Calling yourself the king of anything is a lofty claim and 1st Phorm’s Royal 21 King fat burner is clearly the result of confidence in their product.
Today we’re going to be looking at what this product can do for you and if it holds up to these claims. We’re going to let you in on a secret: it’s amazing in some ways, but there are some chinks in this king’s armor.
Stick with us if you’re interested in how Royal 21 King is leading the market, or if you’re wondering what its downfall could be!
Table of Contents
About Royal 21 King
So, what is the 1st Phorm product all about?
Royal 21 King is labelled as a “cutting-edge nootropic thermo-lipolytic formula”. That’s a lot of words to tell you that it’s a fat burner that is also dedicated to bringing you mental performance benefits.
For our purposes, you could say there are really two things you want to keep in mind with this product:
- How does it work as a fat burner? That is, will it burn fat and support a better weight loss process?
- What can it do for your mental performance? How will it improve performance in training and in life?
These are the standards that 1st Phorm sets up by calling it a nootropic fat burner. It’d be unfair to judge a product by things it isn’t trying to do, so we’ll consider these questions every step of the way.
Royal 21 King Supplement Facts
The combination of mental performance and fat burning are big promises – especially if you’re a busy or high-powered individual with several competing demands on your time and mental power. This isn’t just for your physique, but also for your focus and performance in the gym, office, or classroom.
Big promises from 1st Phorm, but beware that these promises are often met with a large stimulant load or a less-satisfying reality in other products. You’re not going to find a stimulant-free version of this product, but the ingredients themselves paint a good picture of a well-thought-out product.
We don’t like the use of proprietary blends as a rule, but the ingredient choices here at least provide insight into the research and deliberation that went into this product…
Serving Size: 1 Capsule
Servings Per Container: 80
Amount Per Serving | % Daily Value | |
Cue Blend ™: | 548 mg | + |
[Micro-Encapsulated Sustained Release Caffeine Anhydrous Blend, N-Acetyl-Tyrosine, L-Theanine, Theacrine, Dimethylethanolamine, Sulbutiamine, Bacopa Monnieri (50% Bacopasides), Choline Bitartrate, CDP Choline and Huperzine A] | ||
FAC-T Blend™: | 50 mg | + |
[Evodiamine, Hordenine, and Higenamine] | ||
OTHER INGREDIENTS: Gelatin, Silicone Dioxide and Magnesium Stearate. |
Royal 21 King Directions for use
Take a single capsule with water – ideally in a morning or before a workout. There are no real benefits to taking a product like this later in the day since it would likely affect sleep quality, and you’d miss out on the benefits of the mental performance complex.
We’d also recommend taking this product with breakfast – especially if that breakfast includes eggs or yoghurt. The enzymes and amino acids in these foods would play well with the existing compounds in the Cue blend, supporting better results.
Make sure to follow the suggested intake from the manufacturer and consult a medical professional if you have any pre-existing conditions that might make Royal 21 King unsuitable for your health.
Check out our
– #1 Fat Burner This Year –
What Is in Royal 21 King?
The Cue Blend: A Market-Leading Mental Performance Complex?
Caffeine (Micro-encapsulated)
Caffeine is one of the most well-researched performance enhancing compounds in the world. You already know some of the effects from how it perks you up if you have a coffee in a morning, or an energy drink/pre-workout before exercise.
The CliffsNotes on why you should be taking caffeine are these: it helps you beat fatigue, supports better mental and physical performance, and supports better metabolism. These are all going to be useful if you’re trying to burn fat and get the most from your brain.
The micro-encapsulation is neat, if only to extend the effects of the caffeine over time and produce a longer lasting ‘buzz’.
Theanine (and relation to CAF)
Theanine is without a doubt one of the best compounds that could possibly be combined with caffeine, as it contributes to the best effects while protecting you from side effects. This means your caffeine is more effective and safer.
Theanine is also useful on its own for supporting mental function and consistently good mood. These are significant benefits and show the deliberate choice of ingredients by 1st Phorm.
N-Acetyl-L-Tyrosine
Tyrosine is great because it combats mental fatigue and supports focus/performance under stress. If you’re living a stressful workday or you’re in some intense training, this compound can be a great choice.
