Product Name:ZizZazz Explosive Energy Mix
Company: ZizZazz
MSRP: $31.84 per box Click For Lowest Price On ZizZazz Energy!

Availability: Medium-Low (Mainly Online)

Instant gratification. A concept that is an innovative driver and simultaneously the downfall of humanity. Our obsession for instant gratification has led us to some kick ass advancements in almost every aspect of life, and today we have a line of products that give you a swift wake up call whenever you need it. Everyone’s working longer hours at higher intensities (well… most of us anyway) so the demand for a quick boost has obviously become big business. Yes, RedBull® started it all but who said that companies aren’t allowed to innovate?

Enter ZizZazz Explosive Energy. ZizZazz… Weird ass name? Yes. But luckily I remembered the lesson I learnt a while back. Don’t judge a supplement by it’s name. I actually never know if I’m pronouncing this thing right, and it makes my tongue do weird vibrations. I think I’m going to contact the helpful rep whom I talked to and get her to record the name for me. I should have paid attention to phonics when I was little. Pfft, oh well, let’s move on to the core of this little supplement and see what ZizZazz has to say about their little mixture…

Product Claims:

ZizZazz Explosive Energy Powder is consumable straight from the stick or can be easily mixed with your favorite cold beverage to make a great tasting energy drink. ZizZazz is made from powder and not carbonated, which makes it easier to drink and better for the body. ZizZazz is loaded with vitamins: A, C, D, E, B1, B5, B6, B12, Green Tea, Rhodiola Rosea and Ginseng. These ingredients provide healthy, consistent energy, awareness, concentration and hydration. As ZizZazz includes less than 1g of sugar in its ingredients, there is no crash. ZizZazz comes in 4 great tasting flavors: Pomegranate Mango, Cherry Lime, Tangerine, and Lemon Raspberry.

First Impressions:

Although I can totally live without this whole energy bullshit craze, I do tend to get excited for them. Mainly because I rarely use energy products but at times when I need them, they are nice to have *cough* at parties *cough*. Shit, you know my book? The tedious editing process was done at 2 am with apple slices and a concentrated cup of tea (Green & Yerba Mate). Anyways, the box itself is pretty cool. Looks attractive, has the right amount of info on it and can be closed up again. It’s got the tabs on the top just like a cereal box, how nice of them.

The box I got had all the different flavors in there (a good thing when you need to review). These flavors are as follows: Pom Mango, Tangerine, Cheery Lime & Lemon Raspberry (my pick). The best surprise is when you open the box and notice that the product comes in individual sticks. They took the Crystal Light® approach and I think it’s fucking awesome. Bravo ZizZazz. Another thing is that you get 4 sticks of every flavor so you end up with a total of 16 sticks.

Now here’s the interesting bit. When you consider the cost of the box, it works out to be $1.99 per stick. I know what you’re thinking, “This is awesome, much better than most other energy drinks, specially when the sticks are more convenient.” I agree, but it gets BETTER… (at least for some of you). You see, each stick is actually considered TWO servings, so this works out to be about $0.95 per serving. Well spank my ass and call me Sally, because that’s what I call value. But hold on to your panties because this won’t apply to everyone since some people have a higher tolerance to caffeine. If you can’t feel a single thing after drinking a cup of coffee, you might need to take the whole stick. You animal!

Let’s look at the stick itself, here it is in all it’s glory. It’s thin, convenient and has pre-cut edges at the top so tearing it open is a snap. Not much else to say here.

Moving on to the ingredients, the first one we’ll look at is caffeine (obviously). One thing to remember is the 100mg of caffeine stated on the box… which is PER SERVING. If you decide to take the entire stick, be prepared to handle 200mg. Next we have sugar, which is 1g or less per serving… So nothing to complain about here. What I do have a problem with though is that to make up for the lack of sugar, they have included sucralose (something I’m not keen about, but it beats aspartame any day). I’d prefer they used STEVIA… Damn it, no company has gotten this concept yet. Then we have the amount of sucralose, which might be slightly on the higher side because most of the flavors were pretty sweet, although this can obviously be fixed by adding more water.

Following that we have the usual array of vitamins such as C, E, B6, B12 etc. These are now standard in most energy drinks and have served us all well, so it’s good to see them included. Now we get to the trio of ingredients that I think is a GREAT inclusion, it’s just too bad I don’t know the exact amount added. These 3 are: Ginseng Extract, Green tea extract and Rhodiola Rosea Extract. Ginseng and Green Tea extract have a decent backing when it comes to effectiveness, but the Rhodiola Extract is something that’s being debated. It’s supposed to reduce fatigue and in my opinion it looks promising at this time. So why the hell not right?

