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Protein Powder
So I consume a lot of protein powder. I do this because the last time I did a half marathon, I stopped lifting and focused on running, and so I ate a lot of carbs. I lost a lot of muscle, and this pissed me off, because I like having guns. It makes me feel tough (even though I am totally, hilariously not).
If you want to keep your muscle, you have to eat roughly a gram of protein per pound you weigh every day. Then you want about 20 to 30 percent of your remaining calories to be healthy fats, and THEN the remainder you can carb out. I am not a huge meat eater, and while I LOVE me some dairy, if I eat too much of it, it is inviting the fartpocolypse. So I eat a lot of egg white protein powder, and usually once a day I pop some whey in some greek yogurt and eat that. My favorite breakfast is half a cup of oats with egg whites + six ounces of goat yogurt + whey protein. This breakfast gives me 56 grams of protein right out of the gate. Protein!
My favorite flavor currently is Optimum Nutrition's chocolate malt, because I love chocolate malt, but recently, I got some variety packs of brands I hadn't tried after my buddy![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thistle_chaser brought them to my attention. I am going to review the flavors here not just for my own reference, but just in case any of y'all ever decide to be a meathead too and want to know about flavor sensations.
By the way, that cut has lyrics from a workout song that I had on a chipmunks record in the eighties. There is nothing better than a song about how three-foot-tall cartoon chipmunks are going to lift eighty pounds.
Anyway: Syntrax is the first new brand I'm trying. I like it because it makes several different brands. Nectar is more for the bariatric side, being 100 calories, 23g of protein, and no carbs or fat, whereas Matrix is more on the musclehead side, with different calorie counts by flavor and some fat and carbs and other crazy shit. Neither of them are the "cleanest" proteins out there, since they both have shit like sucralose (also an excellent choice if you are looking to gas your coworkers and friends or use your ass as a rocket booster), and soy lecithin and red dye number three in there. But: those are personal choices, and you have to decide for yourself how many fucks you give about it. The number of fucks I have to give depends on many factors, including whether I will be running a significant distance the next day or hanging out with friends. It is fine if I am only subjecting Penny to nuclear fart fallout. However yesterday I totally gassed the security dudes at the entrance to the US Attorney's Office downtown. Not optimum.
Protein!
Syntrax Nectar:
General: This protein is foamy as shit. I usually mix mine up in a blender bottle, which is a plastic cup with a little metal whisk ball in there. I put in the protein, however much water or almond milk I'm feeling, and shake like a motherfucker. The protein mixes really well, but there is always a HUGE layer of foam on the top. This is awesome sometimes, because it's very cappuccino foamlike, and I can spoon it into coffee and be like FANCY COFFEE! It is not awesome when I have just finished a run and just want some recovery action.
It also turns some CRAZY ASS COLORS, which can be startling because it's all white in the package, but when it meets water or yogurt or oatmeal, it is a ticket to radioactive biohazard rainbow brite ravertown.
Crystal Sky: Flavor: Fruit Punch
Color: Smurf Blue
I was just sort of meh about this one. I have never been a big fan of fruit punch, and it was the first one I tried, so I was SO ALARMED by the smurf blue. If you dig fruit punch it is probably awesome though.
Apple Ecstasy: Flavor: Apply Jolly Rancher
Color: Ninja Turtle Radioactive Ooze Green
I put this in yogurt and it was delicious. It tasted just like an apple jolly rancher. Definitely a nice change from the usual chocolate/vanilla I throw down. Would drink again, A+++.
Strawberry Mousse: Flavor: Just what it says
Color: Jem and the Holograms hair Pink
UNF UNF UNF. This one was delicious. I normally don't like strawberry flavored things, because fake strawberry comes from beaver ass (I am not making that up.), and also tastes nothing like actual strawberries, but mostly because beaver ass. But this was delicious enough that I forgot about beaver ass! So that's a good thing.
Strawberry Kiwi: Flavor: More strawberry than kiwi
Color: Did not make an impression, do not remember.
This one tasted very fake strawberry, and did not make me forget about beaver ass. Thumbs down.
Lemon Tea: Flavor: Exactly what it says.
Color: Tea colored.
I saw so many reviews online about this one being pure nasty gag me gross, and yet it tasted and looked exactly what it says it tastes like. I don't like lemon tea enough to buy it again, but I was surprised at everyone freaking out about it being nasty. What were they expecting? Have they never had lemon tea? Were they all Southern and expecting the metric fuckton of sugar we put in tea down here? It would have been called sweet tea if it tasted like that, y'all. Anyway: just as advertised, but not my thing.
Roadside Lemonade Flavor: Lemon
Color: Pale yellow
I was looking forward to this one and I wasn't disappointed. It made some GREAT lemon yogurt, with just the right amount of sweet and tang, and without tasting like floor cleaner like the lemon Quest Bars do. Like the mighty Thor, I flung down my bowl and shouted ANOTHER!
