In daily life, I believe many people have heard the saying “eat protein powder to build muscle”. Perhaps you have seen friends around the use of protein powder as an auxiliary tool for fitness and muscle gain, but also have moved the idea of eating protein powder. But there’s always a question: Do protein powders really work to build muscle? Is the harm of online consumption of protein powder real? Should I eat protein powder during the workout? Don’t worry, let’s take a closer look at what opal is!

Protein powder, generally using purified soy protein, casein, whey protein, pea protein or by the combination of several proteins made of powder. Simply put, protein powder is a concentrated supplement of high quality protein, which is a quick way to get protein into the body. As one of the three major macronutrient elements required by human body, protein has important functions of promoting human metabolism, cell growth, maintenance and repair of the body. Therefore, the intake of protein powder also has a greater effect on the human body.

Therefore, in order to repair the various levels of muscle damage caused by high intensity and frequency exercise training during fitness, when protein degradation in the muscle increases, we need to consume additional protein. The protein added after exercise can increase the protein synthesis of our body after entering the body, and play its function in repairing muscle damage. It can effectively promote the synthesis of protein in muscle tissue, make muscle recover and grow, and play a key role in increasing muscle and preventing muscle loss. But it’s important to note that if you don’t exercise and simply take a lot of protein, you won’t be able to get the muscle to make protein. So, from this point of view, eating protein powder to build muscle is a certain scientific basis. Do you have to eat protein powder to work out? Now that the benefits of protein powder are real, is it possible to increase protein intake entirely by protein powder?

Of course not. The need for protein powder does not depend on whether you are working out or not, and it does not mean that you should eat protein powder just because you want to gain muscle and lose fat. After all, protein powders don’t immediately make your muscles bigger or your fat disappear. At the same time, although the protein powder has the advantages of rapid protein supplement, convenient and simple, fast absorption and other intake advantages, but because the protein powder lacks other trace elements contained in protein food, the nutritional value is too single. Therefore, I still recommend that you eat high quality protein foods as the main way of protein intake, such as fish, meat, eggs, milk, beans, it is better to use protein powder as a deficiency supplement or emergency supplement.

Hearing this, many listeners may have understood that eating protein powder in the end comes down to the relationship between fitness and nutrition. Whether to eat protein powder or not depends mainly on whether the amount of protein consumed by the body through the diet meets the body’s needs during fitness. So how do you know how much protein you should be eating?

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends 0.8 g/kg of protein per day for healthy adults, and the Chinese Nutrition Society recommends 1.2 g/kg of protein per day for healthy adults. In other words, 0.8 to 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is sufficient for people who do not exercise regularly. In other words, if you weigh 60 kilograms, you should eat between 48 grams and 72 grams of protein a day, which is enough to maintain the normal functioning of the body. But for fitness buffs, the need for protein doubles, ranging from 1.6 grams to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, to a maximum of 2.0 grams per kilogram. At this point, some listeners may wonder why there is an upper limit for protein intake. Isn’t eating more protein good for your body?

Note here! Protein is not the more the better, if the intake of protein content more than the body needs, these proteins need to be broken down by the liver, kidney excretion, for liver and kidney function is not good friends, will increase their liver and kidney burden. At the same time, there are many fitness enthusiasts who are happy to reduce sugar and increase protein intake during exercise to achieve rapid muscle gain. Although this practice will have obvious physical effect in a short time, it is not scientific. Because the main nutrient for our body is sugar, 55~65% of the energy consumed by normal people every day comes from sugar, reducing the intake of sugar will lead to lack of energy in the process of body fitness, appear weak and weak.

Since neither too much protein nor too little protein is good for you, how do you know how much protein you’re eating? What kind of protein is better for you?

First, we need to know which foods contain the proteins our bodies need. In our daily diet, in addition to some vegetables and fruits protein content is low, other foods contain a lot of protein. For example: milk, eggs, meat, fish and shrimp, soy and soy products, they are not low in protein. When calculating our daily protein intake, we should include all the foods we eat that day.

Then, we should ensure that we consume enough animal food protein every day. This is because the type and proportion of amino acids of animal food protein are closer to the amino acid pattern of human protein than other foods, that is, the so-called high quality protein, which can be absorbed and utilized by the human body more quickly after intake.

Finally, it’s time for protein or protein powder intake. For people who work out, there’s a golden 30 minutes, which means we should start eating a lot of protein around 30 minutes after working out. If the intake time is too early, our body is still in the early stage of exercise recovery, the body blood is mostly in our skeletal muscle, the intake of food at this time leads to our gastrointestinal digestive absorption function is poor, protein can not be fully absorbed and utilized; If it is taken too late, it will lead to a low utilization of protein. Generally, protein is broken down in fitness exercise, and the end of exercise is the golden time for protein synthesis. At this time, the raw materials for muscle recovery and protein supplement are very timely.

Hope the reader friends in the future fitness days can achieve better fitness results through diet collocation.