Ok, let’s ditch the lab coat talk (if you could even call it that) and put this thing through a real test.

Real World Results:

Opening up the stick was simple enough, but before I poured all the glory in my water bottle, I remembered ZizZazz saying something about how you can eat the contents right outa the stick. Brings back fond memories of the days when I abolished a pixie stick in mere seconds. Mmmm.

So the result? Face morphing intensity. I started off with the Pom Mango flavor, and slightly poured the powder on my tongue. I got a slight tingle but everything was OK, the world was still in order. The taste isn’t bad but it’s followed by this odd bitter aftertaste (maybe it’s just the flavor? I duno…). Nevertheless, all hell breaks loose if you accidentally increase the angle of pour and end up with a bit more powder in your mouth. O-M-F-G. It’s just WAYYY to concentrated to eat on it’s own. The bitter after taste also intensifies and you are left with an overwhelming feeling of putting your mouth to the tip of a garden hose and letting it blast your taste buds with a stream of H20 that could probably put out a forest fire.

Yep, I know it all sounds whack, but things take a U-turn when you use the powder the way it was MEANT to be used – By mixing it in a bottle of water. When you do this, the end result is pretty much perfection. The pour is simple since the mouth of the stick is smaller than the tip of most water bottles and the mixability is down right incredible (the best I’ve seen) because all you have to do is give it a few shakes and it’s ready to rock. Oh and the taste? Awesome, but I have one slight complaint – The flavors don’t exactly taste the way you’d expect… They are a little over sweetened in my opinion. But out of the four that you get, Lemon Raspberry gets my top pick.

All this is good, but an energy drink wouldn’t be worth squat if it didn’t deliver the instant gratification kick in the ass most people are looking for. Here’s how it all went down…

I took half the stick on an empty stomach on a day where I kept myself stimulant free (basically I skipped the morning cup of coffee). It took 15 minutes to feel it, but there wasn’t any immediacy to the energy. I felt awake and just “good”. If you’re a regular coffee drinker such as moi, then it’s the exact same feeling you get from your morning cup. It’s not crazy, but it’s not weak either, you just feel “good”. Not bad, But it was time to kick this up a notch.

The next day I skipped my morning up again, did a workout and went on with my day. My energy levels are usually pretty constant through out the day, but I taxed myself a bit more during that morning workout and inevitably I had a little “lull” in energy around 8pm. Bam, mixed up a full stick of lemon raspberry and threw it back. After 12  minutes, I was able to feel a noticeable difference. At first it’s slightly jittery but that subsides in about 5 minutes after which you feel like taking on the world. Awesome.

It lasted for about 4 hours, after which there was a noticeable dip… But it wasn’t as bad as a crash. See here’s what gets most people, they think the main reason most energy drinks/powders make them crash is because of the high amount of sugar. This is only PARTIALLY true, the other part of the equation is caffeine itself. It’s a god damn stimulant for crying out loud, and when it’s effects wear off, there WILL be a slight crash and/or dip in your energy/mood levels. No caffeine product that I’ve come across has been immune to this concept (although some do perform better than others).

Conclusion:

I gota give Zizazz some props because although taking the entire stick is a bit of a roller coaster ride, their powered stick format makes it really easy for you to gauge your tolerance and supplement yourself accordingly. For example, the sticks that I have left will be taken at a steady pace… This will ensure a longer and smoother delivery of energy and should minimize the “dip” that I felt. Still, for testing purposes I just HAD to throw an entire one back. It was quite the experience. Let’s summarize the ZizZazz Explosive Energy Mix.

Pros:

• Convenient and Portable
• Inexpensive at $0.95 per serving
• Tastes Great
• Incredible Mixability
• Decent Energy

Cons:

• Eating the powder seems like a marketing act rather than a feature
• Flavors are a bit “off” the mark
• Amount of sucralose could be reduced

Because of this, I am going to give ZizZazz Explosive Energy a 4 out of 5 stars. Check back soon because I’ll be testing their “Explosive Workout Formula” to see if it can compete with others in the pre-workout supplement category. Oh the excitement!

To Being Fit & Sexy For Life.

-FitJerk

Flawless Fitness Book

P.S- Let’s hear your thoughts on energy drinks & mixes. Give me some names of a few that you’ve tried and state whether they’re effective or complete trash.

