Taking a Look at the Elite Me Bio Starter Kit!
I recently learned of a company that I want to share with you all. One thing that this website seeks to cover and support, is the notion of pursuing ideas and tools that assist in human performance and leveraging these daily to improve our lives. You know…be Batman, lol.
If you’re not familiar with the biotechnology company, ME Biosciences, it’s an innovative company in the early stages of building human performance products that marry nutrition with advancements in technology.
I first became interested in the company through their Instagram presence, and after speaking with them several times, they agreed to send out some of their products for review. In the interest of transparency, I want to be clear that although I did receive the products for review complimentary, this is not a paid review and the company has made it clear that I am free to review them in whatever format and manner I deem appropriate. With that out of the way, let’s get into this review and talk about why I’m excited about the potential of these products!
Products
Currently, ME Biosciences has two lines of nutrition products for sale on their website, as well as some skin care products under the iSplack brand name. The nutrition products they have available are a pre-workout drink mix and a post-workout drink mix.
These are available under the Elite Athlete line, aimed at top level sports competitors and elite military members, or under the Active Athlete line, which is more geared towards those who want to excel in life and in their training, while not necessarily competing.
The samples I received were from the Elite Athlete line, and while I do not compete on an elite level, I am pretty active daily and I was happy to test this version of products out. And I can use all the help I can get, lol.
Some background info here is warranted. One thing that makes ME Biosciences interesting is that while other companies are mass producing products to appeal to as many as possible, ME Biosciences is primarily pursuing the idea of customized nutrition, as in the exact blend of vitamins, minerals, nutrients, etc. to fit YOUR daily needs. The products that they sent me, were described by them as a base product, so while it’s pretty good right now, there is the potential for it to be even more impactful.
Packaging and Convenience
The drink mixes come in these convenient, shaker bags with the powder already included. You simply fill the bag up with water, shake it up, mixing the water and powder and voila!…instant workout shake! During my trial run with the products I found this to be a pretty awesome way of doing things. The cap that goes on the end doesn’t seem like anything special, and yet shaking everything up in the bag never resulted in any kind of massive leakage or explosion of sticky pre-workout sludge. I actually thought this might have been a problem and was pleasantly surprised when all stayed in the container.
My other concern when I first saw these on the site was simply waste. The idea is to take one pre-workout shake before you exercise and then another post-workout shake afterwards. So two shaker bags per workout across say, five workouts a week is 10 bags per week and 40 bags per month! That could be a lot of extra plastic junkin’ up the landfills and I personally don’t want to contribute so much waste. Luckily, these bags are recyclable and that put my mind at ease. I don’t want Mother Nature pissed at me and I’m glad that ME Biosciences is considering the impact of their packaging on the environment.
Taste and Mixability
So what’s the product actually like??? Well, for one thing it mixes really well. I mean like REALLY well. I think most of us have just kind of accepted that when we mix up our shake powders we’ll just get it mixed as well as we can with the understanding that there’s going to be some gritty unpleasantness involved.
Both the pre-workout and post-workout mixes here mixed so well I almost never noticed any granules from the powder left over. It just went down smooth like any other drink you’d buy and not have to mix up yourself. BONUS- On the rare occasion that there was a small bit not mixed into the liquid, it resulted in a slightly chewy, candy like consistency. Think the end of a Sour Patch kid, but with a nice fruity flavor instead of a sour flavor. In other words, it was good.
So far as taste, I’d say both mixes were again, pretty nice. The pre-workout I tried was “fruit punch” flavor and the post-workout was “tropical recovery”. I wouldn’t say they beat out my favorite pre-workout mix flavor (which will remain nameless here) but they were enjoyable, with just a subtle, slight fruitiness to them. To be honest, although that may sound like faint praise, I’ve absolutely hated almost every pre-workout I’ve ever tried, including several of the big names. The fact that these were enjoyable is noteworthy, and I really appreciate the fact that ME Biosciences decided not to hit their customers over the head with overpowering sweetness. It’s just enough and that’s great by me.
Ingredients and Performance
Now we get to the crux of this review and it’s time to answer the question- How did the products affect performance? Like most these days, I live a fairly hectic lifestyle. I have a full time job that ranges from 8-12 hrs every day, with most days hitting around the 9 hour mark. I usually make time for a pretty long workout, around 2 hours, give or take 30 minutes. This includes mostly heavy weight training, some running, and probably 1-2 metcons (metabolic conditioning) a week.
I read, write, run this website and have a wife, two young children, and a home to take care of. Most days I am up and running from sun up to sun down. I’m basically striving to be a productivity machine. Needless to say, after hitting the 40 years young mark, anything that can give me an edge in performing at a high level everyday is absolutely welcome!
It’s difficult to tell how a singular nutrition product can affect performance when there are so many other factors to consider, such as sleep, programming, stress, etc. Not to mention that the shakes themselves are a combination of various ingredients.