Twisted Cherry Flavor: Fake cherry
Color: Chibiusa Pink
Ehhhhh. I really, really like real cherries you guys; they are one of the few fruits I actually like. I am not a fruit person in general. So fake cherry just does not do it for me.
Wild Grape Flavor: Grape KoolAid
Color: Grape Ape. Did you watch that on USA Cartoon Express? No? God I'm old.
I wrote about this one, I put it in yogurt and some of the powder was chemically treated to turn red and some was chemically treated to turn blue, and so it made this hilarious patriotic neon fourth of july swirl until it was properly blended. It tasted kind of like the grape in these candy powder packets we had when I was young, called Lik-M-Aid. It was like Pixie Stix, sort of, only it came with this candy tongue depressor thing, and you dipped it in the powder and ate it off the candy. The eighties were weird.
Double Stuffed Cookie Flavor: Ehh. It was supposed to be Oreo/Cookies and Cream. It was not.
Color: White with black spots.
A disappointment as far as cookies and cream flavored things go. There are much better cookies and cream flavored things; the WW ice cream, for example, is fucking radical. This was just not up to standard.
Chocolate Truffle Flavor: Chocolate
Color: Brown
I haven't really found any real difference that I can tell in chocolate protein powders. Chocolate is chocolate, you know?
Vanilla Bean Torte Flavor: Vanilla
Color: Vanilla
Same here. Vanilla is vanilla is vanilla, most of the time.
Fuzzy Navel Flavor: Just what it says
Color: Peaches and cream
It does not taste anything like a real peach, but it does taste like a fuzzy navel. It even had kind of a weird tang that made it taste like the actual alcoholic drink, and because it was foamy, it made me feel like I was having a morning cocktail. That was kind of awesome.
I still have a few flavors of this brand left, and all in all, I like the nutritional content for the calorie content; 23g of protein in 100 kcal is pretty awesome. I could do without the weird ass colors, but I guess some people find them fun after the same old same old of protein shakes. The flavors I have left to try are Caribbean Cooler, which I am not looking forward to because I do not like pina coladas (or getting caught in the rain), cappuccino, which I am excited to put in coffee and get my protein latte on now that it is fall, and I think grapefruit and maybe one other.
I've had three flavors of their other brand, Matrix, which varies in calories by flavor.
Peanut Butter Cookie Flavor: Peanut Butter Whipped Cream
Color: Light brown
This was okay, but for 150 kcal in a scoop I expect some ass kicking awesome, and it was not that. Now to be fair, peanut butter cookies are absolutely my fucking kryptonite. I have really good willpower about some "treats," I can take a pass on cake, and most kinds of pie, and most cheesecake. Cookies in general, however, call to me like the Pied Piper, and peanut butter cookies you best tie me to the fucking mast and put wax in my ears, because I will jump straight in the angry sea without a lifejacket and drown with crumbs all over my fucking face. If I have a shitty ass day, I will absolutely destroy an entire box of Tagalongs and lie on the couch moaning from the sugar crash. So anyway: it was okay, but it was not lifechanging, and my peanut butter cookie standards are HIGH.
Bananas and Cream Flavor: Light banana, like banana pudding
Color: Also too like banana pudding
I am not a fan of bananas (see: fruit is not for Ali) unless I am using them to make pancakes or my friend Suboshi is making them into caramelized holy shit what did you do this is amazing oh God I lost a filling goodness, so I was not expecting to be wowed by this one. Still, the banana was not overpowering, it was nice and light, and I actually kind of liked it. It was like a very light banana pudding, and it was one of the lower ones calorie-wise at 110. I would eat it again in an individual sample packet, but I don't like bananas enough to order a whole 2 pound canister.
Mint Cookie Flavor: THIN MINTS HOLY SHIT THIN MINTS
Color: Same as cookies and cream powders, white with black crumbies
HOLY SHIT HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS WAS SO AMAZING YOU GUYS, SO GODDAMN AMAZING, I had it in my oatmeal for breakfast, and then I went and pounded out six miles on the greenway at 9:02 pace and it was the BEST FUCKING DAY EVER and it was nice and cool and fall-style and THIS WAS SERIOUSLY SO GOOD, I will have to do a price/health comparison against Mint Mocha from About Time, my current favorite Mint protein, and perhaps make a change. About Time is cleaner; less weird additives. BUT THIS WAS SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING GOOD I burned my mouth because I did not want to wait until my oatmeal was cool. SO FUCKIN' AWESOME OH MY GOD. It was one of the higher calories ones at 140, but BHEEEEEE this one was worth it.
I still have a metric buttload of this brand to try. So I will not list them. And another brand which also has a peanut butter cookie and vanilla cake and chocolate cake. Looking forward to those. WHY IS THERE NO KEY LIME PIE okay well I would just be disappointed. Anyway. That is the news from protein land. Good day!