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© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.

Product Name: NO3 Overload MMT5
Company: CMi
MSRP: $64.99 Click For Cheapest Prices For NO3 Overload

Availability: Medium (Online… Seems discontinued in some places)
Servings: 30

Yellow… The official color that reps Cmi, and a color which instantly grabbed my attention like a hot female body in a bikini. So I figured what the hell, let’s give these kats at CMI a chance. Their motto is “forget the math, do the science”. Ha… alright I guess we’ll see about that. Just so you know, when a company says something like this I fully expect them to reference every ingredient and/or product that is on their website, so when I took at look at one of their most popular products.. NO3 Overload… I found no such documentation anywhere. Fail!

But let’s not jump the gun here, we gotta see if NO3 is a worthy competitor to the overly popular N.O Xplode… Or the kick-ass underdog Musclespeed.

First Impressions:

no3 overload tabs

Like I said, unlike most pre-workout supplements, this one comes in tablet form. I like pills and tablets because they are easier to take, and more convenient, but in the case of NO3… Shit gets weird. You see, although the tablets are portable, they are just so damn big — and the fact that you have to take 4 (or 6 if you’re hardcore) means you need porn star like swallowing skills… Bleh!

Anyways, like a champ I decided to throw them back. Now let’s take a look at the ingredients and see what type of compounds we will find inside.

The first proprietary blend is the NO3 OVERLOAD Energy & Volumizing Matrix (6.4g) which contains:

• AAKG (L-Arginine Alpha Keto-Gluterate) which we know is pretty useless, especially in such small doses.
• Creatine Ethyl Ester (Still don’t know why this crap is being used when creatine monohydrate has proven to be better performing and better absorbing. On top of that… Ethyl Ester costs more, so this is a big thumbs down)
• Citrulline Malate (In theory it’s supposed to give you more energy and reduce muscle fatigue. Studies done on rats found that it increased their muscle performance when suffering from asthenia. There WAS a human study done where they found that taking 6g of citrulline malate a day reduced some muscle fatigue and increased ATP production by 34%… But that study had no placebo group, nor was it double-blind. So the bottom line is that it remains unproven and there doesn’t seem to be enough in this blend to make much of a difference. But I’m going to be positive and say it’s worth a shot. Ref: 1. Bendahan, D., Mattei, J.P., Ghattas, B., Confort-Gouny, S., Le Guern, M.E., & Cozzone, P.J. (2002). Citrulline/malate promotes aerobic energy production in human exercising muscle. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 36, 282-289)

Second blend is the NO3 Vascular Expander & Definition Matrix. Doesn’t say how much in g’s but here’s the break down:

• Red Wine Extract 20% (Unlike L-Arginine, I know for a fact that red wine and/or grape juice have been promising in increasing nitric oxide levels and thus increasing blood flow somewhat. Red wine also helps dialate the brachial artery – the one that runs down your biceps! So this is promising to see. Ref: Folts JD. “Potential health benefits from the flavonoids in grape products on vascular disease.” Adv Exp Med Biol 2002;505:95-111.) I also give you an awesome red-wine recipe in my FREE fitness-mini course. If you don’t have it… What the hell are you waiting for?
• Grape Skin Extract 95%. (Not sure what the use of this is for, probably the same reason red wine extract was used. But this stuff has been known to have an anti-inflammatory effect)
• Pomegranate Extract 40% ( Protects Nitric Oxide against Oxidation. Ref: Nitric Oxide. 2006 Apr 18; Ignarro LJ, Byrns RE, Sumi D, de Nigris F, Napoli C. Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.)

Third blend is the Energy Fuel & Volumizing Matrix. Contains:

• Caffeine Anhydrous 199mg (Good stuff, will give you a nice kick in the ass and is proven to increase your muscle strength. No complaints here)
• Thiamine Disulfide (Supposed to enhance nervous system to help you crank out extra reps and increase carbohydrate metabolism. You need to take at least 400mg before your workout to notice any significant results, but since we don’t know how much is in this blend, we’ll assume neutral territory)
• Cocoa Extract (supposed to increase serotonin levels which will increase your mood and I presume make you more “willing” while working out. The hard evidence isn’t there so this stuff is yet to be proven in my opinion)
• L-Tyrosine (A non-essential amino acid that is a pre-cursor to neurotransmitters. Basically it’s supposed to drive up mental alertness and stimulation.  May decrease appetite but there needs to be more research done on this)
• L-Taurine (Supposed to give you energy, is found in energy drinks but is still unproven and not enough hard evidence is available)
• Yerba Mate (The benefits of caffeine without the crash? I’ll take it)