Combined with Theanine and Caffeine, the picture 21 King is painting so far is of a great anti-fatigue supplement to keep you at your best no matter what comes.
Theacrine
Theacrine is one of our least favorite compounds in this product. It may be synergistic with caffeine in some ways, but it’s also totally immune to caffeine-tolerance. The problem with this is that it is a bump to the simulant load but in a way that you might not be familiar with.
This can be a problem if you’re trying to manage your stimulant load – especially with the proprietary blend making it impossible to know for certain.
Theacrine is an effective compound, but it’s not our favorite in this mental performance matrix.
DMAE
DMAE is a useful compound for protecting brain function but it’s chronic: it’s not going to improve your brain power now, but if you’re anywhere after your 20s it can be a great regular supplement to keep you sharp.
Again, we can’t say what the dose is or how it will affect you in the short term, but it’s probably not the best performance booster. Health and longevity are still cool, though, so we like it.
Sulbutiamine
This is basically a compound made up of Theanine and sulfur. We’ve already mentioned that we love theanine with Caffeine, and the same is true of sulbutiamine.
Not only does this compound seem like a great way to combat fatigue (the essence of this product so far), but it may also support immunity and combat infection-related symptoms. That’s damn useful.
Choline (CDP and Bitartrate)
Choline is a building block for Acetylcholine (AcH), which is a key neurotransmitter. The two types of choline are a great addition to this product to combat fatigue while also supporting better mood. If they’re boosted in the system, your mental performance is going to benefit.
The combination of different types of choline is great since they have different absorption rates and using more than one type ensures effectiveness. We’d like to see a dosage, but again the proprietary blends hide the full story.
Huperzine A
As we’re talking of Choline, Huperzine is a great secondary compound. This is a secondary ingredient because it reduces the concentration of AcH-destroying compounds in the brain.
This is a great addition to the product as it doubles up the benefits of the choline we’ve just discussed. You’re getting more choline, breaking down less, and just producing a better mental environment for performance!
All in all, a great nootropic blend.
FAC-T Blend: A Disappointing Approach to Fat-Burning
Where the mental performance compounds in this product are amazing, the fat-burning compounds are far less inspiring. We’ll talk you through all three of these ingredients and what they (don’t) do.
Evodiamine
This is a compound that has very little actual evidence in humans – it could well do nothing. There’s no real evidence of it working in humans – though mouse studies are promising.
There are suspected links to the way that capsaicin works, but we just can’t say for sure. Right now, the smart choice is to say that it might work but doesn’t provide a strong enough active ingredient to base a whole “fat burner” around.
Hordenine
Hordenine is a similar compound to evodiamine: it has no direct human evidence and we can’t really say what it does.
The more ingredients are uncertain, the more problems we have with the product. You could deal with a single ingredient that is maybe good if there was a solid repertoire of proven, effective ingredients behind it.
The problem is that there aren’t – and higenamine is also in a similar vein…
Higenamine
This is yet another compound that isn’t proven to be effective for fat burning in humans. There’s a potential mechanism for it, but it’s far from definitive and we’ve seen examples of “it should work – but it doesn’t” elsewhere in supplement ingredients.
However, this does seem to be an effective compound for boosting performance through improved breathing action. This is important for (1) staying alive, and (2) being able to perform endurance exercise effectively.
This might have some indirect benefits to your performance and thus fat loss, but it’s not direct and it’s not what 1st Phorm were promising in a “Thermo-Lipolytic formula”. In fact, none of these ingredients satisfy that definition reliably in human studies!
Check out our
– #1 Fat Burner This Year –
Royal 21 King Formula Analysis
So does Royal 21 King work? Looking at the formula, it’s clearly heavy on the mental performance compounds and very shallow on the thermogenic/fat burner compounds. This makes very little sense from the description that is given by 1st Phorm – and is a real shame given how good the mental performance compound actually is!
The mental performance compound would be amazing if it wasn’t hidden behind a proprietary blend and we could tell what you’re getting. Meanwhile, the clear 3-part system of the “FAC-T Blend” is nowhere near comparable.
