No matter where you go or where you look, caffeine is everywhere. Whether it’s the classic coffee we’ve all come to know and love or the new and shiny energy drinks we see on ads, there’s no shortage of where to get your daily fix.
Heck, even chocolate can work if that’s what you want.
Still, if you want to get your money’s worth or take care of your body, you need facts. You have to know what’s what before you put it into your body.
And so here we areㅡjust how different is an energy drink like Reign from a classic cup of coffee?
In my opinion, coffee has everything you typically look for in an energy drink, but Reign’s high caffeine content and low calories make it very appealing if you’re looking for a quick caffeine high.
So depending on how you prepare it, coffee could be a healthy alternative to energy drinks.
What do I have to back this? Scroll down and I can tell you all about it!.
Contents
Is Reign More Nutritious Than Coffee?
First things first: we have to figure out what exactly you’re putting into your body any time you decide to drink Reign or coffee. This is especially important for people who want to maintain certain diets, or just want to be more conscious of their health.
So to give everything else in this article some context, here’s a table and list of everything you can find in Reign.
These are all taken from the back of the can, so assume that they all correspond to what you can get from drinking one serving of Reign.
And for the sake of discussion, everything will be written on the assumption that we’re talking about black coffee.
In case you’re unfamiliar, taking your coffee black means you took it with no sugar, no creamer, or any kind of additive. Just pure coffee bean goodness.
Reign Nutrition Facts
| Nutrient | Amount per can (16 fl.oz) |
| Calories | 10 |
| Total Fat | 0g |
| Sodium | 200mg |
| Potassium | 70mg |
| Total Carbohydrates | 2g |
| Sugars | 0g |
| Protein | 0g |
| Niacin (Vitamin B3) | 100% |
| Vitamin B6 | 100% |
| Vitamin B12 | 100% |
Reign Ingredients
- Carbonated Water
- Sodium Citrate
- Citric Acid
- L-Leucine
- Caffeine
- Natural Flavors
- Caffeine
- L-Isoleucine
- Sodium Benzoate
- Sucralose
- Potassium Sorbate
- Potassium Citrate
- Acesulfame Potassium
- Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)
- Magnesium Lactate
- Coenzyme Q10
- Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6)
- Cyanocobalamin (Vitamin B12)
- L-Valine
Calories in Reign vs Calories in Coffee
There are 10 calories in every serving of Reign.
Unless taken with sugar or creamers, coffee is calorie-free.
Based on this, I think it’s safe to say that Reign is low on calories compared to other energy drinks. But what does that even mean?
To start with, calories are a measure of how much energy your body can get from consuming any food or drink. They are necessary for you to have the fuel you need to function.
That means keeping a healthy diet and weight isn’t about eating and drinking less of what you like. It’s about striking a balance between what you consume with what you burn throughout the day.
Calories are also everywhere, so it’s impossible to avoid them unless you stick to a water-only diet (which is not recommended).
What do calories have to do with fat then? Calories exist to give you the energy you need to perform, but only if you use them. When you don’t use everything you take in through your meals, the excess gets stored as fat. That way, the energy can be kept for use at a later date.
How do you know when you’re eating too much? How much you need is decided by many things like your body weight, lifestyle, and age. So it might be better to ask a doctor to be sure about how much you really need before deciding you need to either cut down or eat more.
However, it’s generally believed that the recommended calorie intake is 2,000 a day for women and 2,500 for men.
What exactly does calorie-free mean then? Don’t take the label literally; I’ll tell you now that it’s not true at all in that sense. It just means that the product you’re looking at has less than 5 calories overall.
So you get no more than 5 calories added to your diet after consuming one cup of coffee.
Sugar in Reign vs Sugar in Coffee
Reign is a sugar-free energy drink.
On its own, coffee has no sugar or any kind of sweetener.
Reign gets its flavor from artificial sweeteners, not sugar. As for what those are, artificial sweeteners are a type of sugar substitute that many uses to reduce sugar content in their food. And these artificial sweeteners are FDA-approved.