If you want to keep your muscle, you have to eat roughly a gram of protein per pound you weigh every day. Then you want about 20 to 30 percent of your remaining calories to be healthy fats, and THEN the remainder you can carb out. I am not a huge meat eater, and while I LOVE me some dairy, if I eat too much of it, it is inviting the fartpocolypse. So I eat a lot of egg white protein powder, and usually once a day I pop some whey in some greek yogurt and eat that. My favorite breakfast is half a cup of oats with egg whites + six ounces of goat yogurt + whey protein. This breakfast gives me 56 grams of protein right out of the gate. Protein!
My favorite flavor currently is Optimum Nutrition's chocolate malt, because I love chocolate malt, but recently, I got some variety packs of brands I hadn't tried after my buddy
thistle_chaser brought them to my attention. I am going to review the flavors here not just for my own reference, but just in case any of y'all ever decide to be a meathead too and want to know about flavor sensations.By the way, that cut has lyrics from a workout song that I had on a chipmunks record in the eighties. There is nothing better than a song about how three-foot-tall cartoon chipmunks are going to lift eighty pounds.
Anyway: Syntrax is the first new brand I'm trying. I like it because it makes several different brands. Nectar is more for the bariatric side, being 100 calories, 23g of protein, and no carbs or fat, whereas Matrix is more on the musclehead side, with different calorie counts by flavor and some fat and carbs and other crazy shit. Neither of them are the "cleanest" proteins out there, since they both have shit like sucralose (also an excellent choice if you are looking to gas your coworkers and friends or use your ass as a rocket booster), and soy lecithin and red dye number three in there. But: those are personal choices, and you have to decide for yourself how many fucks you give about it. The number of fucks I have to give depends on many factors, including whether I will be running a significant distance the next day or hanging out with friends. It is fine if I am only subjecting Penny to nuclear fart fallout. However yesterday I totally gassed the security dudes at the entrance to the US Attorney's Office downtown. Not optimum.
Protein!
Syntrax Nectar:
General: This protein is foamy as shit. I usually mix mine up in a blender bottle, which is a plastic cup with a little metal whisk ball in there. I put in the protein, however much water or almond milk I'm feeling, and shake like a motherfucker. The protein mixes really well, but there is always a HUGE layer of foam on the top. This is awesome sometimes, because it's very cappuccino foamlike, and I can spoon it into coffee and be like FANCY COFFEE! It is not awesome when I have just finished a run and just want some recovery action.
It also turns some CRAZY ASS COLORS, which can be startling because it's all white in the package, but when it meets water or yogurt or oatmeal, it is a ticket to radioactive biohazard rainbow brite ravertown.
Crystal Sky: Flavor: Fruit Punch
Color: Smurf Blue
I was just sort of meh about this one. I have never been a big fan of fruit punch, and it was the first one I tried, so I was SO ALARMED by the smurf blue. If you dig fruit punch it is probably awesome though.
Apple Ecstasy: Flavor: Apply Jolly Rancher
Color: Ninja Turtle Radioactive Ooze Green
I put this in yogurt and it was delicious. It tasted just like an apple jolly rancher. Definitely a nice change from the usual chocolate/vanilla I throw down. Would drink again, A+++.
Strawberry Mousse: Flavor: Just what it says
Color: Jem and the Holograms hair Pink
UNF UNF UNF. This one was delicious. I normally don't like strawberry flavored things, because fake strawberry comes from beaver ass (I am not making that up.), and also tastes nothing like actual strawberries, but mostly because beaver ass. But this was delicious enough that I forgot about beaver ass! So that's a good thing.
Strawberry Kiwi: Flavor: More strawberry than kiwi
Color: Did not make an impression, do not remember.
This one tasted very fake strawberry, and did not make me forget about beaver ass. Thumbs down.
Lemon Tea: Flavor: Exactly what it says.
Color: Tea colored.
I saw so many reviews online about this one being pure nasty gag me gross, and yet it tasted and looked exactly what it says it tastes like. I don't like lemon tea enough to buy it again, but I was surprised at everyone freaking out about it being nasty. What were they expecting? Have they never had lemon tea? Were they all Southern and expecting the metric fuckton of sugar we put in tea down here? It would have been called sweet tea if it tasted like that, y'all. Anyway: just as advertised, but not my thing.
Roadside Lemonade Flavor: Lemon
Color: Pale yellow
I was looking forward to this one and I wasn't disappointed. It made some GREAT lemon yogurt, with just the right amount of sweet and tang, and without tasting like floor cleaner like the lemon Quest Bars do. Like the mighty Thor, I flung down my bowl and shouted ANOTHER!
