Fuel Point 2.0: Carbs, EAAs, and Electrolytes in One Scoop

By Jon Klipstein, U.S. Army Combat Veteran & Founder of Die Tryin Co.

Science reviewed by Onur Oncer, BS Physiology (Phi Beta Kappa) and peer-reviewed published researcher.

ONE SCOOP INSTEAD OF THREE TUBS

Here's the truth about intra-workout supplements: most people are buying the same workout three separate times.

A tub of carbs. A tub of aminos. A tub of electrolytes. Three scoops, three price tags, three things to remember, and a shaker that tastes like a chemistry experiment. That's not a stack, that's a shopping problem.

Fuel Point 2.0 is one scoop that covers all three jobs. Below is every ingredient and every dose, because a label you have to squint at is usually a label with something to hide.

WHAT'S IN IT	PER SCOOP	THE JOB IT DOES
SusCarb® Dextrin (HBCD)	24,000 mg	The fuel. Fast-clearing carbohydrate.
BCAA 2:1:1 (Leucine, Isoleucine, Valine)	4,000 mg	Leucine is the trigger for muscle protein synthesis
L-Lysine HCl	750 mg	Essential amino acid
L-Threonine	750 mg	Essential amino acid
L-Histidine Base	500 mg	Essential amino acid
L-Phenylalanine / L-Tryptophan / L-Methionine	250 mg each	Completes all nine EAAs
L-Glutamine	2,000 mg	Recovery and gut support
Taurine	1,000 mg	Cell hydration, endurance support
Coconut Water Powder	1,000 mg	Naturally occurring electrolytes
Sodium (Pink Himalayan Sea Salt)	340 mg	The electrolyte you actually sweat out
Potassium	430 mg	Fluid balance, muscle contraction
Magnesium (as Magnesium Glycinate)	130 mg	31% DV. Glycinate form, not oxide.
Calcium (from Calcium Citrate)	60 mg	Muscle contraction

110 calories. 20 servings. Cherry Bomb. No proprietary blends, because a proprietary blend is just a way to avoid telling you how little is in there.

ALL NINE AMINOS, NOT JUST THREE

This is the part that quietly matters most, and it's where most intra-workout products cut the corner.

BCAAs are three amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, valine. Leucine is genuinely the trigger for muscle protein synthesis, so BCAA-only products aren't useless. But triggering the machinery without supplying the raw material is like turning on a saw with no lumber. Muscle is built from all nine essential amino acids, and if six of them are missing, your body has to pull them from somewhere else.

Fuel Point 2.0 carries the 4g of BCAAs and the other six, for 6,750 mg of complete EAAs per scoop. That's the whole reason this replaced our standalone EAA product instead of sitting next to it. If you want the deeper version of how protein and amino intake actually drives growth, that's in the complete protein guide.

Worth being clear: intra-workout aminos are not a replacement for hitting your daily protein. According to PubMed, Morton and colleagues pooled 49 studies and 1,863 participants and found total daily protein intake is what drives gains, with benefits plateauing around 1.62 g/kg/day (Br J Sports Med, 2018). Aminos mid-session are a convenience and a support, not the foundation.

WHAT IS SUSCARB, AND WHY DID IT TAKE US THIS LONG?

The carb in Fuel Point 2.0 is not generic highly branched cyclic dextrin. It is SusCarb® Dextrin, a branded HBCD produced by Zymebase Inc., and getting it into an American tub is the single biggest reason this formula took as long as it did.

Die Tryin Co. is the first company in the United States to put SusCarb in a supplement. Not the first to use highly branched cyclic dextrin, which has been in the category for years. The first to use this one.

Being first is a slower way to launch a product. A new branded ingredient means new supplier paperwork, new documentation, new specification sheets, and a manufacturing run that nobody in the country has done before. There is no other brand's homework to copy. Every step took longer than it would have with a commodity carb we could have bought from three domestic suppliers on a Tuesday.

The obvious question is why we bothered. Highly branched cyclic dextrin is not rare. We could have put Cluster Dextrin on the panel, the ingredient that built this whole category, and shipped a year sooner. Here is the answer.

