For the past two weeks I’ve been starting my days with the Nutribuddy Breakfast Shake. As someone who usually runs out of the door before I’ve even had chance to think about food in the morning, I was keen to find out if these breakfast shakes could help me maintain a healthy relationship with food whilst also reaching my fitness goals.
Disclaimer: Nutribuddy sent me a 14-day supply of the Breakfast Shake in a flavour of my choice in return for being featured in this blog post
I have finally got into a good place with my gym training (mainly thanks to the Mycoach School challenges and community). Now, all that’s left for me to do, other than to keep consistently training, is to improve my eating habits.
Improving My Eating Habits with Nutri Buddy
I try to eat relatively healthy when it comes to meal time. My main downfall with food is that I’m a serial snacker with a notoriously bad sweet tooth. If I could eat cake for every meal of every day, I would. I will never be the kind of girl to tell you to cut treats out of your diet, step away from the pizza or to eat salad and nothing but salad. Nope. I believe that your relationship with food should be positive, regardless of whatever food-related goals you may have.
With that said, I know my love of cake and all things sweet doesn’t align with my current desire to get lean and lose a little bit of fat. Throw in the fact that I skip breakfast religiously on Monday through to Friday and you’ve got a recipe for failure. Skipping breakfast always leads to snacking more…which means eating lots of sugary and sweet food.
That’s where Nutribuddy comes in. Knowing that I skip breakfast five days a week, I wanted to see if the breakfast shake would help fill that breakfast-shaped hole in my life and consequently stop me from snacking all day long.
Who Are Nutribuddy?
Before we even talk about the breakfast shake, what’s in it and my experience trying it, I wanted to delve a little bit into who Nutribuddy are. Founded by Ella, Nutribuddy is a series of nutritional products. But, it’s not just your standard white-label brand of quick-fix nutritional drinks… Ella wanted to create a brand that truly cares. She wanted to ensure that her products were of the highest quality, based on good ethics and one that put their customers and the environment first.
Because of this, Nutribuddy is based on 3 core values:
- To sell products that YOU will love and that make YOU happy
- To only sell products made with the finest quality, healthy ingredients
- To make products with the environment in mind
From doing my research on the brand, it’s clear that they really do care about what they do. They use sustainable methods throughout the production process all the way through to the reusable glass jars and mugs offered alongside their shakes. Oh and their products are all vegan and cruelty-free.
Are Nutri Buddy a ‘detox’ brand?
Naturally, when I first learnt of Nutribuddy (before I did my research and learn all of the things I just mentioned above!) I was worried that they would be just another ‘detox tea’ brand. Y’know the type… the brand that promises to make you skinny if you just cut out all food and only ever drink their miracle weight-loss detox tea.
Thankfully, Nutribuddy aren’t that kind of brand! Whilst they do offer a range of meal replacement drinks, they advie that you don’t replace more than 2 meals per day to ensure that you are still enjoying a balanced diet. The meal replacement shakes offered are also varied based on different goals or needs.
Within the Nutribuddy team is Kelly, the Nutritional Advisor. Part of Kelly’s role includes ensuring that the products are free from nasties and that they are safe for every consumer, even those who are pregnant. Kelly is passionate about plant based nutrition and evidence based health research, so you can have confidence knowing that all of the Nutribuddy products have been developed with strict nutritional research and knowledge backing them up.
Further to this, if you are keen to learn about how meal replacement shakes may help weight loss, Nutribuddy have a comprehensive guide all about choosing the right meal replacement shake for weight loss. In this guide, they go through all of your commonly asked questions such as what are meal replacement shakes, the difference between different types and how they work.
So, now that we know a little bit about Nutribuddy, let’s learn a little bit more about the Breakfast Shake I got to try for 2 weeks!
What Is The NutriBuddy Breakfast Shake?
The Breakfast Shake by Nutribuddy is a vegan and organic blend of gluten-free oats, seeds and coconut designed to be mixed with your choice of milk or a milk substitute and drank in place of a proper breakfast. You can also choose from a few different varieties such as a crunchy flaxseed and coconut variant in flavours strawberry, chocolate, vanilla and naked or the supersmooth version made with matcha green tea in Strawberry or Vanilla.
The Breakfast Shake has the same nutritional value as a bowl of porridge made with jumbo oats and seeds… the only difference is that it’s in liquid form and is designed to be a quick and easy breakfast on-the-go… perfect for the notorious breakfast skippers like myself!
I chose the Vanilla Supersmooth Breakfast Shake with Matcha Green Tea. I decided to choose the supersmooth version mainly because a shake with crunchy bits in it doesn’t appeal to my tastebuds. I’m super picky when it comes to the texture of food so the supersmooth option seemed like a safe bet. Plus, I love matcha green tea and all of the benefits of drinking matcha so I was looking forward to getting a daily dose of matcha green tea with my morning shake.
My review of the Nutribuddy Breakfast Shake
First of all, I was realy pleased with the packaging. Nutribuddy have gone above and beyond, even with the outer packaging, to show that they really are a conscientious brand. The breakfast shake also comes with a reusable glass jar to store the powder in which I thought was a really lovely touch. It certainly beats rummaging through the cupboards for a pouch! The shaker bottle has also made it to the top of my list of favourite shakers… yes, really, I have a list! It’s slim design makes it easy to drink from and it’s a dream to clean up unlike many other shakers that I’ve dealt with in the past!
When I first tried the shake I mixed it with half semi-skimmed milk and half water. It tasted great but I found it way too filling to the point where it left me feeling kind of sick for the rest of the day. Obviously, that isn’t the desired effect so I headed out to the shop and picked up some oat milk instead.
As soon as I swapped to the oat milk (still mixed with half milk-variant and half water) I found it a lot easier to drink and it didn’t leave me feeling sick afterwards so obviously, the sickness was my body probably telling me it didn’t want to down 300ml of cows milk in the morning… and honestly, I don’t blame it! Towards the end of my 2-week trial, I actually mixed it with chocolate Oatly and let me just say, it was sooo tasty. One thing I will note is that if you’re a slow drinker, like I am, then you will need to shake the bottle in between drinking as the oats do tend to settle at the bottom if you leave it for too long. But, it’s nothing a little shake doesn’t fix!
When drinking the breakfast shake I found that it stopped me from reaching for sweet snacks in the morning. I could actually last until lunch time without eating half the contents of my office snack drawer which is completely unheard of for me. Drinking the breakfast shake has allowed me to improve my snacking habits by ensuring I get a nutritious and filling meal in the morning.
Most days, I would actually only take half of the mixture and would supplement the other half with a scoop of protein powder to increase my protein intake for the day. Doing this actually means the 14-day supply has lasted me 3+ weeks instead!
I 100% would recommend the breakfast shake if, like me, you’re a breakfast skipper looking to improve your relationship with food. It’s certainly helped me keep my sweet tooth under control whilst making sure I’m not restricting my diet or calorie intake in any way whatsoever.