One Energy Supplement to Rule them all! 

Spiru-tein - I can honestly say this drink changed my life.  When you want, or need to lose weight you get lots of bad advice.  Everything ranging from the stupid “Just stop eating” to the scientific “if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight”.  Well isn’t that helpful.  All the worlds problems can be solved that way.  End poverty by earning more than you spend!  Cure alcoholism by not drinking alcohol!  Seriously, if you’ve been overweight your entire life, you need a lifestyle change, not a diet soda.  My diet and exercise program is covered in another post (The Disney World Diet), but the critical part of my successful diet is spiru-tein.  I substitute 2 meals a day with spiru-tein and almost never feel hungry.  When I do feel hungry, i eat a few Spiru-tein wafers as a snack.  At 20 calories each, I’d rather have 100 calories to stop a craving than the 1000-2000 calories I would have eaten from a midnight snack.

The basic formula: 1 scoop of powder (scoop provided), 1 cup of milk (whole, 1%, 2%, or skim), 6 to 8 ice cubes.  Put it all in a blender and mix until smooth.  If you like fast food shakes, then you will love this drink.  It’s tastes exactly like a milkshake.  Some people get fancy and add juice, vitamins, fruit, nuts, flax oil, and whatever.  My opinion is that the simpler the better.  Maybe I’ll get wild when I explore their fruitier flavors, but for now the basic formula has kept me satisfied for 4 months and 40+ pounds lighter.  There are at least 20 flavors, so you can alternate and not get bored.  For those who have tried weight watchers or slimfast shakes, you will be very pleasantly surprised.  I tried another brand and almost gagged at the aftertaste.  From the big 2.4 pound can, you can get 34 one cup servings.  At around $24.00 a can, that’s only $.68 a serving.  Use your savings to eat one nice healthy meal for dinner.

So whats in it that makes it so special?  Here’s a link to the manufacturer’s website:  http://spiru-tein.com/  According to them it’s all in the nutrients along with what they refer to as “green foods” like Spirulina and Chlorella.  I’m sure many people have their own preferences, but i can attest this stuff works.  You don’t crash after an hour, have an upset stomach or aftertaste, you have plenty of energy, and you really feel full.

My goal is to eventually try all 20 flavors.  With over 57 products in the spiru-tein family, that may take a while.  For sure, not all flavors are created equal.  For the benefit of those who are interested, I’ll review the flavors I’ve tried, in the order I would rank them.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl : The name alone makes it sound like a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup.  It’s not quite as good as the candy bar.  But if you have ever been to one of those ice cream stores that put all the ingredients into a blender, then this flavor is for you.   The flavors aren’t very strong, but remember, it is a diet drink that tastes far more fattening that it really is.   

Double Fudge Crunch: Very chocolaty and pleasing taste, but no crunch to speak of by time it got out of the blender.  No after taste either, which is very important for chocolate based flavors.  Definitely satisfies any desire to feel like you “ate something real”.

Banana:  The standard all other flavors are judges by.  I liked this flavor so much that I purchased it twice, using it to mix with an inferior brand just to get that supermarket powder out of the house.  If you like bananas, start with this one.  When you get fancy you can mix it with chocolate spiru-tein for a choco-banana custom drink.  The taste is mild and not overwhelming, which to me is a good thing if you have memories of sickly sweet banana milk as a child.

Cookies & Cream:A nice flavor, but I expected more.  More like vanilla with a hint of chocolate.   Pleasant but not memorable, my first reaction was to ask my wife if she had changed her recipe.  It grows on you, but nothing you ever really get a craving for.  Sort of a middle reliever in the bullpen of flavors.
 

Cappuccino: The biggest disappointment yet.  Usually I start my day with my shake and a large cup of coffee with milk and equal.  One day I had the crazy idea to skip the milk and use a cup of coffee as my base liquid in the blender.  It was flat out awful.   Oh, coffee is coffee, and spiru-tein is spiru-tein, and never the twain shall meet.  At least in my house for breakfast ever again.  It’s not bad if you like coffee flavored things that aren’t coffee, but I don’t see myself buying this flavor again soon.

Find Spiru-tein on Amazon.com