7 Things To Know About Protein Shakes

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 15:40

There is much talk about protein shakes and how they are the best nutrition supplements to lose weight fast. However, there are certain basic rules of using protein supplements that most people ignore. While it helps you build muscles and adds bulk to your body, it cannot be all you eat. Whether or not this mode of nutrition is healthy for weight loss is debatable. It depends on the brand of protein powder you are buying and how you are using it.

The major difference will be made by how you use protein shakes. If you stick to the rules, then you will benefit from them.

Things To Know About Protein Shakes:

1. They Are Nutrition Supplements: This means that you cannot have a glass of protein shake complimentary with your breakfast. You will have to have it instead of your breakfast. As far as weight loss is concerned, protein powder is to be had only if you are skipping a meal.

2. Which Meal Are You Skipping? It is important to know which meal you are skipping for your dose of protein to be right. Most often, people skip either breakfast or dinner. Skipping lunch is not heard of. Moreover, you need to have the drink at the right time. You cannot gulp it down at midnight because you skipped dinner.

3. Supplement Nor Replacement: These protein powders are nutrition supplements. They are by no means, replacement for solid food. You cannot give up on normal foods all together just because you are trying to lose weight fast.

4. Not Complete Nutrition: Although we call it a supplement for nutrition, it is not in the strictest sense a supplement. It does not cover all the nutrient groups. Also, it does not give you the necessary amount of roughage for your body. So, if you cut out on the other nutrient groups like carbohydrates, fats and vitamins, you'll end up with deficiencies.

5. How Much Is Enough? There is such a thing as too much protein. Excess of proteins cause kidney problems and damage the liver. You can have 30 percent of your daily calories from proteins. May be 5 percent here or there will not make such a big difference. But you cannot have 70 percent of your nutrition from proteins.

6. Proteins Is A Guy Thing: It is mostly the guys trying beef up their muscles, who go on protein diets and supplements. So it is a cliched 'guy thing'. But women need proteins too. Although the amount of proteins needed by women is lesser compared to men, they can still have protein supplements proportionately.

7. Homemade Protein Shakes: As all things organic are better than artificial ones, it is preferable to make your protein supplement with eggs and milk. If cannot do that, read the composition label behind the protein shake container to be sure of its contents.