What SusCarb actually is

SusCarb is a highly branched cyclic dextrin made through an enzymatic process rather than the harsher acid hydrolysis used for cheaper carbohydrate powders. The result is a large glucose polymer with a tight, branched molecular structure and very low osmolarity.

SusCarb vs. Cluster Dextrin: what actually differs

Every HBCD is built the same way at the bond level. Short chains of glucose joined by alpha-1,4 bonds, with alpha-1,6 bonds forming the branch points that hang one chain off another. Two specifications separate one HBCD from the next, and both of them matter:

• Branching ratio. More alpha-1,6 branch points means a tighter, more globular molecule. That compact shape is why HBCD can be enormous by molecular weight while staying low in osmolarity, which is the whole mechanism behind a heavy carb that does not sit in your gut.
• Molecular weight distribution. A wide distribution means the tub is a mixture: some true HBCD, plus a tail of small fragments behaving more like maltodextrin. A narrow distribution means most of the scoop is actually doing the job you paid for.

Glico's Cluster Dextrin uses a branching enzyme to break down corn amylopectin and reconnect it into ring-shaped structures with fixed, short glucose chains. It is the original and it earned its reputation.

Zymebase specifies SusCarb with a higher branching ratio and a narrower, more uniform molecular weight distribution than the HBCD products already on the market, while holding onto everything that defines the category: high molecular weight, low osmolarity, high solubility. More branch points, less variation scoop to scoop.

That is why we waited. Not for a different ingredient, for a tighter version of the right one.

And here is the caveat we are not going to bury: that is the manufacturer's published specification, not a head-to-head human trial. Nobody has run SusCarb against Cluster Dextrin with athletes and measured a winner. We chose on spec sheet and mechanism, and we would rather tell you that plainly than pretend we have evidence that does not exist. If you want the full comparison, including where pea-starch Carb10 fits, we wrote it up in the intra-workout carb breakdown.

Low osmolarity is the entire point. A carbohydrate with high osmolarity pulls water into your gut and sits there. That is the sloshing feeling that ends a lot of intra-workout experiments. A low-osmolarity carb clears the stomach faster, which is why HBCD became the premium option in sports nutrition and why we were willing to wait for the version we wanted.

SusCarb vs. maltodextrin vs. plain sugar

Maltodextrin is cheap, effective, and hard on some stomachs at volume. Dextrose and sucrose are cheaper still, absorb fast, and are the most likely to leave you bloated or spiking and crashing mid-session. SusCarb sits at the other end: higher cost per gram, larger molecule, gentler exit from the stomach.

Zymebase's own internal testing reports SusCarb outperforming glucose and maltodextrin on exercise performance by wide margins. That is the manufacturer's data, not independent research, and we are going to say so rather than reprint it as fact. What we will stand behind is the mechanism, the published HBCD literature below, and the 24,000 mg on our panel.

How much SusCarb is in a scoop

Twenty-four grams. SusCarb® Dextrin (HBCD) 24,000 mg, printed on the Supplement Facts panel in milligrams like everything else in the formula. No blend, no "carbohydrate matrix," no rounding.

SusCarb® is a registered trademark of Zymebase Inc.

THE CARB: WHAT HBCD ACTUALLY DOES (AND WHAT IT DOESN'T)

SusCarb is a highly branched cyclic dextrin, so the published HBCD research is the evidence base it inherits. Highly branched cyclic dextrin is the carbohydrate the whole category has been excited about for a decade. Here's the honest version, because you deserve better than the supplier's sales deck.

The chemistry is real. HBCD is a large glucose polymer with low osmolarity, which in theory means it clears the stomach faster and sits lighter than an equivalent load of cheap sugar. That's the mechanism, and it's the reason serious carb powders use it.

