Protein Shakes and Workouts.....

gemtayls

Hi Guys... just wondering if anyone can give me a bit of advice...

. I want to start adding some extra protein to my diet but the usual eggs, chicken etc. do use a lot of calories. Can anyone recommend a good protein shake that is high protein, low carbs / fat?

My plan was to give Jillian Micheals 30 day shred a go as although I go spinning a couple of times a week when i work late I don't have time for a lot of other classes so my reasoning was to do the 20 min workout before work on a morning. Therefore get up at 7, do the workout and replace breakfast with a good protein shake to get the extra protein as well as help repair my body after the workout.

Also do you all use your exercise calories? I'm a bit wary of using them as i think whats the point of replacing the calories you burned, also I have read a few times that they can over-estimate the calories in the tracker which is scary... perhaps i might eat half the calories I burn? I don't know... A little help would be grand

Thank you

FrnkLft

Optimum Nutrition makes good protein products. They are pretty much the standard in the market right now as far as I can tell.

Just in case, you should be aware of the following:

Protein/Carbs = 4 cal / gram
Fat = 9 cal / gram

So protein powder isn't going to help you much by way of eliminating calories, espcially if you're already eating things like chicken which might have more calories due to fat, maybe +36 calories or so actually, because it's actually pretty lean. Also chicken is a lot cheaper.

Also, there's a misconception that protein powder is a "meal replacement"... this is not as true as you might hope lol You'll see what I mean if you try doing it. It's just a suppliment, an easy way to get protein in your system.

And one more thing, you need carbs after a workout to help you recover, even more so than protein. Here's an article from a site for dieticians: http://www.nutrition411.com/clinical-nutrition/sports-nutrition/item/168-exercise-the-post-workout-meal

About eating back the calories you burn through exercise... yes do it. You'll be happier, your workouts will be more effective since you have the fuel for them.

If you're worried about tracking calories burned, and if you have a fairly regular weekly exercise regime, try simply tracking your GROSS calories (not net calories) for a few weeks and tracking the weight you've lost over that time. If you do this, you can work backwards to determine what your weekly calorie needs are, and just eat -500 or -750 of that number.

Make sure you're always eating 1200 net calories or more.

gemtayls

Ah OK awesome, thank you

So would you say maybe to have a couple of poached eggs on wholemeal toast would be just as beneficial for protein intake / calories etc as replacing breaky with a shake?

Sorry for all the questions, I want to be armed with the right info when I tackle this early morning exercise routine haha.. if I'm gonna do it I might aswell do it properly!!