Overall, I’d say that NO3 actually seems pretty promising. CMI have used quite a few ingredients that are known to work, and then there are some which they have taken a bargain on… So it’s time to see what happens when we use it in the real world. But before we do that, let’s hear the claims made for this product straight from the horse’s mouth…

Product Claims:

A Rapid, Non-Stop, and Total NO3 OVERLOAD of Mind Blowing Vascularity and 100% Energy Release. Each and every serving delivers a non-stop vascular pump of Creatine Ethyl Ester Malate spelling nothing but pure muscle. Energy that hits you like a ton of bricks inside minutes of taking it. Energy and complete clarity that makes every workout your best ever. Every workout your strongest. Every workout worthy of NO3 OVERLOAD.

At CMI, we rely on science, not rumor. Fact, not fiction. With every NO3 OVERLOAD wake up call, your body will never stop ringing. You will turn one more rep into 3. Rest will no longer be an option. Your vessels will ignite, your muscles will inflate, and your abs will tear. Your body of old will fall, while an entirely new unrecognizable physique will begin to unfold. No more 3 year old products with outdated formulas. Imagine if you will the ability to send your muscles a signal that they are training even when you are not in the gym.

Never let anyone mislead you again. Genetics were not made to be inherited. They were made to be altered.

Real World Results:

Right, time to get down to business and see if it’s got the chops. Directions said to take 4 tablets with 8oz of water 30 mins prior to exercise if you’re normal, or 6 if you’re a hardcore body builder… 4 tablets it is.

First dose: For some reason I didn’t quite get the kick that I was hoping for from the 199mg of caffeine, but I definitely felt more awake. Standard vascularity was non-existent… But that all changed when I started to do some back and biceps. After 2 sets, my overall pump was much better then when I train naturally… Impressive. This was the first time that a product lived up to it’s “increase pump” claims. I guess I should have seen this coming because I know that red wine by itself blended with a certain other ingredient can give you awesome pumps.

I was also keen to see if I had any “mood changes”… But I didn’t. Maybe that’s because I’m generally a happy mofo, so if you’re depressed, do me a favor and take some NO3 Overload. Then post in the comments below if the Cocoa Extract  had any effect on you. The only downside to all of it’s awesomeness was that it went away in 30 minutes. Like… 30 minutes on the fucking dot! This left me hugely disappointed since a decent workout of mine lasts anywhere between 45-60 mins, and for about $2 per serving, there is no reason for it to pussy out at 30 minutes in. Whatever, maybe it’ll be better next time.

Second dose: Take all the initial effects of the first dose and reduce by 25%. That’s basically what I went through the second time I took NO3. What a shame.

Third dose: Similar to the second time I took NO3.

Fourth dose: I decided to step it up and take all 6 this time since 4 tabs weren’t doing what they initially did. The results were almost the same as the first time I took NO3. Kinda nice… But at 6 tabs, the price per serving shoots up to $3.24 – and that’s just ridiculous.

Conclusion:

There’s no need to beat around the bush when it comes to NO3 Overload. I’ll give props to CMI for using partially effective ingredients but the fact at a 140lbs male at 6% body fat needs to take 6 tabs to MAINTAIN effectiveness is just stupid. You also have to remember that I only had 4 doses to deal with… I presume that by the 10th or the 20th you won’t feel much accept the 199mg of caffeine. This is a shame really because it means you need to take 6 tabs after the first couple doses… And at $3.24 a serving it’s just not worth it.

So, if you have cash to burn then buy a bottle and give it a try… But my suggestion? Drink a strong ass cup of coffee, throw back an espresso shot, or even take my REAL red-wine mixture that I recommend in the fitness mini course. You’ll be better off as far as results & the cash in your wallet are concerned.

To Being Fit & Sexy 4 Life

- Fit Jerk

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© 2009 – 2010, By FitJerk. FitJerk.com is a division of Flawless Fitness Media – All Rights Reserved – No part of this post is to be republished without author consent under any forms of media (including print, internet, video or audio transcription). Doing so is a violation against copyright law and should be punishable by a punch to the face. All images are copyright of their respective owners.

Only LOSERS have nothing to say or discuss. Put your thoughts, comments or general rants in the comment section below. FJ does not use censorship but obvious racial slurs and over-the-top stupidity will be deleted.