Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Best Protein Powder -- Which Should I Take?

Finding the right protein powder is dependent on what your primary goals are. Generally, people drink shakes for 2, sometimes conflicting, reasons: build muscle (ideal weight gain) and lose body fat (ideal weight reduction).

In a perfect world, everybody could gain lots of muscle and lose a lot of body fat simultaneously. Within real life, though, it’s important to focus on either one but not the other goal. So focus on finding the very best protein powder for one of these simple goals. After all, professional bodybuilders and fitness competitors, whose livelihood is dependent on how they appear, follow a gaining-muscle cycle then a losing-body-fat cycle before contests.

Since anything animal-based can be turned into a powder, the most typical and also the most popular kind of protein powders are constructed with whey protein, which derives from milk. Whey protein will get absorbed rapidly to your blood stream so it’s ideal to take it following a workout or upon getting out of bed each morning or generally throughout the day.

Since whey protein originates from milk, if you are vegan, you might like to think about using a supplement that's totally plant-based. Typically the most popular ones are soy, grain, and pea. Soy is usually considered a perfect vegan protein because it’s among the few plant-based ones that’s complete--that is, possess all the required proteins that animal-based ones (whey protein, eggs, meat) have.

Now, do you want to know the best protein shakes for growing mass? Anything that’ll increase the amount of calories you consume beyond what the body burns up. As long as its fat contents are low, any supplement which has the most calories (consisting of protein and carbohydrates, of course) is great.

To lose weight, your goal is to reduce your calorie intake until it falls below what the body is burning. How can you decrease your calories? Clearly, you decrease your fat intake whenever possible, however, you also decrease your carbohydrate intake while leaving your protein intake rather high. So, clearly, the very best diet supplements should be ones which are full of protein but quite low in body fat and carbohydrates. Mix with water or nonfat milk (anything without much carbohydrates and fat), and you've got an ideal protein source for your shakes.

Exactly the same principle is applicable to vegans as nonvegans. Think of any plant-based powder that's low fat yet high in carbs and protein. To lose weight, find a plant-based powder that's low in both fat and carbs but still high in protein. Again the principle is the same as with whey protein powders; just consume ones that are based on plants whether it's soy, hemp, rice, or pea.

If you would like specific examples (brands, products, etc.) of the best protein powders under each category, you would benefit from visiting my protein powder site using its 40+ interactive product chart.