This isn’t for lack of working ingredients: caffeine alone provides benefits in this product, but we already know that compounds like capsaicin, EGCG, and others would be superior for fat-burning.
There’s also no support for muscle mass during fat-burning, which is something we think is chronically overlooked. Products like the Performance Lab SPORT Fat Burner excel on this side, with compounds like HMB supporting lean muscle and preferential use of fat.
Overall, we have mixed feelings on this product. From the start, we hate proprietary blends because they hide what you’re getting. How can you make an informed decision – or how can we recommend the best product – without knowing what’s in it?
The ingredient choice for the mental performance complex is pretty great, even a leader on the market. Unfortunately, the fat-burning potential is extremely limited, and this product relies almost entirely on experimental compounds.
There’s an art to pushing the cutting edge on a supplement: it involves using stuff you know works and then stuff that has a strong, emerging literature for what it could do.
1st Phorm seems to have missed the memo, with no proven compounds in their FAC-T blend at all!
Royal 21 King Benefits
The benefits of this product are likely to be more lifestyle and overall mental support. In fact, in many ways, this looks more like a pre-workout or mental performance supplement than a fat-burner.
As a result, we’d say to look at this as a mental performance product that gets most of its metabolic benefits from caffeine. It’s also got some pro-performance, anti-fatigue compounds, which can be useful indirectly.
However, it does seem like it’s a problem of comparing Royal 21 King against its own stated intentions. There’s no real benefit to a “curbs cravings” product when you can do the exact same thing with any other product with similar effects or just eating more protein and fiber in your diet.
Who Takes It?
Royal 21 King is probably best for anyone wanting help to boost the mental/ motivational side of their diet and exercise regime, as opposed to anyone wanting a strong fat burner. Of course, there are other products on the market that do both of these things together or focus on one or the other potentially more effectively, so you’d need to weigh up the pros and cons.
Any Potential Side Effects from taking Royal 21 King?
The only significant room for side effects with this product come from the stimulant load. If you’re a stimulant-sensitive person then it’s not likely to be for you.
This is compounded by two factors:
- As a proprietary blend, you don’t know how much of each ingredient you’re getting, which makes it difficult to get a clear idea of what you’re putting your body.
- There are multiple alkaloid stimulants – like Caffeine and theacrine – which have different sensitivities and tolerances. These can add up and surprise you quite easily.
Consult your doctor or other medical professional if you have any concerns or negative response to any supplement. It’s also important to check that prescription medications (if you have them) don’t interact poorly with these performance-enhancing ingredients!
Royal 21 King Summary
Pros
- Great mental performance ingredient choice
- Strong synergies with caffeine and theanine/Sulbutiamine
- Great AcH-boosting combination (choline and Huperzine)
Cons
- Proprietary blends are bullsh*t and need to die off ASAP
- An entire half of this product is made up of untested, unproven compounds
- There are no active fat-burning compounds other than caffeine
- Stimulant load is likely to be quite high with a caffeine + theacrine formula
Royal 21 King Price & Where to Buy
1 bottle of Royal 21 King is $69.99 – which isn’t fooling us. It’s $70 but you get a cent back. The interesting thing is that the subscription model doesn’t actually provide any savings!
You can drop the order frequency to auto-billing every 2 weeks, and the price per bottle still seems to be $69.99. This is odd, since that’s fundamentally not how committing yourself to regular purchases works.
This is a high price for a product that isn’t confirmed to actually do one of the two things it says!
Royal 21 King Review: Final Word
We 50% love this product and 50% hate it.
On the one hand it has some of the most well-considered and synergistic compounds possible for mental performance. This provides fantastic, thought-out mental support and some anti-fatigue effects to improve your performance.
On the other hand, however, it’s a totem of some sh*tty supplement industry trends. The proprietary blends need to go immediately, while the reliance on entirely untested fat burners doesn’t do much to convince us.
The result is a product that costs $69.99 while not actually delivering on half of its promises. In this sense, we really do think Royal 21 King wears the crown for mental focus boosters, but its fat burner status is more Jester.
[yasr_overall_rating]
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