Advice needed on protein shakes

The Darkroom

I have a protein shake known as precision engineered whey protein. cheap enough and you can get it at holland and barrets.

Problem is I'm new to this world of building muscle and I'm unsure what kind of routine to get into with regards shakes. How often can I take a shake pre and post workout a day? at the moment I just take one full scoop in 125ml of water and thats me. I want to build up safe and fast and wondering if anyone could advise me or provide me links that could keep me in informed.

thanks a lot.

strelok

have a look at how much protein is in each shake

factor that into your daily requirements. it's nothing special, it's just food. nutritionally deficient food mind, so if you can get your protein from real actual food that'd be better.

take it whenever the hell you want. it doesn't make any difference if it's pre or post workout. i think you have something like 48 hours to get your protein in after a workout, the body doesn't just use it all up and then you're at 0.. you have stores of the stuff lying around. timing and frequency is a broscience myth.

The Darkroom

strelok wrote: »

have a look at how much protein is in each shake

factor that into your daily requirements. it's nothing special, it's just food. nutritionally deficient food mind, so if you can get your protein from real actual food that'd be better.

take it whenever the hell you want. it doesn't make any difference if it's pre or post workout. i think you have something like 48 hours to get your protein in after a workout, the body doesn't just use it all up and then you're at 0.. you have stores of the stuff lying around. timing and frequency is a broscience myth.

Thanks is there a recommended sort of solid daily diet you know of that can be great to pack in the protein? like what to have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. sorry if im sounding stupid because when it comes to this I'm at the bottom of the class and havnt a clue where or how to begin. thanks for replies so far its been a great help.

strelok

create an account on myfitnesspal and use the calculator there to figure out your tdee (total daily energy expenditure, how many calories you burn in a given day) then add 2-300 to that. 500 if you don't mind getting properly fat while you're bulking.

the general accepted numbers (afaik) are .7g protein per lb of lean body mass although bodyweight tends to be used as well. so whatever your weight in lb's multiply it by .7 and eat that many grams of protein every day. chicken, other meat, salmon, fish, eggs, beans, rice, whatever. you'll settle into a rythym in time and you'll learn what's what as you go on. you'll need an electronic kitchen scales. you can pick one up for sod all at argos or amazon

after that .4g of fat per lb body weight and that's your fat target for the day. some may need to go a bit higher, some may do fine a bit lower. experiment, plenty of time, rome not built in a day, etc etc. good fat sources are nuts (love almonds myself), oils (olive oil, coconut oil), butter (butter!), eggs, seeds.

the rest of your calories come from carbs. it doesn't make a huge difference what sort of carbs but people do tend to generally feel better when they eat better food so while you technically could get your **** from a tub of ben and jerries, some rice, broccoli and maybe a potato or two would probably be a better option. it all depends on how strict you want to be. if you're eating good quality food, hitting your protein and fat goals then you don't have all that much to worry about. just make sure you're eating at a calorie surplus if you want to gain weight (some of which will be muscle if you're lifting heavy ****. some of which unfortunately will be fat)


there's not really a one size fits all thing. just try to build a reasonably healthy diet while trying to hit your protein (very important) fat (pretty important) and carb (yeah, kinda important) goals and you'll figure out what works for you along the way


https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq

you can have a glance through this too, will probably answer a few questions you didn't even know you had. don't stress about getting everything perfect from the get go. consume protein, consume calories. lift heavy things. that's about the long and the short of it.




oh and for future reference. http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/impact-whey-protein/10530943.html quite a bit cheaper than the holland and barrett stuff.

