I eat about 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, or 175 grams per day. So to get this amount each day, protein powder has also become an important addition to my diet and meals.
I use protein powder in many ways in cooking, including making desserts, puddings, and shakes, and all of these are made with enough nutrient density to make them healthy as meals.
In light of how important protein is to me, my criteria for selecting the best protein powder is just as important, especially considering how many different ones are available. And of course, when you read the information about them, each one seems to be the best.
This also gets more confusing depending on your needs. If you are just looking for a supplement to use before or after lifting weights, then you may want to choose a different protein powder than you would if you were also very concerned about its nutritional properties.
As a weightlifting supplement, you can choose only whey as it is absorbed and used faster by the body. Additionally, you may want to include other ingredients that can further enhance your workout, such as additional branched-chain amino acids and creatine.
And you can miss some of what would be considered nutritional problems. For example, you might not care if it has artificial flavors and sweeteners, higher amounts of cholesterol, and sugars like maltodextrin or dextrose, not if it also has the highest grams of protein per serving, along with the extra ingredients you were looking for. .
choose my protein powder
For starters, there’s certainly no reason to think that selecting a protein powder based on nutritional criteria will make it any less effective in helping to build muscle from weight lifting.
And if I want BCAAs or creatine, I’d rather take it as a separate supplement. That way, I can choose the exact supplement and how much I want to take, instead of getting it as an extra ingredient.
I chose a slow-digesting protein blend that includes whey, rather than being 100% whey. This has been done for 4 main reasons:
- Studies have shown that it takes about 1.5 hours to absorb whey protein, and the amount in that time will be about 15 grams of protein. With a serving size of 24 grams, a large percentage of this may not be used by your muscles.
- In addition to being slower to digest, protein powder blends release over time and can more effectively support building lean muscle mass.
- The nutrient profile of the mixes can increase overall quality and efficacy. For example, the micellar casein included is a type I’ve heard referred to as the Rolls Royce of all proteins.
- Whey protein has a big impact on insulin and blood sugar, and remember that insulin is a hormone that can increase fat storage. Now, increased insulin release can be good after you exercise, because it will work to replenish muscle glycogen. But it can be a big problem at other times of the day: Whey protein has been shown to release more insulin than white bread.
In addition to choosing a time-release protein blend, I have other selection criteria that are very important from a nutritional standpoint, but will in no way diminish its muscle-building and anabolic benefits.
And just like comparing protein absorption rates between just whey and slow-digesting blends, the benefits actually increase – here are some additional key criteria you want to use when choosing your protein powder:
- 100% all-natural, with none of the commonly used artificial flavors or sweeteners
- Sourced from cows that have not been given hormones such as rBGH or rBST – check the label, this is important enough that it specifically states if it is free of these hormones.
- Relatively low carb, like maybe 4g net carbs, after subtracting fiber, to 24g protein
- Digestive enzymes are an additional ingredient that I want to include. Whey protein is hard to digest, and these enzymes will help with this so the body can use it better. The protein powder I use has a special blend of digestive enzymes that new research has shown to be 40 times more effective than enzymes in other powders.
