Thanks for stopping by, and thank you for your kind words on my transformation! We need to look at your needs before I can help you make the best decision for you. I will tell you that in my home, right now, I have and use all three. But I didn’t use all three ‘day 1′. Here’s how I view each of them:

Shakeology: This is a true meal replacement shake. It has 17 grams of high quality whey protein which your body can easily assimilate and use to repair and recover. But even more importantly, it has over 70 potent nutrients from veggies, fruits, phytonutrients from ingredients like green tea and a lot more. So if you are planning to do modest intensity exercise and are looking for a way to shave some calories out of your diet while still providing better nutrition than your body has seen for a long time, Shakeology is for you. There is a ‘bottom of the bag’ guarantee which I like. Most people love the chocolate flavor best. I like chocolate in my ‘Peanut Butter Dream‘ recipe.

If you are focused on gaining lean mass while burning fat, the Gaspari Brand Myofusion protein is a great deal. One scoop provides you 25 grams of high quality protein in a low fat, low carb shake. The milk chocolate tastes very good as well. I’ll use this mixed with 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup 1% organic milk for a tasty snack. Without this I would not get to the protein requirements I need each day.

The Extend amino acid blend is what I use right before working out. It give me exactly what my body is going to need if I’m gearing up for intense workouts like a run. It also helps to reduce or eliminate muscle soreness. I tend to recommend this for anyone who is working out really hard. I use it first thing in the morning right after I drink 2 glasses of filtered water. It stops my body from producing cortisol (everyone’s body is in a cortisol state after a night’s sleep because you’ve been fasting). Then I work out. If I go for a 2nd workout (I work out, in total about 8 hours a week), I take a scoop in water right before that workout as well. This is the most optional supplement of the three in my opinion.

Hope this helps you sort it all out. Let me know if you still have questions.

Coach Nancy

I’m not sure what your issue is with the p90X recovery drink because that influences my recommendation. I’ll go over a few things to consider though. If I don’t cover you specific question, please come back and let me know.

If you want a drink with a 4 to 1 carb/protein ratio and the issue is cost, you can make your own using either of the following two approaches:

1) For an orange cream drink, use 1 cup milk, 1 cup orange juice and 1 packet Emergin C Tangerine fizzy vitamins. Depending on whether you use organic milk or regular and what size milk container you buy, your cost per serving is between $1.00 and $1.25. This recipe will provide 9 gr protein; 38 gr carb and 0 gr fat with skim milk (or 5 gr fat if you use 2% milk).
2) For a chocolate drink, you could use a packet of Nestle’s Carnation Instant Breakfast drink and milk and while you’d be a bit low on the carbs you’d spend anywhere between $.75 to just over $1.00 per serving. This recipe will provide 14 gr protein, 38 gr carb and 1 gr fat if you use skim milk (or 6 gr fat if you use 2% milk).

I’ve been revising the 4 to 1 ratio because I now believe that unless you are a very active person, you just don’t need a ratio that is that heavy on carb. As I stated above, when I use the P90X Recovery Drink, I amend it and end up with more protein and less carbs per serving. If you take a look at my 90 day transformation pictures (see http://www.pressplayfitness.com/?page_id=271) you’ll see I knocked the most body fat off in my last 30 days. I attribute that to 2 things. First, I did incorporate a few Insanity workouts in my P90X routine. The Insanity workout is super high intensity which helps to burn the fat off of you at a faster rate even when you are exercising at a more modest rate in a future workout. The 2nd thing I did was to limit my carbs further than I had been.

We’ve also been working more mass on Chris (see his pics at http://www.pressplayfitness.com/?page_id=275). In the last week I started him on a new supplement Real Mass by Gaspari. This is making a huge improvement in his ability to gain weight. In fact in the week since we took the pictures, Chris is already visibly bigger. For any of you ‘skinny guys’ out there, you know how hard it is to grow significant muscle mass. Now Real Mass isn’t cheap but it’s cheaper than the P90X recovery drink. I’m getting it for about $1.40 per serving. That’s 2 scoops of powder with skim (0% fat) milk which will yield about 500 calories comprised of 45 gr protein, 64 gr carb and 8 gr fat.

I know supplementation can be a bit expensive. Here’s a thought for you. We’ve been using the Real Mass as a meal for Chris. Chris works out pretty early in the morning so this ends up being his breakfast. At under $2 (I’m including the cost of the organic milk we use) that’s a very reasonably priced meal.

Also on the topic of supplementation for anyone trying to build lean mass, I highly recommend Gaspari’s SuperPump250 which is a NO product. I prefer this over NO Explode because it has real studies done on it. Both Chris and I use this before a strenuous workout and we feel more energetic and focused and we do get better pumps. Unlike NO Explode, SuperPump250 actually works better for you over time which is pretty cool. (Although I do recommend going off of it completely for at least a week every 90 days.)

Hopefully this gives you some ideas and guidance.

Coach Nancy