A member walked up to the front desk last week with his phone out, already scrolling 1st Phorm's site, and asked me what he should buy. Not what tastes good. What actually matters, and in what order.
That is the right question. It is also the one I get some version of every week. I have owned Black Iron Athletics since 2013, so I have had this exact conversation standing at that desk a few hundred times, usually while somebody's kid is hanging off the turf.
This page is the answer I gave him, with the labels pulled up on the screen between us.
Before We Get Into It
Two things you should have before the first product.
I am a 1st Phorm Legionnaire. The buy links on this page are my tracking links, so if you order through one I earn a commission, and it costs you nothing extra. That is the whole arrangement, said plainly.
The second one matters more to you. I have not used any of these five yet. No scoops, no softgels, no flavor takes, no results. Every product page I link to below is a Recon Report, which on this site means a label read and the price math while the hands-on review is still on the way. When one of these has been through a real training block in my hands, that page gets rewritten with a rating, my own photos, and a straight verdict. Today you get the label and the math, which is what the guy at the desk needed anyway.
The Order That Actually Matters
My position on supplements has not moved in a decade. A calorie deficit with enough protein beats any stack ever sold. Supplements are force multipliers, and a multiplier on zero is still zero. Food first, sleep right behind it. If you are eating whatever shows up and sleeping five hours, a $70 tub buys you a nicer shaker cup and nothing else.
If this is new ground for you, go read the Dad Stack and then come back here. That is the whole framework in one page.
Once the food and the sleep are handled, my top tier is short on purpose: protein, creatine, fish oil, vitamin D, and zinc. Deep evidence, cheap doses, and a normal dad actually notices the difference over a year. That list is the rule, and the rule travels. It works at any brand, in any store, on any website. Learn it once and you can walk past most of a supplement aisle without slowing down.
This lineup covers three of those five. Vitamin D and zinc are not in it, which is fine, because they are the two cheapest and most boring items on the list and you can buy them anywhere. Ask your doctor to check your vitamin D at your next physical and dose off that number instead of guessing. Keep the zinc modest and skip the mega-dose. Two small bottles, nothing exciting, tier covered.
One lane rule before we start. If you get drug tested, for your sport, your job, or the service, then your shopping list is a different list and you should shop it that way. Thorne carries NSF Certified for Sport, which is why it has been my pick for tested guys for years. Different job, different tool. If that is you, buy accordingly and do not overthink it.
What A Serving Actually Costs
Tub price is the wrong number. A $69.99 tub with 30 servings and a $39.99 tub with 100 servings are not remotely the same purchase, and the sticker hides that completely. Cost per serving is what actually shows up on your card every month, so that is the column I care about.
| Product | Price | Servings | Cost/Serving | On Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Micronized Creatine | $39.99 | 100 | $0.40 | $0.36 |
| Full-Mega | $47.99 | 45 | $1.07 | $1.00 |
| Level-1 | $62.99 | 30 (estimated) | about $2.10 | about $1.83 |
| Phormula-1 | $69.99 | 30 | $2.33 | $2.10 |
| Opti-Greens 50 | $69.99 | 30 | $2.33 | $2.00 |
Nearly a six to one spread from top to bottom, inside one brand's lineup. Keep that in your head while you read the rest of this, including the parts where I tell you something is worth buying.
The order below is not that table, though. It is not by price. It is by what moves the needle for a guy with two kids, a job, and four hours a week to train.
1. Phormula-1: The Deficit Protein
Phormula-1 is $69.99 for 30 servings, so $2.33 a serving one-time or $2.10 on subscription. Per the published label: 23g of protein out of a 28g scoop, 100 calories, 0g fat, under 1g of carbs, 0g sugar, 13 flavors. The Vanilla flavor lists a five-ingredient label with no proprietary blend, and 23 grams out of a 28 gram scoop works out to an 82 percent protein yield, which is genuinely strong for an isolate.
That yield is the whole reason it leads. In a deficit every calorie has a job, and 23 grams of protein for 100 calories is the best trade on this page. Protein is also the macro almost nobody hits, and it is the one that decides whether the weight you lose comes off as fat or as the muscle you spent years putting on.
It is also the most expensive serving here, tied with the greens, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. $2.33 is premium pricing for a 30-serving isolate. What you are paying for is the calorie math, and if you are cutting, the calorie math is the entire point.
Who it is for: the dad who is cutting and cannot afford to spend half a meal's calories hitting his protein number.
2. Level-1: The Meal You Skipped
Level-1 is $62.99 one-time or $54.99 on subscription. Per the product page: 23 to 25g of protein per scoop depending on flavor, 5g of naturally occurring BCAAs, 12 flavors, and no artificial dyes or flavors after a formula update, per the brand's FAQ. Whey concentrate is the protein source listed. 1st Phorm builds it as a sustained-release protein, meant to stay with you longer than an isolate does, and I will tell you how that holds up once I have run it as an actual meal for a few weeks.
One caveat on the math, and it is the only estimate in that table. I am working off a serving count I pulled from a label photo inside a customer review: 30 servings. On that count it lands at about $2.10 a serving one-time and about $1.83 on subscription, which would make it the cheaper of the two proteins here. Treat that as close, not gospel. When my tub arrives I will count the scoops myself and this page gets the verified number.
Who it is for: the guy who skips lunch three days a week and eats dinner standing at the kitchen counter. That is a real job and it is a different job than Phormula-1. A shake that actually holds you until dinner beats a gas station sandwich at 4 p.m.
