Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Good4U D-Stress Relaxation Calming Formula Review


I walked into the neighborhood 7-11 today hoping to score a new energy drink, but no dice. The only new product was something called Good4U and there were 4 different types. Wanting to try something new, I opted for the calming formula, which I thought would help me go to sleep more easily.

The first thing that I noticed about the entire Good4U line up was the bottle. It is an aluminum bottle, which looks like the bottom half of an energy drink can and the top part of a soda bottle. I love the screw top with a wide opening. That will really come in handy.

What I also like about this product is the "rationale" written on the back. It says: "This Good4U Calming Formula contains an herbal blend designed for people that are both mentally and physically active, to enable them to reduce anxiety and provide antioxidants to help heal the damage caused by extended periods of high stress." That is quite the rationale, but does it really work?

Taste

Pretty f***ing awesome is how I would start this section. I cracked open this about an hour before I was planning on going to bed and was a bit thirsty at the time. The intoxicating scent of, what I assume is the blueberry in the drink, hit me within seconds. I drank about half the bottle before I put it back down on the desk. The taste was a combination of a crisp, unsweetened green tea with lemon and one of my favorite energy drinks - Full Throttle Blue Demon. The drink is not carbonated, which helped me drink the entire bottle in 3 go's. The blueberry taste was more intense with each sip and after each time I put the bottle down, a slightly tangy hibiscus flavour defined the finished. The beverage is not very sweet and contains only 15 calories though it does not taste light or like a diet drink at all. Overall, this product more than surpassed my expectations and will look forward to trying their other ones.

Performance

The main active ingredients are L-Theanine and passion flower, which can also be found in other relaxation beverages. The beverage does, indeed, calm. I started to relax within 20 minutes of the first major gulp and within another 20, I was completely calm. Though I could have easily fallen asleep, I decided to stay up. The effects did not interfere with my work and actually enhanced it a little. I was calm enough for my mind to focus on reading information I would normally just glance over and label as unimportant. I am surprised that this beverage is not getting more recognition or advertising more.

Medicinal Ingredients:
  • Lemon balm extract - 490 mg
  • Hibiscus Extract - 360 mg
  • L-Theanine - 160 mg
  • Calcium - 112 mg
  • Magnesium - 92 mg
  • Green Tea Extract - 80 mg
  • Passion flower extract - 80 mg
  • Vitamin B6 - 13.9 mg
  • Vitamin B2 - 0.59 mg
  • Vitamin D3 - 1.65 mcg
  • Vitamin B12 - 0.66 mcg
Non-Medicinal Ingredients: non-carbonate filtered water, sucralose, sucrose (cane sugar), citric acid, natural flavour, potassium benzoate, potassium sorbate, color

Scores:
Cost - $2.49 from 7-11
Taste - 9.2/10
Performance - 9/10

Overall - 18.2/20...this came out of nowhere and exceeded all of my expectations...bravo!

4 comments:

  1. I've had a rough day and a rough week. I need to relax. Just saw this at 7-11 for the first time and thought it'd be perfect.

    It's sitting on my desk in front of me, and the flavor is indeed as good as the OP describes.

    The OP is right, not sugary, doesn't taste like a 'light' drink or that it only has 15 calories. I like it a lot, and I'm going to buy it again.

    The price is right too ($2.49 CAD + $0.10 recycling deposit + 5% GST at 7-11 in Canada as OP said), compared to a lot of other drinks that sit beside it in the fridge.

    It hasn't been too long for me to really judge whether the calming effect works, but so far, I think it is working, and I find for me personally, things like this, and energy drinks themselves, have little effect on my body and state of mind, so the fact that I even 'think' that it's working so far, is an A-plus for this drink.

    [Begin Slightly Off-topic]

    I also bought another drink from the same brand: Athletic Formula, 'System Preload: Performance', Mango Citrus flavor.

    Medical Ingedients: (Electrolytes (Potassium Phosphate {419mg}, Sodium Chloride {285mg}), Guarana Extract {300mg}, Astragalus Root Extract {200mg}, Calcium {112mg}, Panax Ginseng Extract {100mg}, Magnesium {84mg}, Milk Thistle Extract {50mg}, Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) {.59mg}, Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine HCl) {.59mg}, Vitamin D3 66IU {1.65mcg}, Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin) {.66mcg}

    [End Slightly Off-Topic]

    Now that I'm done my post, I'm more sleepy (it's late) but definitely relaxed. I like this drink.

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  2. I got the Good4U Calorie Burner. 0 cal, made with stevia to sweeten. Its not bad, and is drinkable. I think the taste would actually grow on me. I have no clue if it works. If anything, placebo FTW.

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  3. I also bought the calorie burner, and usually the more I work out, the more I want to eat. The taste threw me off guard because I was expecting a strong fruity energy drink style flavour, and then I realized, 'hey...it's tea!" and it did taste good. I was only joking about buying it because it said it was "good4me" and my friends and I were laughing about it and me being duped by the label....but it turns out I wasn't hungry for the rest of the day, which is amazing because I'm always hungry and always eating....and I usually eat enough to even out the calories that I burn working out....so yeah for a day I was able to keep them off. And when I did feel like maybe I was hungry, I went up, took one look at supper and wasn't feeling like eating heavy so I ended up eating a few carrots haha. I might have to try it again or two to see if it's just a placebo, but it seemed to work for me, and it would take more than a placebo to curve my hunger as far as I'm concerned.

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  4. Calming formula was a joke, did nothing (and I bought it twice) and the calorie burner well tasted sooooo gross.... Im in the States and we have a line called Body Armor... 100x BETTER

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