There are many reasons why anyone would decide to cut down on sugar. A company could decide to use artificial sweeteners to make the product more appealing to people who want to eat less sugar.
On a more personal level, an individual might decide to use artificial sweeteners to flavor food without getting too many calories or sugar added in the process.
The artificial sweeteners you can find in Reign are Sucralose and Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K).
Sucralose is an artificial sweetener known for being 600 times sweeter than sugar and is praised for being calorie-free. It’s made from sugar in a lab setting via a process involving replacing hydrogen-oxygen groups with chlorine atoms.
This process gives sucralose a unique chemical structure that plays a key part in its safeness. Thanks to this chemical structure, sucralose isn’t absorbed by the body during digestion.
So yes, sucralose is considered safe by the FDA
You might have seen sucralose being sold under its brand name, “Splenda”.
Acesulfame Potassium (Ace-K) isn’t as common or well-known, but it’s used in a lot of products from the United States.
Ace-K is 200 times sweeter than sugar and is also calorie-free. And just like sucralose, Ace-K is considered safe by the FDA.
Also like sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium is made in a lab. It’s processed by mixing Acetoacetic acid with Potassium.
Despite being called a sweetener Ace-K is actually known for its bitter aftertaste. This aftertaste is why it often gets mixed with other artificial sweeteners whenever manufacturers use it on food and drinks. Usually, this other sweetener is sucralose.
Caffeine Content in Reign vs Coffee
Reign has 300mg of caffeine in its formula.
The amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee tends to vary but is usually around 95mg.
Why does this matter? Caffeine is a stimulant. That means it’s the kind of substance that promotes alertness and hastens your bodily functions while you’re under its effects.
Yup, this is why caffeine is most people’s go-to answer for staying awake throughout tedious tasks in school and at work. However, the biggest downside to this is that drinking too much caffeine can and will really distort your circadian rhythm (sleep patterns/body clock).
It’s not hard to accidentally cross the line either.
How exactly does this work? Caffeine tolerance. See, depending on how high your caffeine tolerance is, any caffeine you take may need 3-6 hours to reach half-life.
Once it reaches half-life in your bloodstream, it moves on to drop to zero. In the end, it’ll make its way out of your system through urine.
That pretty much means that if you don’t want to end up sleepless, you’ll have to avoid any kind of caffeine when you know you’re close to bedtime. For reference, that includes chocolate and a lot of teas.
How Much Caffeine Can You Have In A Day?
According to the FDA, the average adult can drink up to 400mg of caffeine a day without worrying about side effects.
In practice, that’s about 4 cups of coffee or 1.25 servings of Reign.
If you drink more than that, then you can expect to see the side effects. And that’s not even getting into what’ll happen if you get to the point of caffeine overdose.
The most common side effects of caffeine are:
- Insomnia (not being able to sleep properly)
- Anxiety
- Foul mood (Irritability)
- Constantly needing the toilet (Frequent urination)
- Headaches
- Palpitations (Fast heartbeat)
- Twitching (Muscle tremors)
Meanwhile, the symptoms of an overdose can actually be very easy to miss. By that, I mean that they can easily be misattributed to something else and ignored as a result.
The signs of a caffeine overdose are:
- Dizziness
- Diarrhea
- Feeling thirstier than usual
- Insomnia
- Headaches
- Foul mood (Irritability)
As you can see, both the list of usual side effects and the signs of caffeine overdose have insomnia, headaches, and irritability in common.
However, caffeine overdose also has a list of more severe symptoms you should watch out for. Unlike the others listed above, these are the kind that you should immediately call for an ambulance upon seeing.
The more severe symptoms of caffeine overdose are:
- Trouble breathing
- Vomiting
- Hallucinations
- Mania
- Chest pain
- Convulsions
It’s also important to remember that anyone can experience a caffeine overdose. Seriously, even a baby can end up with one if there’s too much caffeine in its mother’s breast milk.