The Darkroom

strelok wrote: »

create an account on myfitnesspal and use the calculator there to figure out your tdee (total daily energy expenditure, how many calories you burn in a given day) then add 2-300 to that. 500 if you don't mind getting properly fat while you're bulking.

the general accepted numbers (afaik) are .7g protein per lb of lean body mass although bodyweight tends to be used as well. so whatever your weight in lb's multiply it by .7 and eat that many grams of protein every day. chicken, other meat, salmon, fish, eggs, beans, rice, whatever. you'll settle into a rythym in time and you'll learn what's what as you go on. you'll need an electronic kitchen scales. you can pick one up for sod all at argos or amazon

after that .4g of fat per lb body weight and that's your fat target for the day. some may need to go a bit higher, some may do fine a bit lower. experiment, plenty of time, rome not built in a day, etc etc. good fat sources are nuts (love almonds myself), oils (olive oil, coconut oil), butter (butter!), eggs, seeds.

the rest of your calories come from carbs. it doesn't make a huge difference what sort of carbs but people do tend to generally feel better when they eat better food so while you technically could get your **** from a tub of ben and jerries, some rice, broccoli and maybe a potato or two would probably be a better option. it all depends on how strict you want to be. if you're eating good quality food, hitting your protein and fat goals then you don't have all that much to worry about. just make sure you're eating at a calorie surplus if you want to gain weight (some of which will be muscle if you're lifting heavy ****. some of which unfortunately will be fat)


there's not really a one size fits all thing. just try to build a reasonably healthy diet while trying to hit your protein (very important) fat (pretty important) and carb (yeah, kinda important) goals and you'll figure out what works for you along the way


https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/wiki/faq

you can have a glance through this too, will probably answer a few questions you didn't even know you had. don't stress about getting everything perfect from the get go. consume protein, consume calories. lift heavy things. that's about the long and the short of it.




oh and for future reference. http://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/impact-whey-protein/10530943.html quite a bit cheaper than the holland and barrett stuff.

Thanks thats an incredible amount of helpful information so thanks a lot. as for lifting weights. I bought a bullworker online and apparently its supposed to be really good have you ever had experience with one of these? My father owned one when I was a kid and so I thought about how big he used to be and thought I'd go for the bullworker as he explained to me once that is was the fastest way he knew of building muscle.

Ive also now hit the 30 mark and I'm beginning to get a bit of a belly on me is there a good cheap workout method that doesn't involve the gym that would tighten this up and create some muscle down there also? same for legs although I think the bullworker covers the legs too.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41EVTT0H24L.jpg

sorry for all the digressed questions I'm probably gettin on your nerves at this stage.

strelok

i dont know about the bullworker...

i dont want to say you wasted your money but eh.. it looks like every other weird fitness device you'd see at 4am on the high hundreds on sky digital. if it makes you work, i imagine you'll build some muscle with it.. at least for a time but i don't know how useful it's really going to be to you. i don't really know **** about **** though, so maybe it's actually great stuff.

if you want a gymless workout routine https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine this will do the trick

the only equipment you'll really need is a pull up bar and you can get them cheap enough on adverts/amazon/argos/wherever.



oh, and you can't spot reduce fat. the only way to reduce your belly fat is to reduce your fat overall, which you do by eating fewer calories than your body uses (your tdee again). you might get lucky and the bellyfat will be the first to go, but that almost never ever happens. typically where you first get fat is the last place for it to go away and men tend to carry it in their abdomen, where it does the most damage. because nature hates us.

vard

Unless you are unable to meet protein requirements, or you actually enjoy them for some reason, protein shakes are pointless and a waste of money. There's a lot of marketing nonsense spewed to make you believe otherwise, so it's understandable to be led astray, but they are just a supplement. As in "in addition to". It should be very easy to meet your protein requirements through food. There are various figures touted as to what's ideal. A gram per lb of body weight, .7 grams, etc. I get about 120 per day on average. Sometimes I'll hit 200, which is honestly more than ideal for my needs.

Make sure to get plenty of carbs too. Your muscles run on glycogen. If you want to strip fat, look at your calories. Calculate your TDEE. Eat a good variety of everything and just keep things in check.

As for protein, eat lots of eggs, meat, supplement with shakes/bars if needed - discover greek yogurt mixed with PB2.