Monday, February 9, 2009

Are protein shakes the only way to grow muscle?

By Jon Cardozo

It can be difficult at times to stick to your muscle building routine. One of the classic examples of this can be found in your kitchen. Protein shakes can become pretty old after a while. Your taste buds are probably asking for some new excitement in their lives!

Of course, you can add a little zest to your protein shakes by including some other ingredients like nuts, fruits, or peanut butter. If you're careful about not overdoing the sugar, you can even add some chocolate or other kind of flavoring. There's also another option, though, that you may have not considered. How about getting rid of your protein shakes all together!

Protein shakes are convenient, but most of your food should be coming from good old fashioned whole foods. You need to make sure that you're getting plenty of essential nutrients in your diet, and these are often missing from your standard protein shake. You know why protein supplements were invented in the first place?

OK, they were made to make money, but besides that they help to fill in gaps when we can't get enough protein from other sources. Most of our protein sources are less convenient for our busy lifestyles. We can't always drive around with chicken, milk, tuna, or almond butter (trust me when I say that all you'll get is a dirty shirt and a bunch of laughing coworkers).

Still, it's unhealthy to drink nothing but protein shakes all day. Furthermore, it's not really necessary to drink any protein drinks, otherwise known as liquid meals, at all. It is possible, though it may be difficult, to get all of you required protein and calories from your meals.

In my article "The funny pitfall of protein shakes and weight gain," I told the story of my friend who tried to gain weight with protein shakes alone. In all his excitement, my friend failed to add a tiny, minuscule, trivial little ingredient - resistance exercise.

You should know this by now, but it never hurts to repeat fundamentals. You simply will not gain muscle if you don't stimulate the muscle with weights. Your body won't get stronger just because you gulp down a bunch of protein without doing the exercises.

Always remember that the core concepts of building muscle involve strength training exercises and proper weight gaining diet. No supplement, even a protein shake, can replace the fundamentals. - 15683

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