Scientific, Reliable, & Trustworthy Fitness Advice

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What are protein shakes?  There seems to be a lot of confusion among people on what exactly protein shakes are and what they do. Some people think that if you touch the stuff your muscles will grow twice their size, while others think that they are a complete waste of money.  What’s the truth? That’s what we are going to find out.

First, let’s get into what types of protein shakes I’m talking about. For the most part, I will be referring to either whey (isolate, concentrate, or hydrolysate) or casein protein.  All other types of protein (soy, pea, egg, etc.) are very unlikely to beat either whey or casein due to the amount of essential amino acids being less. Furthermore, I will be referring only to plain protein shakes, not mass builders or “gainer” shakes.

What are Protein Shakes?

Protein shakes are exactly what they sound like: protein.  Milk’s protein is roughly 80% casein and 20% whey, and this is where the powdered protein comes from. Since the protein in the shakes comes from milk, wouldn’t just drinking milk be just as good?

Yes, yes it would.

Most protein powders come with an isolated form of protein: either whey or casein.  Whey is known as the faster absorbed protein, while casein is known as the slower absorbed protein.  Many people are duped into thinking that having both together is not optimal. You need to have either one or the other. Normally whey around your training and casein before you go to bed, according to bro-knowledge.

But, what if having both together is optimal? Read More »

 

Image provided by Jo Christian Oterhals

You hear it all the time:

“I want to bulk up and gain some more muscle mass but I just can’t seem to gain any weight. I eat all the time but I never gain a pound. I think I’m just one of those people who will always be skinny and will never be able to gain any weight.”

They go lift for a year, eat what seems to be a TON of food, lift intensely… but by the next year they hardly look any different.

Why does this happen to so many people?  Why can some people eat whatever they want and they don’t gain a pound while others can’t even have a few bites of cake without blowing up?

One reason is that they might not actually be eating as much as they think they are.  It may seem like the person is eating a ton of food because they might be out with friends and have a very large meal, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story.  You don’t know how much they eat when they are alone or if they eat big meals like that everyday. If it seems like they always eat a ton but are not gaining weight, most likely they are not eating much at the other times of the day.

If this might be you, one way to find out for sure is just to track your calories for a few days.  Maybe for one week, track everything that you eat and eat like you normally would. Then at the end of the week, add up all the calories and divide them by 7. This will show you the average calories that you eat everyday, and it will probably be a lot lower than you thought. (Hint: You can do this same thing if you are trying to lose weight to show you that you are actually eating more than you thought.)

Besides underestimating the amount of calories that you take in, there could be another factor to consider: nonexercise activity thermogenesis (or NEAT for short). Read More »

 

Way too many people buy “gainer” shakes or some other type of post-workout meal replacement.

If you do, stop.

Go look at your gainer shake’s ingredients. What is it mostly made out of? Protein and carbs. What kind of carbs? Most of the time maltodextrin, which has similar properties as dextrose, the simple sugar.

Now, I’m not really saying that anything is inherently wrong with those shakes; it’s just that there is nothing really good about them either.  The only good thing that they might do is force you to eat a lot after you lift, which brings us to today’s topics:

What should you eat before you lift?

What you eat before you lift should fulfill 2 goals:

1. To give you enough energy while you’re lifting
2. To give you protein that your body can use when you finish lifting

Your pre-workout meal gives you energy while you lift. This one shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise. If you feel like you don’t have a lot of energy when you are lifting then you might have screwed up your pre-workout meal (or you could be a little bit dehydrated).  However, this on an individual basis. Some people need to have carbs+pro when they lift, some just need pro, and some are fine with BCAAs beforehand. It’s really up to you.  If you can handle allocating a good chunk of your day’s carbs plus 20-50g of protein pre-workout and not throw up, that’s up to you, and it wouldn’t hurt you much (it could help). Normally, though, I’ll just choose some small meal.  Recently, I have just put a cup of milk, a banana and a protein scoop (whey) into a blender and had that a little while before I lifted.  Don’t be afraid of the fructose from fruit pre-workout.

Besides just eating, Read More »