The evidence is thinner than the marketing. According to PubMed, there is essentially one proper randomized controlled trial on HBCD and resistance training: Morenas-Aguilar and colleagues ran 30 physically active people (15 men, 15 women) through a double-blind crossover, sipping 45g of HBCD or placebo across bench press, bench pull, and squat work (Clin Nutr ESPEN, 2024). It was well tolerated with no GI complaints, and it improved repetition velocity, but only in the men. It did not meaningfully change perceived fatigue. Several of the authors are affiliated with a supplement company's research center, which you should factor in.

So: a mild, real, somewhat sex-specific mechanical benefit from one small industry-adjacent trial. Not a miracle. What is well established is the boring part: carbohydrate during long or hard sessions supports performance, and HBCD is a comfortable way to deliver it.

One more honest note on dosing. Our scoop is 24g of SusCarb. That's deliberately moderate. Studies pushing very high carb concentrations during hard efforts have run into real gastrointestinal distress, and a scoop you can't keep down fuels nothing. 24g sits in the range most people tolerate without thinking about it.

THE ELECTROLYTES ARE NOT AN AFTERTHOUGHT

Most intra-workout formulas sprinkle in a token amount of electrolytes so they can list them. 340mg of sodium is not a token amount.

Sodium is the electrolyte you actually lose in meaningful quantities when you sweat, and it's the one most lifters under-replace because they've been told for twenty years that sodium is the enemy. Add 430mg of potassium, magnesium in the glycinate form rather than the cheap oxide, and calcium citrate, and you have a genuine hydration component rather than label decoration. More on why this matters in the hydration breakdown.

WHO THIS IS ACTUALLY FOR

Cut the fluff. Intra-workout carbs are not mandatory for everybody, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

• Worth it: sessions over 60-75 minutes, two-a-days, high-volume hypertrophy blocks, endurance work, rucking, hybrid training, and anyone training hard in a calorie deficit who keeps running out of gas mid-session.
• Worth it: anyone currently buying carbs and aminos separately. This is the same job for one scoop.
• Probably not worth it: a 40-minute session where you ate a real meal two hours before. You're fine. Drink water.
• Definitely not a fix for: bad sleep, an under-eaten day, or a program that isn't progressing. Basics beat hype, every time.

For where this sits against everything else in the day, the pre/intra/post timing guide maps the whole window, and the athlete's fueling guide handles the macro side.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do I take it?

One scoop in 6-10 oz of water. Sip it through your session rather than slamming it up front, that's how the trial above dosed it, and it's easier on your stomach.

Does this replace the EAA product?

Yes. Fuel Point 2.0 carries all nine essential aminos at 6,750mg, so there's no reason to run both. One scoop, one job, one price.

Will 24g of carbs break my fast or ruin a cut?

It's 110 calories inside your training window. If those calories fit your daily target, they're not the problem. If you're strictly fasted-training by choice, this isn't your product and that's fine.

It has sucralose and acesulfame potassium. Should I care?

Fair question, and we'd rather answer it than dodge it. We cover the actual evidence on non-nutritive sweeteners in is sucralose safe. Short version: at the intakes involved here it's well within established safety limits, and a product nobody wants to drink doesn't get drunk.

Can I stack it with a pre-workout?

Yes. It's stimulant-free, so it layers under anything. SEND IT Sport is the natural pairing for long sessions.

Is HBCD really better than regular maltodextrin?

Probably somewhat, mostly on comfort rather than performance, and the honest answer is the evidence base is one small trial, not a mountain. We use it because it sits well at a moderate dose, not because we think the carb source is magic.

READY TO GEAR UP?

Fuel Point 2.0 covers the session. These cover everything around it:

• Fuel Point 2.0: 24g HBCD, 6,750mg complete EAAs, 2g glutamine, full electrolyte panel. One scoop.
• Post Iso: 24g whey isolate for after. Intra-workout aminos support the session; total daily protein builds the muscle.
• Micronized Creatine Monohydrate: 5g daily, the most supported supplement in the category.
• Aqua Spike v2: for the hours you're not training.
• Stainless Steel IceShaker: keeps it cold through a long session.
• Not sure what fits your training? Take the quiz.

Real doses of real ingredients, printed where you can read them. That's the whole standard.

ALWAYS FORWARD.