As a Personal Trainer this is something I hear regularly, should I be taking a protein shake? The answer is....it depends. Before even thinking about getting protein from a powder source you should ask yourself is my diet right? In my experience people who want to take Protein shakes are often on all types of unbalanced or FAD diets, when you should just seriously think about how your daily nutritional intake is now. Is it sustainable? Is it balanced? Am I getting enough micronutrients? Do I eat enough carbohydrates? You should assess your whole diet before rushing to supplement, no matter what your fitness level is. The easiest way to get a gauge on your nutrition is to use something like the myfitnesspal app, this is something I get my clients to do to get an insight into their diet for 3-4 days, if you are honest with yourself in regards to your portion control and snacks and drinks etc. you will get a true breakdown of your Macros...your Protein, your Carbohydrate and your Fat intake, from this it will give you a fairly accurate measurement of your daily caloric intake at present and you can use this as a base to your goal setting. Any good Personal Trainer can help you with this. Get your nutrition right first and you are 80% of the way there, that extra 20% is your hard work and sweat in the gym. You cannot out-train a bad diet. Once you have logged your protein intake you can see how many grams you are getting per day, depending on your goals you can make adaptations to your protein requirements based on your weight etc. if you need help with nutrition or creating and achieving goals we can help you with that. http://www.fitmalahide.com/personal-training.html My advice to everyone would be to eat as much protein as possible from natural sources, eggs, meat, milk etc. Your Protein requirements will vary on your sex, weight and your goals. Chances are you will have to reevaluate your protein ingestion to suit your goals e.g some males will look to get 1g of protein for every 1lb of bodyweight if looking to put on muscle and size. The reason protein shakes are so popular, especially Whey Proteins, is that they are much easier to consume post workout than say eating a piece of chicken, I have touched on the benefits of consuming protein in the anabolic window previously. So, not to complicate the protein shake issue, you should get your protein from natural food sources first and only supplement if you have to, however, if you are lacking in your Protein requirements then there are many types of ways to supplement e.g protein powders, ready to drink protein shakes (RTD) bottles and protein bars, plenty to choose from and if you are lactose intolerant or vegan etc then there are rice and pea protein powders out there but a high quality whey protein would be most people's first choice. When choosing your protein powder make sure it is of high quality, but overall keep in mind, protein shakes are there to assist with your nutrition and not to become the foundation of your protein intake, use them as an addition if you are not reaching YOUR daily protein needs. Gary Robb PT
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