with it.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

The vanilla whey iso they sell at Costco - it used to be even cheaper but it's still the best deal I've found. I have not bought into the "premium protein" thing; it's all macronutrients so if I can get 40 grams of protein with 3 grams of carbs, I'm fine with that ratio and that's all that really matters. I used to use the whey iso burst from GNC but it's expensive for no particular reason and the Costco stuff tastes just as good anyway.

I used to do the shaker bottle plus powder plus milk thing, but I found THAT was much harder to stick with because a) it doesn't taste good no matter what protein you use, and b) the shaker bottle doesn't eliminate the clumpy protein bits. Gross.

What I do tastes like a delicious strawberry milkshake so I actually enjoy drinking it, and it's still very simple (takes 3 minutes).

[Hemi-Cuda]

https://www.soylent.com

[jdso]

Not sure if this will fit your needs as it's pretty pricey. Cases can be bought on Amazon and yeswellness/

http://www.drinkrumble.com/

[Flabbibulin]

From a whey protein standpoint, I am confident in saying that MTS machine whey is one of the best tasting/quality protein powders out there. I am not sure if it is available in store in Calgary- Popeyes website says they are a supplier, but I have never looked. Just get mine online. It really is decent in just almond milk or regular milk, but can obviously be mixed with bananas or frozen fruit depending on how many additional carbs you want.

Really not sure about ready mixed ones- usually just get them once in a while and pick one with a macro profile that fits what I need at the time- which usually means looking at the carbs, as most if them more or less have 25-30g of protein and 5-10g of fat. Sometimes I want a low carb, sometimes high. Walmart has a few different selections of about 4 bottles for $10, but I recently picked up a 4 pack of isoflex ready made shakes and it was literally pudding, not liquid. The pure proteins are decent- I believe 23g of protein and less than 10g of carbs. Not high on sodium, which is often overlooked. The GNC total lean shakes are decent. I believe the same macros as pure protein for about the same price- maybe a little more.

With regards to the quality of whey protein powders, it is important to remember that not all are created equally. The cheap ones are cheap for a reason- either because of amino spiking with "useless" cheap proteins or because they need an auger to get them to dissolve in any given liquid.

You only mentioned shakes, but some decent bar options- Quest and Combat probably being the most popular choices at the moment. They are about 200 calories each, 20g of protein, 25 of carbs, most of which is supposedly "fiber". There is a lot if speculation on these macros and the quality of this fiber, but it is still probably a better option than donuts, muffins.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Flabbibulin

The cheap ones are cheap for a reason- either because of amino spiking with "useless" cheap proteins

Please explain to me why this isn't just gibberish intended to sell a "designer" macronutrient. It's protein, or it isn't...

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Please explain to me why this isn't just gibberish intended to sell a "designer" macronutrient. It's protein, or it isn't...

Exactly.
My criteria is a high protein , low carb iso. (carbs are easy).
For me, the 3 minutes time CHL mentioned can include consuming it, when required!

[Flabbibulin]

Here are some good links on this. Not just advertising BS to sell the more expensive brand.

Amino acid spiking is essentially the practice of dumping high amounts of the cheapest, least valuable amino acids into the powder in order to cut costs while keeping the total protein content elevated.

For labeling purposes, the total protein gram amount listed on the product is based on the total nitrogen content. As a result, even though these isolated amino acids are technically not “protein”, they’ll still contribute to the total.

For the purposes of amino acid spiking, the two that you’ll almost always see are l-glycine and/or l-taurine. These two are dirt cheap, non-essential aminos that cost far less than the actual whey protein. Since they’re also tasteless, adding them in high amounts helps to improve the overall flavoring of the product.

I am generally skeptical of the supplement industry as a whole, but try and look into the product as much as possible.

http://seannal.com/articles/suppleme...id-spiking.php

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexmorr...-off-athletes/

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That is extremely useful information. So, let's say I have a whey iso where 1 scoop = 39g protein to 4g carbs. Let's say it's one of these cheap brands. What's the actual ratio? 30g to 4g? Where do the extra 9 (or however many) grams go? Are they essentially a nothing, nutritionally speaking?

I'm not a nutritionist or a dietician or anything of the sort; I just assume when I eat something labelled "39 grams protein" that I am in fact ingesting 39 grams of protein.

Anyway, I'm checking the packaging now... I mean, I could just go back to buying GNC.

[Flabbibulin]

Well, presumably you could buy a powder that has a full amino breakdown and does not contain a considerable amount of Glycine or Taurine. I also avoid ones with creatine- creatine is a fantastic supplement and can be purchased separately at a very cheap price. Here is an example:

Spoiler!

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

My issue would be not knowing how to interpret that label, really. Is 10% leucine good or bad, for example? Or neutral?

[Flabbibulin]

Nitrogen spiking isn't an unhealthy practice- it basically just comes down to false advertising for the sake of saving money with cheap "fillers". If you are looking for 30g of complete protein in a serving, then that is what you want to be getting- if the serving actually only contains 20g of full whey protein, then the cost essentially evens out with the more expensive quality brands from a price per gram of protein. Could just as well buy the quality product and just have a 2/3rd serving- one added benefit being that the more expensive brands dissolve and taste better. And I am using the term "more expensive", but I am not really sure the price difference is that drastic. It certainly is a little bit more, but I buy MTS whey online in larger quantities and not sure the price is substantially more.

There is no real way to answer the ratio question because I don't think the majority of powders will have the full amino breakdown, but a partial amino listing on the guilty brands will often show creatine, taurine, and glycine as the main ingredients.

Spoiler!

This article is actually better than the one I posted earlier-

http://boxlifemagazine.com/community...t-you-paid-for

[AcGold]

I say go with the raw vegetable and hemp proteins because some are just pure food extracts without any extra. Rice protein powders are good too, there's a lot of options besides whey

[Flabbibulin]

^^^Ya, I am not trying to sound like a supplement nut. I try and limit the amount of whey I have in a week, but it is convenient and it can be a high quality source of protein. It is about the convenience and ability to mix it in with quality carb sources (oatmeal for example) that may not have a large serving of protein.

[Gundo]

I have really enjoyed the isagenix shakes. Kinda pricey but they have worked well for me.