My girlfriend is seeking bariatric surgery from The OSU medical center and one of the requirements of their program is that she undergo a ‘living well’ class (which is basically a class that teaches you eat properly now and after your bariatric surgery). One of the ideas they gave her was to drink low-carbohydrate shakes like Slim Fast for two lunch and breakfast.
Being the gentleman I am I told her I would do it with her to support her and we started drinking Low-Carb Slim Fast. I always found it somewhat weird to drink dairy “product” out of a can and a couple weeks after I started drinking the Slim Fast it was recalled nationwide (yikes!).
This put her off the liquid diet but I actually kind of liked having everything all planned out for me so I sought an alternative to Slim Fast (which hopefully wouldn’t be recalled). My local grocery store’s choices were somewhat limited and on a whim I decided to try the Atkins Advantage Shake.
The Atkins Advantage Shake product is a low carb, high protein shake that comes in a variety of flavors. The three I have tried are the Milk Chocolate Delight, the Dark Chocolate Royale, and the Vanilla flavor. The standard package comes in a box of four in a single flavor, each container is a cardboard box like a juice box and has a foil pull tab.
The foil pull tab is tremendously easy to remove but a problem occurs when you pull the foil tab. The foil tab is connected to a piece of plastic that covers the opening to the container, unless you are tremendously skilled (which I am not) you can be left with a big piece of plastic hanging over part of the opening and even after trying to pull the plastic away from the opening some plastic can remain. It is probably just in my head but I can swear sometimes it feels like I am swallowing plastic when I am drinking these shakes.
The texture is definitely better than the low carb Slim Fast. I felt like there was ‘stuff’ floating in the low carb Slim Fast (which was probably true, considering the recall) and the Atkins Advantage Shake is easier to drink in that sense. The taste is a bit better too, but just like with any liquid diet these drinks need to be consumed when they are extremely cold for the best result. Drinking any liquid diet product at room temperature is sure to make you tremendously unhappy.
All in all I am pleased with the Atkins Advantage Shakes, I find myself being able to stick to it about 9/10 days without longing for ‘real food’ (which I feel is a big win!).
-Drew