3. Micronized Creatine Monohydrate: The Sure Thing
Micronized Creatine Monohydrate is $39.99 for 100 servings or $29.99 for 50. On the big tub that is $0.40 a serving one-time and $0.36 with subscription. Five grams of plain micronized creatine monohydrate, unflavored, single ingredient, zero fillers or additives per the brand. A hundred servings covers more than three months on one purchase.
This is what a creatine label is supposed to look like. Monohydrate has the deepest research base of any form of creatine, this is the cheapest thing per serving on this page by a mile, and creatine is still the first supplement I recommend to almost everyone in the building.
Buy the 100-serving tub. The 50 works out to $0.60 a serving, which is half again as much per scoop for the privilege of buying it again in seven weeks. And yes, $0.40 to $0.60 is brand-name pricing on what is fundamentally a commodity ingredient. At forty cents I stop caring. What you are buying for the difference is a tub that shows up in the same box as everything else.
Who it is for: anyone who lifts and has not started creatine yet. If you buy exactly one thing off this page, make it this one.
4. Full-Mega: The One You Take For The Long Game
Full-Mega is $47.99 one-time or $44.99 on subscription, 45 servings out of 90 softgels at 2 per serving. That is $1.07 a serving one-time and $1.00 on subscription. Per the label, two softgels deliver 900 mg of EPA and 600 mg of DHA, so 1,500 mg combined, which is a real dose stated right on the panel. Four ingredients: fish oil, gelatin, vegetable glycerin, purified water, from wild-caught Icelandic mackerel, herring, anchovy, and sardine, per 1st Phorm.
Here is the buying lesson that outlives this product. Every fish oil panel gives you a big number and a smaller number, and only one of them is the dose. This label lists 2,500 mg of Total Omega-3 Concentrate and 1,800 mg of itemized omega-3s, of which 1,500 mg is the EPA and DHA. The big number is oil. The number doing the work is EPA plus DHA, and that is the only one worth comparing across bottles. Do that comparison at the shelf and half the fish oil market stops looking cheap.
The other way to judge a dollar a day is against food. Two servings of fatty fish a week is the standard advice and most of the dads I coach are nowhere near it. Against that, a dollar a day for 1,500 mg of EPA and DHA is a fair trade.
It sits fourth because you take fish oil for the decade ahead, not for Thursday night's session. Nobody has ever walked into my gym and told me they felt their fish oil kick in. You take it anyway, the way you change the oil in a truck you plan to keep.
Who it is for: the dad who does not eat fatty fish twice a week, which is most of us.
5. Opti-Greens 50: The Optional One
Opti-Greens 50 is $69.99 for 30 servings, so $2.33 a serving one-time and $2.00 on subscription. Two scoops in 8 oz of water or juice, in Natural Berry or Chocolate. The label lists 50 gluten-free, alkalizing ingredients including 8 organic grasses and greens, plus Gluten-Free, Non-GMO, and no artificial flavors.
One number on the panel is properly quantified, and it is a good one: over 5 billion CFUs from 10 probiotic strains. Most of the rest sits inside proprietary blends, including the flagship Glycemic Balance Blend, which has a name and no gram amount next to it. Proprietary blends are the norm across this entire category, and they are still the reason I cannot tell you what a scoop is doing for you. A blend with no doses is a list of ingredients, not a dose of anything.
It goes last because a greens powder is not vegetables, and it is not in my top tier. At $2.33 a serving you are paying isolate money for amounts you cannot see, and a bag of spinach and a bag of frozen berries cost less than a week of this.
Who it is for: the guy who travels constantly, eats out of airports, and wants some kind of floor under his produce intake when the week goes sideways. That is a real problem and this is a real answer to it. Buy it fifth, with your eyes open, and not because a label counted to 50.
What I Told Him To Buy First
He was never going to buy five things at once. Nobody does, and the guys who try are the ones with four abandoned tubs on top of the fridge by March.
So we phased it. Protein first, because that is the hole in almost every dad's day. Phormula-1 if he is cutting and every calorie has to earn its keep, Level-1 if the actual problem is the lunch he keeps skipping. He does not need both.
Creatine alongside it, because at forty cents a serving it is not really a budget decision. One tub, three months, take it daily and let the habit prove itself.
Fish oil when there is room, and greens only if travel is wrecking his week. If the money runs out before you get there, you have still bought the two things that do the most, which is the entire point of putting them in this order.
What I Test First
These come through the door one at a time, so the reviews land in order.
Phormula-1 first, not because it is the first thing I would buy, but because it has the most to prove: a five-ingredient isolate lives or dies on flavor and mixability, and that is the part a label cannot tell you. Creatine next, to see whether it dissolves the way a micronized powder should or sits at the bottom of the glass like sand. Then Full-Mega, and yes, I will report honestly on fish burps, which is the entire reason people quit fish oil. Level-1 after that, run as the meal it is built to replace, and I will count the scoops. Opti-Greens 50 last.
When each one has been through a real training block, its Recon Report stops being a label read and becomes a review: a rating, my own photos, and a straight verdict. If one of them is not worth your money, that is exactly what the page will say. Numbers here get corrected the day I find one that is wrong.
Same answer the member got at the desk, minus the part where I kept stopping to hand somebody a foam roller.
Nothing on this page was sent to me free, and the product images are 1st Phorm's own.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Talk to your doctor before starting any supplement.
