Great to get me started when I need it most, June 1, 2013

I started using this to fill in that empty space where breakfast should be (since my stomach tends to sleep in a couple extra hours). Working at a law firm I do not stop from alarm to lunch, so the added nutrition is very welcome. Says it helps with weight loss, but I never really saw any until I incorporated BELDT: Force Thermogenic (which definitely helps lean me out and keeps the energy up–another major necessity). Also can’t attest to any muscular gain, but I wasn’t using it for that, and wouldn’t have expected much anyway. Basically, it’s doing everything I need it to do, which is giving me lots of easily digestible, quality nutrients without a ton of calories and the flavor goes well with the berries I toss in.

BTW, I only use this to kickstart my day. I actually start filling in my nutritional requirements by way of actual solid food around 2 hours in to my day. Lots of quality carbs (oatmeal, sweet potatoes, etc.), protein (grilled lean chicken, for the most part, and the occasional steak), and veggies (asparagus, zucchini, squash, legumes of various sorts, etc.).

For those who care, here are the Vi Shape nutritional facts (which are difficult to read on the main product page):

Calories 90
Calories from fat 10g
Total fat 1g
Saturated fat 0g
Trans fat 0g
Cholesterol 15mg
Total carbs 7g
Dietary fiber 5g
Sugars <1g
Protein 12g

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Not good for long term health, June 29, 2012

By 

Wesley C. Hennings – See all my reviews

  

Are you burdened with the thought that the Visalus Shakes reviews you may be reading are less than honest, fair, or accurate? Probably not, but in this note, I will share my opinion of Visalus and provide a review of the Visalus Vi-Shape Shakes.

Just to be clear, I have no bias. I am not a Visalus distributor and I have no financial interest in the company or the sale of its products.

Visalus Vi-Shape Shakes get overall excellent ratings from users of the product. The reports are favorable regarding taste and from a weight control or weight loss perspective.

While the shake itself is only available in a basic Sweet Cream flavor, there are many varieties of Mix-Ins that can be used to enhance the flavor. In addition, fruit can be added to blend the shake into a smoothy-like shake. The shake mix can be added to water or milk.

Visalus compares the cost of the Vi-Shape Shake to several other companies also offering weight loss-type shakes with a spread sheet. Slim-fast to Herbalife shake mixes are compared. My concern with this comparison chart is that the price is indicated at approximately a cost of .50 per shake. In reality, unless you intend to drink the same essentially tasteless Vi-Shape basic shake twice per day for months on end, you will likely want to purchase some of the different Vi-Shape Shape Mixes to offer a little flavor variety.

In most Visalus Shakes reviews, you will not find product pricing mentioned or clearly explained. If you decide that you’d like to add one of the many flavor mixes available, expect to add an additional .50 to .00 to the cost of each shake. This means you will be spending to .50 per shake, the information is intended to help clarify what your real cost is as compared to what is suggested by Visalus and the company representatives.

The first place on ViSalus’ website that got my attention was the section of white papers. The section says, “Our white papers are designed to share the science behind our breakthrough products, methods, and sales innovations in order to help you become a more informed consumer.” I looked through the white papers and all but one were by one guy: Michael Seidman.

This is probably the time to point out that Michael Seidman has a past history of selling the public on products that aren’t shown to work. Here’s a quote from ScienceBlogs.com about a foot detox system, Aqua-Chi:

“When you ask me, ‘Does it sound crazy?’ My answer is ‘Yes,’ ” says Seidman. “But my response is also that it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong just because we don’t understand it.”

I did a little more digging and found the rest of his quote here: “Seidman adds that there could be a psychosomatic element, that ‘if you believe that you’re going to feel better and reduce your stress, then you probably will.'” In other words, “if I lie to you and tell you this is going to help it probably will due to placebo effect.”

I looked at a random white paper sample: “Age-related Hearing Loss and its Association with Reactive Oxygen Species and Mitochondrial DNA damage*” and I couldn’t find anything in it where a ViSalus product was tested in any way. At best I can tell there’s no connection between this white paper and any ViSalus product. I clicked on a couple more and glanced through them and didn’t see any connection either. If there are any white papers on the list that are related to any ViSalus products, I hope someone will use the comments to point out the connection to me. More importantly, I hope someone writes ViSalus and tells them to clearly explain the significance of these papers to the products.

ViSalus makes it look even more convincing with a chart comparing a ViSalus Shake to nutrients found in everyday foods. Not surprising, it would cost nearly 3 in various foods to match the .50 cost of Vi-Shape and milk.(This reminds me of those Total commercials where you have to eat 20 bowls of another cereal to match the nutrition in one bowl of Total.)

However, much like those Total commercials when you dig a little deeper into Vi-Shape it isn’t all that impressive. In fact, it looks like a poor purchasing decision. Take a look at the ingredients. It’s essentially a blend of protein, “fake” fiber, and a pretty good multivitamin.

I want to get the most value for my dollar. So I was wondering if I could create something pretty close to the same for a cheaper cost. The price per serving of the ViSalus Vi-Shape mix is .50. (or potentially 3 to 3.50 if you add flavor mixes). Let’s look at what we can do for each of the main areas (protein, fiber, and multivitamin):

Protein – Costco has a 6lb Bag of Muscle Milk for . It is 78 servings of 27g of protein. That’s a total of 2106 grams of protein in the bag. Vi-Shape has 12g of protein so this bag would provide you a little more than 175 servings of protein. If…

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the best thing that ever come into my life, August 19, 2013

I love this product. i lost 70 pounds in 9 weeks. sounds unreal i know. but i mix mine with almond milk because there is less sugar and way less cards. tastes great. keeps me full, super easy. but that isn’t he only thing i had to do. i had to cut out sugar completely and eat low carb meals. it really helps i love i use it every day at breakfast and when i am feeling lazy i have one for dinner. i have tried everything under the sun and this is what has worked for me. it tastes like ice cream and isnt gritty like most shakes. would recommended it to everyone. keep you full for a long time. it’s been a god send for me.

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