REVIEW – Skinny Sprinkles

Looking to shift a bit of weight? Have a read of my Skinny Sprinkles review to see if this product could help you…

I’m one of those people who love eating. I love the taste of food, I love how it feels in my mouth and I love how it makes me feel. To me, eating isn’t just a survival thing, it’s a total pleasure. I often think that if I could have one wish, I’d choose to be able to eat and drink whatever I wanted and it never have any adverse effect on my weight or health. Sod world peace.

Which is all well and good, except eating does make you fat. There’s no escaping that, and eating at my normal rate, which is me being fairly restrained, seems to equate to putting on about half a stone every year. Half a stone may not seem like much, but add that up and it means that by the time I’m 50 I’ll have put on eight stone. Not pretty.

Now generally I don’t buy into the whole dieting culture, and I certainly don’t think women need to be thin to be sexy or desirable or feel good about themselves, but I also don’t particular want to be a heffalump when I retire, so when I was asked if I’d like to review Skinny Sprinkles, I thought I might as well give it a go, and see if I could shed some of 2011’s excess.

I was slightly worried at first that I’d signed up for one of those diet regimes where you eat nothing but shakes, but thankfully Skinny Sprinkles are snack replacements, rather than meal replacements, designed purely to control your appetite between meals and your portion sizes, rather than turning you into a starving, caffeinated lunatic.

When they arrived, I got rather excited by the idea of having three ‘smoothies’ a day as a treat, and after I’d made up the first one, (paying careful attention to the instructions, and not simply opening the sachet and sprinkling the powder into my mouth*), I began sipping my tasty snack. This was a big mistake. These ‘smoothies’ are not delicious. They taste a bit like soluble paracetamol with strawberry pips in. I would recommend stirring them really fast until everything is floating nicely, and then gulping it down in one. [Update – Skinny Sprinkles have improved their recipe since I wrote this – check out my later Skinny Sprinkles review for more info.]

Still, they are a diet aid, not a Mars Bar, and actually the fact that they were a tad gruesome worked in their favour. If I did find myself wanting something else to eat, I just remembered the smoothie, and asked myself ‘do I really want to have drunk that for nothing?’

I’m being a bit melodramatic, and they did grow on me after a while to be honest – I just needed to get into the right frame of mind, and not expect them to be an actual replacement, enjoyment wise, for three chocolate Hobnobs.

How do they work then? Well, here’s the science…

“Glucomannan is scientifically proven by the EFSA to aid weight reduction as part of a calorie controlled diet and is a water-soluble dietary fibre from the root of the Konjac plant. By delaying the absorption of glucose by the stomach, it slows down the digestive process and absorbs up to 200 times its weight in water – swelling when it mixes with water in your stomach – making you feel fuller.”

They also contain caffeine in the form of guarana and green tea for an extra pick me up, although I did check, and a whole day’s worth of sachets contains less caffeine than one fresh coffee, so you’re not going to be bouncing off the ceiling or anything.

And you know what? They actually worked. Whether it was the sachets themselves, the boost it gave to my willpower, or a combination of the two, I don’t know, but at the end of a week I had lost four whole pounds!

The downside I’d say is the cost. At £29.95 for a week’s supply, this certainly isn’t a cheap long-term solution, but I reckon for just a couple of weeks a year, if it means that for the other 50 I can eat my usual amount of cake for breakfast, then it’s not a bad investment at all.

Have you tried Skinny Sprinkles? Why not leave your own Skinny Sprinkles review in the comments and let me know what you think!

*This was an actual warning. Who would do that??

PS I am currently on the short list for the ‘Style’ award in the Brilliance in Blogging Awards. Please take half a minute to cast your vote and tick the Slummy single mummy box.