Protein shakes have become increasingly popular these days, and rightfully so. Are you looking to step up your work-out game, but not sure how? Maybe you’re trying to gain more lean muscle in your body. Or perhaps just trying to find how else you can possibly speed up your injury recovery. One of the answers that is often missed but always essential is nutrition. A protein shake may be an easy way to accomplish many of these goals for a healthier lifestyle.
Fuel for Your Body
Our bodies require a certain amount of nutrient intake for healthy living and sustaining basic daily functions. Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) are guidelines for optimal consumption of certain vitamins, water, and macronutrients such as protein. Certain amounts of protein are recommended based on one’s size, energy expenditure, and activity levels. Protein shakes is an easy way to help meet those goals.
Increase Muscle Mass and Strength
Combining exercise with the right amount of protein intake can have a myriad of benefits for your body. Research supports that protein shakes may enhance muscle hypertrophy as well as enhance muscle strength. When an individual is the intensity of strength and resistance training, protein supplementation may help to increase power.
Recovery After Exercise
Research supports that combining consumption of a protein shake with exercise may positively influence the recovery process after exercise. Whether it be short-term or long-term, weight lifting or endurance exercise (biking, swimming, etc.), protein shakes may help facilitate muscle recovery after exercise.
Recovery After Injury
Life happens, and with that comes bruises, strains, sprains, and sometimes more. You can take many steps in your recovery including comprehensive medical rehabilitation and exercise. But when you are recovering, you want to do all that you can to make sure you are supporting your recovery process. Protein shakes can provide the support re-building of soft-tissues and can also help control the inflammation response.
Muscle Loss Prevention Associated with Aging
Natural, normal anatomy dictates that in around the third decade of life, there is a gradual decline in muscle mass, with a significant increase over the decades. The good news is you are able to combat these changes with diet and exercise! Muscle mass and strength can decline over the years, but it’s never too early to start or too late to ramp up your diet to help counter this. Protein shakes can be a good source of protein to enhance muscle health.
Add Healthy Ingredients to Your Diet
There are a lot of products out there that use false claims of “natural” ingredients. Always read your labels to make sure you really are getting the organic ingredients your body deserves. That goes for protein shakes as well, as not all are created equal. Because if you can find a protein shake that has honest, organic ingredients, it can augment your body’s health and recovery. Even help combat cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer.
Keeps You Fuller, Longer
After exercise, your caloric expenditure can often result in caloric consumption. If you went from not working out to working out six days a week, you would suddenly find your body craving fuel for all that energy expenditure. After all that work, you do not want to fill your days and yourself with empty calories. Research supports that higher protein intake may actually lead to higher sensations of fullness.
Shake it off, or should you say, shake it up! You may have a lot of personal health goals in your life, throughout your life. Get stronger, eat cleaner, stay healthier, age gracefully. Though just drinking a protein shake will not necessarily get you all of those things, it is a really great building block to give you the support you need to make the most out of what you do every day. Because face it, you work hard and you deserve every opportunity to make the most out of what you do for yourself.