So you really shouldn’t underestimate any form of caffeine’s ability to give you an overdose. Just because it’s not coffee or Reign doesn’t mean it can’t land you in the emergency room.
How Much Reign Can You Have Day?
Reign Energy drink is classified as a pre-workout beverage. Since it is a pre-workout it has the capability to boost your energy to a certain degree.
However, take note of the caffeine content of reign. It has been mentioned in this article that every 16 fl.oz of Reign has 300mg of caffeine. If you are up to drinking a higher amount of caffeine per day, then you and Reign might be a match made from heaven.
On the other note, keep in mind that the FDA only recommends a 400mg daily caffeine consumption. So, be careful not to exceed the baseline to avoid any health problems.
Reign vs Coffee: Which is Cheaper?
Let’s admit it, we consider the costs of the goods before buying it, cause who wouldn’t right?
Well, both Reign and coffee are available and can be bought online. Coffee is a popular beverage with different varieties so its price also varies from the type of coffee used and the size of the cup (or can) that you choose.
Usually, freshly brewed coffee costs between $1 to $3. However, some prefer to brew their cup of coffee at home. Nothing beats freshly brewed coffee made in the comforts of your home. In addition, there are four main coffee beans that are known worldwide where you can choose from, these are Arabica, Robusta, Liberica, and Excelsa.
One kilogram of coffee beans ranges from $3.57 to $27.74.
Reign Energy, on the other hand, can be bought on different online shopping websites and in your local stores. A 12-pack of 16 fl.oz of Reign costs around $19-20, so each 16 fl.oz of Reign is around $1.60
Is Reign and Coffee Healthy?
Yes. If consumed in the right amount.
Reign is packed with notable ingredients such as:
- CoQ10
- B-Vitamins, and
- certain BCAAs.
Coffee has several benefits to the body, and these include:
- Less likely to die from diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease, and kidney problems.
- Glucose can be processed better.
- Less likely to develop Parkinson’s Disease.
- Decreases DNA strand breakage.
- Decreases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease.
Who Should Avoid Caffeine?
Minors, pregnant women, and people who’re sensitive to caffeine are always warned to stay away from both Reign because of its high caffeine content.
It’s also advisable for anyone in these groups to stay away from coffee as well.
Why? Being a minor, pregnant, or caffeine-sensitive means you’re more vulnerable to the side effects of caffeine. This means it’ll take a lot less for caffeine to give you things like sleep problems.
It doesn’t even have to be Reign or coffee. Any source of caffeine can make you feel the side effects even if you don’t hit 400mg.
Still, we all have to admit that it’s almost impossible to avoid caffeine now that it’s so common. Even minors tend to consume a lot of it through things like chocolate.
As for how to deal with that, it’s been suggested to parents to ensure children in their care have no more than 100mg of caffeine a day.
And pregnant women are advised to drink no more than 200mg and be mindful of what sources of caffeine they consume.
For example, coffee and tea could be fine. But energy drinks like Reign should be avoided entirely during pregnancy since they’re usually loaded with sugar and chemicals in addition to caffeine.
Conclusion
In my opinion, coffee is a more preferable option to Reign. Besides being capable of keeping me awake with less caffeine, I can also control how much of anything goes into my cup.
I mean, if you really think about it, caffeine is the only thing you need to help you stay up. And even then, you won’t usually need 300mg of it in one serving.
The other chemicals in Reign could help get you through stressful activities like sports for sure. It could also be useful for when you really need to get that last paper done in the wee hours of the night, where every second counts.
And that’s no surprise. That’s exactly the sort of thing Reign was designed to carry you through, after all.
But if you’re not into anything like that, I’d suggest sticking with coffee.
Of course, this is all just my personal opinion. The fact here is that in the end, it all comes down to responsible consumption. Know your limits and the boundaries between what is and isn’t healthy and you’ll be fine.