Another Endorsement (for which I will not be compensated) - SecureMeal

Occasionally, an infomercial catches my eye and, usually, I slap it across the face so that it will give my eye back.

But once in awhile, I'll stumble upon something that is actually worth buying. For example, I was one of the early fans of Oxy Clean and Orange Glow and bought a boat load of it for $19.99 and loved it (RIP, Billy Mays!) and I bought Stop Leak which actually kept my former basement from leaking - a problem that even a contractor hadn't been able to fix - for just $10.

And last week, I ordered the free month trial of SecureMeal. You pay $7.95 for shipping and you'll receive thirty packs of shake mix that is nutritionally balanced and just 70 calories. Use it for meal replacement once a day to help reduce your overall number of calories for the day.

If you're like me, you're going, "Yeah, right..." and:

• I'll bet I'm now on auto-ship and will get more deliveries charged to my card for $150 a month
• I'll bet it tastes like ass

But I got online and listened to the creator who basically says, 'how else will you know how good these shakes taste if you can't taste them, so here, have a month on me.'

Figuring all I had to lose is $8, I ordered them. I was pleased to see that they even had a note on the ordering portion of the site that said that auto ship wasn't available.

They arrived within four days. You get 30 packages of assorted flavors: chocolate, coffee, vanilla, mixed berry, pina colada and peanut butter. If you mix them with water, they're 70 calories. You can mix them with milk and in that case, just add the 70 calories to those in the milk and you've got your total. Even if you use reduced fat 2%, you're still looking at a meal under 200 calories, and it's pretty healthy.

Yesterday, I tried the mixed berry with 2% milk. Today, the pina colada with icy cold water. I have to say, they taste pretty good. There is still a slightly gritty quality, but if you used a real blender and ice cubes, you'd probably notice it less. I have a battery operated hand mixer thingy and it works just fine. The shakes do not have an artificial sugary taste to them, though they are sweet. I still have four flavors to try, but so far, I give SecureMeal a thumbs up. Plus, you gotta love a company that is powered by solar energy!

So, if you want to lob off some calories while making sure you're getting some good vitamins (one shake has 50% of most of the vitamins you need) and proteins, I'd say you can't go wrong with this product. Now, will I buy another box once this shipment runs out? Honestly, I think that will have to do with whether or not this becomes a habit after 30 days. I was on a big yogurt-for-breakfast kick for about a month, and now I have no interest in yogurt. So...we'll see!