Twisted Cherry Flavor: Fake cherry
Color: Chibiusa Pink
Ehhhhh. I really, really like real cherries you guys; they are one of the few fruits I actually like. I am not a fruit person in general. So fake cherry just does not do it for me.
Wild Grape Flavor: Grape KoolAid
Color: Grape Ape. Did you watch that on USA Cartoon Express? No? God I'm old.
I wrote about this one, I put it in yogurt and some of the powder was chemically treated to turn red and some was chemically treated to turn blue, and so it made this hilarious patriotic neon fourth of july swirl until it was properly blended. It tasted kind of like the grape in these candy powder packets we had when I was young, called Lik-M-Aid. It was like Pixie Stix, sort of, only it came with this candy tongue depressor thing, and you dipped it in the powder and ate it off the candy. The eighties were weird.
Double Stuffed Cookie Flavor: Ehh. It was supposed to be Oreo/Cookies and Cream. It was not.
Color: White with black spots.
A disappointment as far as cookies and cream flavored things go. There are much better cookies and cream flavored things; the WW ice cream, for example, is fucking radical. This was just not up to standard.
Chocolate Truffle Flavor: Chocolate
Color: Brown
I haven't really found any real difference that I can tell in chocolate protein powders. Chocolate is chocolate, you know?
Vanilla Bean Torte Flavor: Vanilla
Color: Vanilla
Same here. Vanilla is vanilla is vanilla, most of the time.
Fuzzy Navel Flavor: Just what it says
Color: Peaches and cream
It does not taste anything like a real peach, but it does taste like a fuzzy navel. It even had kind of a weird tang that made it taste like the actual alcoholic drink, and because it was foamy, it made me feel like I was having a morning cocktail. That was kind of awesome.
I still have a few flavors of this brand left, and all in all, I like the nutritional content for the calorie content; 23g of protein in 100 kcal is pretty awesome. I could do without the weird ass colors, but I guess some people find them fun after the same old same old of protein shakes. The flavors I have left to try are Caribbean Cooler, which I am not looking forward to because I do not like pina coladas (or getting caught in the rain), cappuccino, which I am excited to put in coffee and get my protein latte on now that it is fall, and I think grapefruit and maybe one other.
I've had three flavors of their other brand, Matrix, which varies in calories by flavor.
Peanut Butter Cookie Flavor: Peanut Butter Whipped Cream
Color: Light brown
This was okay, but for 150 kcal in a scoop I expect some ass kicking awesome, and it was not that. Now to be fair, peanut butter cookies are absolutely my fucking kryptonite. I have really good willpower about some "treats," I can take a pass on cake, and most kinds of pie, and most cheesecake. Cookies in general, however, call to me like the Pied Piper, and peanut butter cookies you best tie me to the fucking mast and put wax in my ears, because I will jump straight in the angry sea without a lifejacket and drown with crumbs all over my fucking face. If I have a shitty ass day, I will absolutely destroy an entire box of Tagalongs and lie on the couch moaning from the sugar crash. So anyway: it was okay, but it was not lifechanging, and my peanut butter cookie standards are HIGH.
Bananas and Cream Flavor: Light banana, like banana pudding
Color: Also too like banana pudding
I am not a fan of bananas (see: fruit is not for Ali) unless I am using them to make pancakes or my friend Suboshi is making them into caramelized holy shit what did you do this is amazing oh God I lost a filling goodness, so I was not expecting to be wowed by this one. Still, the banana was not overpowering, it was nice and light, and I actually kind of liked it. It was like a very light banana pudding, and it was one of the lower ones calorie-wise at 110. I would eat it again in an individual sample packet, but I don't like bananas enough to order a whole 2 pound canister.
Mint Cookie Flavor: THIN MINTS HOLY SHIT THIN MINTS
Color: Same as cookies and cream powders, white with black crumbies
HOLY SHIT HOLY FUCKING SHIT THIS WAS SO AMAZING YOU GUYS, SO GODDAMN AMAZING, I had it in my oatmeal for breakfast, and then I went and pounded out six miles on the greenway at 9:02 pace and it was the BEST FUCKING DAY EVER and it was nice and cool and fall-style and THIS WAS SERIOUSLY SO GOOD, I will have to do a price/health comparison against Mint Mocha from About Time, my current favorite Mint protein, and perhaps make a change. About Time is cleaner; less weird additives. BUT THIS WAS SERIOUSLY SO FUCKING GOOD I burned my mouth because I did not want to wait until my oatmeal was cool. SO FUCKIN' AWESOME OH MY GOD. It was one of the higher calories ones at 140, but BHEEEEEE this one was worth it.
I still have a metric buttload of this brand to try. So I will not list them. And another brand which also has a peanut butter cookie and vanilla cake and chocolate cake. Looking forward to those. WHY IS THERE NO KEY LIME PIE okay well I would just be disappointed. Anyway. That is the news from protein land. Good day!