Advocare

An Inside Look at AdvoCare

AdvoCare has become a popular brand when it comes to fitness and nutrition. Not only do they have fitness routines for you to follow, but an expansive weight loss supplement regimen to follow. With such an expansive healthy lifestyle program, it seems likely that AdvoCare’s products are effective. Naturally, Diet-Shake-Reviews is interested in looking further into their meal replacement shake, aptly named Meal Replacement Shake.

AdvoCare Meal Replacement Shake promises 24 grams of whey protein per serving, which at first glance seemed like a solid source. 24 grams is higher than other top meal replacement shakes and perfect if you’re on an intense fitness and weight loss regimen. Proteins from outside sources are vital to muscle growth when working out and play an important role in making you feel full when used as a meal replacement. Most other shakes on the high end of protein content have around 15 grams. Clearly AdvoCare is ahead in that department. When paired with fiber, protein works well to keep your stomach full for hours.

This shake contains 6 grams of fiber, which doesn’t seem like very much when compared to the amount of protein that it has, but fiber helps to slow the digestive process, so we wouldn’t want to overdo it. Slowing down the digestive process is what helps you stay full.

All this being said, we had to look further into the amount of protein. 24 grams is a lot for a single serving. Lo and behold, a single serving consists of 59 grams of shake mix. That’s almost twice as much as other meal replacement shakes!

The instructions say only to mix the powder with water, but we have a feeling that with that much powder, ice or fruits and veggies will be necessary to balance out the texture.

The next ingredient we look for in a meal replacement shake is the sweetener that it uses. AdvoCare uses fructose.  Fructose (a form of sugar) can only be metabolized by the liver. Consuming too much at once overwhelms the liver and instead of being metabolized, fructose is stored as fat for an energy source to use later. But if you’re constantly consuming fructose, that excess energy source is never being used, and continues to be stored as fat instead. Excess fructose consumption can be attributed to insulin resistance, obesity, elevated blood pressure, and heart disease, just to name a few.

That leads to the question of how many grams of fructose this shake contains per serving. The answer is 12 grams. A piece of cake comparatively has about 50, so comparing it to cake makes this shake seem like the best choice. But again, comparatively to some of the best meal replacement shakes which have no more than 2 grams of sugar (which may or may not even be fructose), AdvoCare Meal Replacement Shake contains a very high amount of sugar.

For some reason, sucralose is also included in this shake mix. Sucralose is an artificial sweetener that was popular for a time because of its promise of zero calories, but concerns have arisen about possible side effects of this sweetener, as well as its potential long term-side effects.  The concern about this artificial sweetener has become so widespread that even big manufacturers like Whole Foods have banned products that include the ingredient from their shelves. With other natural and non-controversial sweeteners available, we wonder why a shake would include sucralose (or fructose, for that matter) in its ingredients.

Depending on how often you drink meal replacement shakes, or are planning on drinking them when you find one that suits your needs, AdvoCare may get pricey. There are 14 servings per box, which lasts about 2 weeks if you drink one a day. We recommend that if you’re at the beginning of a weight loss journey, you start with two meal replacement shakes a day and gradually transition to one a day. As such, these shakes would last a week at a time. While they may be effective later down the road, they aren’t a good shake to start off with. Then again, that all depends on how much money you’re willing to spend.