This is my review of The brand Spanking new Dymatize product: Xpand 2x caffeine-free Mandarin Orange Pre-workout drink.
First off this packaging is way smaller than the original Xpand, But I like the flavor a lot better. They happened to sweeten it with Stevia, an all natural sweetener that is technically an herb, (but the FDA doesn't let anybody call it a sweetener.) BUT they still put Sucralose in it, which I will be calling the company about soon enough to find out why. Sucralose is a sweetener that kills all your good bacteria in your gut, and makes it so you don't digest very well at all.
This being a caffeine free pre-workout, it didn't give quite the "buzz" high amounts of caffeine give during a workout. But this time I'm going caffeine free. It took a few days to see the real results. 
You cant really see the ingredients on mine, so I got this from the Source. Dymatize's website
The key ingredients in this formula is the Agmatine Sulfate which is one of, if not the best Nitric oxide supplement you can get. I also really like that this formula has the Creatinol-O-Phosphate (COP). "COP" works by giving energy to tissues and muscle in your body that are de-oxygenated, or are in a very low oxygen environment. I have seen studies on Rhodiola where it has been shown to keep someone from feeling tired if they did not get enough sleep, and I have used it many times, and loved it.
It also doesn't really look that good when you mix it, but it mixed pretty well. There were just a few little clumps in the bottom, but they would have gone away if I had mixed it with more water.
The only reason why I had to wait a few days for this to really kick in , was because I was just coming off of caffeine. I still have about 2 weeks left in this bottle, but I have a feeling I am going to like this.
I will give an update when I am finished to give my final results and last thoughts on this product.
Sucralose is the best non-caloric sweetener for taste. If you study organoleptics you'll find that sucralose is a front loaded sweetener and stevia is a backloaded one. When you try and get stevia high enough to be sweet on the front end, it makes it very bitter (over sweetened) on the back end. This is where the two have synergy and allows for a lower use rate of the sucralose. I've seen no data of "gut bacteria", but I'm open to it if there is a pubmed.gov link to a study. As far as stevia being approved by as a sweetener, it is. Purevia and Truvia are two examples. The latter owned by Cargill. They are 100% FDA approved as of 2 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interest in Xpand 2x and thoughts. We are looking forward to what your thoughts are after you workout with it!
Here is the Pubmed Article requested-
Deletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18800291
And that is very good to know about the approved stevia sweeteners, thank you!
More and More consumers still want an all natural product, where Sucralose is found no where in Nature, and has to be made chemically either way.