Thursday, 16 December 2010

The why and when rules of protein

Protein is a very important nutrient whether your goal is to lose fat, gain muscle or just tone yourself up. It is the main structural nutrient in your body, is the building block of all of the body's muscles aside of water. Protein is essential for proper hormone function and immune system health. Most importantly, for our purposes, protein is used for building and repairing muscle tissue.

When you are trying to lose fat, you reduce your calories. Unfortunately, your body views fat stores as more precious than your muscle tissue and will tend to eat up muscle tissue before it goes to fat for energy. This physiological adaptation used to protect our ancestors from famine but works against us now.

Simply this means if you workout and replenish the energy you have used your body will start to break down your muscles for it. Needless to say your workout at this point has done more damage than good. You have probably heard that muscle tissue is a great calorie-burner. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you're doing absolutely nothing! Protecting your muscle tissue makes fat loss so much easier, it will amaze you. Not only that, it will help you keep that fat off permanently!

In order to protect you muscle tissue the first thing to do is to exercise and especially resistance training where you put your muscles under serious tension and this will signal the body that you need to keep this muscle. The second thing is to eat protein, either from real foods or from supplements. Always choose food as the first option!
But food isnt always around and that is when the supplements comes into the picture. Supplements is a great way to get high quality protein without excess calories.The most popular and highest quality protein is whey protein. Whey is very digestable and is used efficiently in the body.

The big question often is when should you take your protein supplement? I have made a list for when you should take it to get maximum effect.

  •  Immediately After A Workout 
This is the absolute best time to take it. Immediately after you finish your workout, your body needs raw materials to rebuild and recover with.

  •  An Hour After A Workout
About an hour following a workout, your body has settled down and is ready to start rebuilding. The protein that you took in immediately following the workout has been metabolized and your body is looking for more. Another protein shake or a meal at this time is a good way to help speed recovery.

  •  First Thing In The Morning
Immediately upon waking, or as soon after that as you can manage, take a scoop of protein powder. Your body has just been through an (approximately) 8 hour fast and is hungry for nutrients.
Protein powder is more quickly assimilated than solid food and gets into your muscles faster as the body breaks it down more quickly than natural food. Dont forget to eat breakfast though!

  • Last Thing At Night
Prepare your body for the long overnight fast by giving it a little something to work with. A good combination for this purpose is to mix a scoop of whey protein in with a small glass of milk.

  •  In-between Meals
A quick protein shake can be a great snack in between meals. It helps keep your body supplied with protein all day long. This is especially useful if you tend to have long periods of time in-between meals. It could mean the difference between losing muscle and building or keeping muscle!

Never drink a protein supplement immediately before working out!

Some people do this thinking that it will give them an energy boost or give them a head-start for post-workout recovery. Basically, all it does is sit in their stomach and bloat them up. Valuable blood that should be going to working muscles gets sent to the digestive system to try and digest it. The same warning goes for taking protein during a workout. Don't do it!

I hope this have opened your eyes for fact on how important protein is for our body and helped you to understand all the why, whats and when of protein.

If you still have any questions or thing that we missed to mention something please leave a message and we will come back to you.

3 kommentarer:

JS Grame-Smith said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

i used to take a protein shake about half hour bf work out! big oops! what should i be eating before a work out then to ensure i have the energy?

Train4Fitness said...

I say eating fresh fruit such as apples, watermelon, peaches, grapes, or oranges a hour to half a hour before workout is good! as it will give you the energy you will need. But again its all about your goal type. If your eating every 4-3 hours your energy level will be fine so I would not to stress about it to much. Just remember to take your protein and glucose after training! Hope this answer your question, if not email us at train4fitnessblogg@gmail.com with details on your training.

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