Is Your Protein Shake Making You Fat?
Too Many Guys Are Sabotaging Their Progress With These Common Protein Shake Mistakes
There’s too many people that think that a healthy diet just means eating the exact same way you're already eating but adding more protein. Wrong. Yes, you need protein, but you also need carbs and fats. Most of all, you need REAL food. But if you’re working out, a daily protein shake can help you recover better and gain muscle. Or it can simply add a few pounds to your gut. The choice is really yours.
Protein increases energy, focus, memory and helps build and maintain muscle. Most of us, are rarely protein-deficient because most of us Americans love meat. Today we’re talking protein shakes but let’s also note that high-quality protein foods are super important. By high-quality we’re talking about grass-fed meats, organic cage-free poultry or eggs and wild-caught fish. High-quality or organic proteins or meats are more nutrient-dense.
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But many of us prefer to scooping protein powder in a mixer and there’s really nothing wrong with that either. There are actually tons of great protein powders you can buy. Whey, for example, is an excellent protein source. Apparently, whey can even make you more attractive.
So let’s talk about how you can screw up your protein shake:
Mistake #1 - You’re Turning Your Protein Shake Into a Milkshake
Seriously, who doesn’t love milkshakes. But if you’re dumping everything in your fridge into a protein shake, say hello to your gut for me. Losing weight or getting lean is a simple formula. Burn more calories than you take in. So if you’re loading up your protein shake with sugary almond butter or sweetened nut milks, you’re also potentially loading up on sugar.
Newsflash: Sugar is bad.
If you choose the right protein powder to begin with, you won't have to disguise the flavor with a million different additives. And while you may think that adding as much fruit, cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, etc, to your shake as possible can only be good for your health, since those things are loaded with great micronutrients, the truth is that, when it comes to weight loss, less is usually more, and it's very easy to cut into your calorie deficit with the wrong protein shake ingredients.
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Mistake #2 - You’re Choosing the Wrong Protein
OK, you walk into a supplement store and you see aisles and aisles of giant tubes of protein. Which one do you buy? Well, that’s partly up to you.
The most common protein powders are whey and casein. The reason why is because it’s a complete protein. It has all the necessary amino acids to make sure that you’re building and repairing muscle tissue so that you can get seriously fuckin jacked. Whey is also derived from cow’s milk, which is good for most of us. But if you’ve got problem with lactose, you might want to pass.
Casein is known as a “slow protein” because it digests over a few hours, like most protein foods do. But like whey, if you have problems with dairy, casein might be a no-go for you.
It’s also important that your protein powder doesn’t have 6 million ingredients. If the list of ingredients reads like an entire chapter of Lord of the Rings, pick up another protein. The less ingredients the better. And the more ingredients that come from real food, the better.
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There are tons of different kinds of proteins. Pea protein powder, hemp, brown rice, soy and vegan. If you’re not sure, try a plant-based protein, which has been proven to work just as well as a whey protein powder, while using more natural ingredients.
Mistake #3 - You’re Using Too Much Protein
The question here is, what exactly is too much protein? And the truth is there isn’t exactly a clear answer. In fact, there’s little proof to suggest that a high protein diet is harmful. But if you’re piling three scoops of protein powder in your shake or smoothie, we hope that you keep the bathroom close for a few hours. Ideally, for an active person; a guy lifting regularly in the gym, you want around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.
So 18 grams for an 180-pound man that is looking to maintain muscle mass. With that said, there are many ways to increase your protein intake without mindlessly scooping power into a shaker, most of which simply require going to the grocery store and picking up some meat, chicken, dairy, eggs and fish. You know, real food.
Mistake #4 - You're Picking the Wrong Base Liquid
The simplest, cheapest protein shake solution is plain old water, but many guys out there just can't stomach that combination, which leads them to using milk (and often high-fat milk!) or a milk-substitute like almond milk. Taken to an extreme, this can defeat the entire purpose of a protein shake, which is to deliver high-quality, fast-digesting protein into your body without extraneous calories coming from carbs and fats.
The first solution, then, is to change up your protein powder to one that mixes well in water. If your current protein either stays clumpy in water or just isn't palatable in plain old water, find a great tasting protein powder alternative. The right supplement store will have plenty of sample packets and even disposable cups on hand, allowing customers to test out different brands and flavors before purchasing. If you still insist on using a non-water base, pick a low-calorie option unflavored, unsweetened almond milk, which will have some of the texture/thickness of milk without the unnecessary calories.
Mistake #5 - Your Ratio of Carbs:Protein Is Wrong
Unless you're a very skinny guy who struggles with building size, your protein powder of choice should have minimal added carbs. This is especially true of men looking to lose weight, since their diet is already likely involving some form of carb restrictions and the main benefit of protein shakes, for such a person, is that they're an easy way to boost your protein intake. But there are exceptions.
If you're an endurance athlete, or if your workouts combine both traditional strength training and some form of cardio, your post-workout shake might actually be made more effective with a higher ratio of carbs to protein. A famous study conducted on such athletes found that glycogen replenishment was maximized in a post-workout food intake ratio of between two and four grams of carbs to one gram of protein. However, most men are not in any immediate need of maximizing glycogen repletion after the average strength training workout or low-intensity treadmill session, so if you're not training for a distance race of some kind and just want to lose weight, stick to a higher protein-to-carb ratio.
Mistake #6 - You Lack Flavor Variety
Look, even a delicious flavor is likely to get bland if you never switch things up. Too many guys dread taking their protein shakes, which is the underlying reason why they opt for so many additives and the additional calories they inevitably bring.
The easy solution is to the obvious one: buy multiple flavors. Peanut butter is delicious, but you won't want to have a peanut butter protein shake every single day at the exact same time, seven days a week, for months on end. But if you alternate between chocolate and peanut butter, or even throw in a curveball flavor like birthday cake, you'll find your daily shake so much more palatable.
Mistake #6 - You've Got an Undiagnosed Food Intolerance
If you regularly get stomach cramps, indigestion, bloating, flatulence or any other digestive unpleasantness after your protein shake, not only will your performance suffer, and not only will you likely retain more water (and therefore weight) than you need, but you're also probably struggling to digest the protein in your shake to begin with, which is a serious problem when the entire purpose of the protein shake is to up your protein intake.
Short of going to a nutritionist and having your intolerance or allergy professionally diagnosed, you can experiment with different protein powders to see which ones your body digests best. A huge number of people have lactose intolerance, which can make whey protein shakes (the most common form of protein shake!) a nightmare on the digestive tract. A smaller but still sizeable number of people have a specific intolerance to whey. If you suspect this might be you, purchase a more refined protein powder, in either isolate or hydrolyzed form, or try a vegan protein powder. If ingesting these improves your symptoms, not only will you experience less discomfort, you're also likely to go through a "de-bloat" phase, with your body dropping its excess water weight.
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