Vega Energizing Smoothies

I love smoothies and I love the idea of being able to get lots of stuff that is good for me in my body via a smoothie. I am also trying to find something that I can use as nutrition before my swim workouts. My problem is that if I eat something before my swim it tends to sit in my stomach like a brick while I'm swimming. If I hold out and eat after my swim I eat probably way more than I really need to. So a nutritional smoothie seems like a good balance of fueling my workout but is light enough to not drag me down.

The folks at Vega were kind of enough to send me a sampler pack of the Energizing Smoothies to try. Vega states that the energizing Smoothie contains two servings of veggies, 10 grams of complete, plant based protein, 5 grams of fiber and 1 gram of Omega-3. This all sounds good to me. It's important to note that I am not a vegan nor a vegetarian but I am open to trying things that may cover my own nutritional needs and these smoothies seemed like a good place to start.

I was sent the following flavors; Tropical Tango, Choc-a-lot, Bodacious Berry, Vanilla Almondilla and Oh Natural.

The first flavor I tried was the Berry. Being new to this idea of power shakes, I didn't have one of those nifty cups that are made special for this type of beverage. I used a regular glass and a whisk. This is what the powder looked like.

The directions say to use a ice cold water, juice or non-dairy liquid. I'm guessing they say non-dairy since this is a vegan product, but I'm tempted to try it with milk since I actually drink milk. For my first round I used just cold water. I will say that there is a plant type after taste to the smoothie which would make sense since it is plant based. The after taste made it a little distracting for me. But I had four other flavors to try and wanted to mix them up by trying different liquids.

The next flavor I tried was the Tropical Tango. This time I used coconut water instead of water. I sort of had the same thoughts about the after taste except I was getting the added bonus of the coconut water. To be sure I was doing this all correctly I went and bought one of those nice protein shake bottles.

Next up was the chocolate flavor. I had a swim on the schedule and it was going to be a hot day so I mixed up the chocolate flavor with some chocolate coconut water and took it to the pool. I drank about half of it before my swim and sipped on the rest in between sets. I could tell that I was getting closer to making this a palatable option for me. The chocolate on chocolate might have been overkill on my part, but I did drink the entire smoothie and felt great during my swim.

Fast forward to today. I made the discovery hat my fancy cup can be attached to the blender. Oh, the possibilities! I took the Oh Natural flavor, added chocolate coconut water and fresh raspberries and some ice. Now we are talking!

Visually it even looks awesome! I have happily downed this entire smoothie while working this morning. I think for me the key will be adding fresh ingredients to the Vega mix to concoct some great smoothies that I can run out the door with.

Last week an all-in-one chocolate nutritional shake showed up in my mailbox thanks to Vega and guess what I'm going to add to it? Banana! I'll let you know how that turns out.

Overall, if you are looking for a shake to meet your needs I'd say give Vega a try and experiment with the flavors and what types of things you add to it. If you can get your hands on one of these protein shake bottles that will attach to your blender you will be in even better shape. My biggest thing about smoothies is that I hate cleaning the blender, so having this makes it so much easier!

Thanks to the folks at Vega for giving me the opportunity to try their shakes.