However, there are a few ingredients here that are worth mentioning for their affect on performance. Let’s start with the pre-workout–
- Beet Juice Extract – There’s a growing body of research on the study of how beet juice can increase performance. Yes, really! Beet juice, man. Beet juice contains nitrates, which the body then converts into the gas, nitric oxide. This can improve blood flow and muscle contractions among other things.
- Caffeine – Caffeine improves mental focus, lessens fatigue and stimulates the central nervous system, which plays a big part in lifting big weights. The amount someone might need for these effects will vary however. The ME Bio pre-workout only contains 100 mg of the stuff. I personally would prefer to have closer to 300 mg, but I know not everyone would feel that way. So, if you hate that your normal pre-workout has so much caffeine or if you’re overly sensitive to caffeine in general, this might be a big plus for you.
- Beta Alanine – This one’s pretty much standard in pre-workouts these days and may give you that tingly, itchy sensation, depending on the dose. I don’t know what amount gives most people the tingles, but I didn’t feel too much from this. Still, the supplement has been shown to reduce fatigue, as in you can go longer in your workout before feeling totally exhausted. I know I’ve come home from a full day of work, not felt like working out, and then proceeded to knock out a 2+ hr session anyway and wonder afterwards how I did it. Maybe, I’ll just chalk it up to this little magic ingredient.
- Peak ATP/CoQ10 – Last but not least, these two ingredients have to do with energy production in the cells, particularly affecting the mitochondria, commonly known as the power plants of the cell. Interestingly, PeakATP is a patented ingredient, exactly mirroring the ATP in the body. ATP is the body’s natural energy unit. You can learn more about PeakATP at their website as well.
I really like the inclusion of all of the above listed ingredients. It seems ME Bio is focused on including ingredients that are proven to increase performance and are research based. There are a number of other ingredients included in this mixture, but I’m not going to mention all of them. One thing I am curious about is the Me Bio Pre Complex, which I assume is a proprietary complex of “good for you” stuff. However, since the ingredients for it are not listed we’ll just have to wonder.
One thing I would’ve really liked to have seen included in the pre-workout is some creatine. If you are not familiar with this substance you can google it and find tons of data and articles about it, as it’s been very widely studied. Essentially, it’s made by your body, and helps increase performance in terms of power output and endurance.
Although the body does make it, it also benefits from greater quantities of it (to an extent). Creatine’s benefits come after building up a certain level in the body and so simply adding it to a drink is not going to make a noticeable difference for that particular workout. However, it just makes things all the more convenient if you’re getting a good amount in a pre-workout (about 5 g worth) and taking it several times a week.
The post-workout mix is, unsurprisingly, more focused on recovery, so you won’t find as many strength and endurance boosting ingredients here. What you do get are some aminos, and in the Elite Athlete version here, a small dose (18 g) of simple carbs, presumably to replenish those glycogen stores.
- Essential Amino Acid Complex – You’ll find all 9 essential aminos here. These are not made by the body and must come from food. They assist in repairing muscle and building muscle, so they’re an obvious fit for a recovery drink.
So far as the recovery supplementation, it would be nice if ME Bio added an option to have protein included. Maybe this will be possible when the drink is tailored to individuals? It seems natural to me though, that after you’ve hit a tough weights workout, that you’d want the building blocks for muscle in addition to the 9 essential aminos, so your body can go ahead and get started on rebuilding itself.
The App
I want to briefly mention that ME Bio also has an accompanying App in the works. Right now it is minimal, but the company is focused on incorporating the ability to track data with smart watches and other wearables, in order to better assess an individual’s needs.
I think that’s pretty exciting, because although there are some companies making great wearables, others making great health apps, and yet others making supplements, I haven’t seen any that are marrying these important areas together in a meaningful way. In fact, it seems obvious that a device worn on the wrist, capable of amassing tons of useful data about performance and recovery SHOULD inform the performance supplementation that one is taking. To not take advantage of that intersection would be a big missed opportunity.
Conclusion
I’ll go ahead and say that my experience with these two supplement drinks is purely subjective and I can’t promise they’ll improve your particular performance. However, I really did enjoy them! They’re very convenient, taste good, and mix well. I felt great taking them, both during my workouts and afterwards.
However, the truly exciting thing here is seeing where ME Biosciences’ products and the company as a whole goes from here. They are embarking on some really exciting stuff and I’ll be watching closely! If they can find an efficient, repeatable way to truly tailor someone’s nutrition to their health needs based on wearables data and tested health markers, it can give that someone a noticeable advantage in their daily life.
Again, I’d like to thank ME Biosciences for sending out samples for me to try and for being ambitious enough to try something so innovative and unique in the health space!
If you’re interested in giving ME Biosciences products a try, you can find them here –
