Protein Shake and Supplements To Help With Weightloss??

sirinasphynx

Hey everybody!! I'm new to the use of supplements and protein shakes. I was curious if anyone had any tips or brands or any type of advice? I am exercising 5 times a week with 30-45 mins of cardio and roughly 20-30mins worth of random workouts, i.e. crunches, stretching, pushups, leg lifts, squats, and lunges to name a few. Plus I'm eating healthy and monitoring my food intake and calories. I am trying to lose weight and have heard many people mention supplements or protein shakes that help with that. I am not trying to get bulky, just help with the weightloss and later on maybe build lean muscle. Thank you for any advice!!!

SideSteel

sirinasphynx wrote: »

Hey everybody!! I'm new to the use of supplements and protein shakes. I was curious if anyone had any tips or brands or any type of advice? I am exercising 5 times a week with 30-45 mins of cardio and roughly 20-30mins worth of random workouts, i.e. crunches, stretching, pushups, leg lifts, squats, and lunges to name a few. Plus I'm eating healthy and monitoring my food intake and calories. I am trying to lose weight and have heard many people mention supplements or protein shakes that help with that. I am not trying to get bulky, just help with the weightloss and later on maybe build lean muscle. Thank you for any advice!!!

So first of all protein supplementation won't really provide any benefit to a diet that is already sufficient in protein. Having said that, it's a great way to help people reach their protein goal.

I prefer Optimum Nutrition because it's reasonably priced, decent as far as calories vs protein, and they are a pretty reputable company. Third party lab results that I've seen looked good too so they seem to actually give you what they say they give you, which isn't a guarantee in the supplement world.

You mentioned that you do "random workouts". At some point I'd suggest doing "not random workouts" so that things are programmed out in a way that causes you to make progress.

sirinasphynx

Okay thank you!! I'll have to go and try Optimum Nutrition. I am working to lose all over body weight, specifically I'd prefer to target my belly area. If there's any advice or workouts you'd suggest for that, then I'm entirely open to try them!!

SideSteel

sirinasphynx wrote: »

Okay thank you!! I'll have to go and try Optimum Nutrition. I am working to lose all over body weight, specifically I'd prefer to target my belly area. If there's any advice or workouts you'd suggest for that, then I'm entirely open to try them!!

The bad news is this: You can't target fat loss. And so regardless of which particular exercise you do, you cannot spot reduce fat.

The primary way to lose fat is to consume fewer calories than you burn over a long period of time. This will cause you to lose body mass. If you also engage in resistance training you will increase the likelihood that this body mass comes from mostly fat stores rather than muscle because the resistance training will promote muscle building to offset muscle loss that may occur from the diet.

You can use resistance training to build muscle in specific areas and this WILL effect how you look, but you cannot do anything (outside of surgery) to cause fat loss from a specific area of your body.

dragon_girl26

Pretty much agree with Sidesteel. I would add that if you're thinking that adding protein shakes and/or supplements to your diet is going to aid or speed up weight loss, they won't. A calorie deficit is what does that.
Most protein powders have tasted weird or unpalatable to me. However, my current favorite protein powder is Fitmiss in Vanilla Chai. I've been using it in some pumpkin spice shakes lately and I'm a fan! It's only 90 calories a serving, too.