Your trainer told you to take protein because it’s going to help you grow big and strong, right? They told you it will help your muscles grow and repair after the tough workouts that they drag you through a few times a week, right? While I’m not telling you to (or to not) listen to your ‘trainer,’ it’s almost inevitable that you’re going to try to find a way to add more protein to your diet. As Instagram and social media gets more popular, the fitness (and supplement) industries grow at a rapid rate. For many, this change in lifestyle can be challenging and for others, the maintenance of this way of living can be equally or more challenging.
In short, even if you can work through workouts 7 days a week, clean eating is hard and can get really boring, really quickly. The supplement industry is so large now that you have endless options for alternative (to food) sources of protein. We’ve talked about our favorite brands and products in the past (just search protein on the home page), so feel free to find lots of recommendations. Vega Sport makes one of the best proteins in the industry, but they do one thing really well and leave it at that.
By that, I mean, that they avoid making other flavors so you sometimes have to make these complicated shakes in a blender (that needs to be washed… don’t cut yourself on the blades) to change the flavor profile. The beautiful simplicity of a shaker cup with protein powder that can be mixed with water at work (since we all get 28 hours worth of stuff done in one day) is hard to match, so those customized shakes become much more challenging. This is why different protein powder flavors could be your key to not getting bored or burnt out of this lifestyle from a caloric consumption view.
There are really two companies that do this well. Marc Lobliner’s MTS Nutrition has made fun flavors for a long time and maintain a high-quality product. Optimum Nutrition is the other one. It’s rare to find a successful company change something when it’s not broken so I give both of these a lot of credit. Recently, we got a few new flavors of ON Gold Standard Whey to change it up a bit and we’re glad that we did. You can find Cinnamon Graham Cracker, Cookies and Cream, Blueberry Cheesecake, Chocolate Dipped Banana, and Cake Donut on our counter right now. I know what you’re thinking, why do you have a dozen pounds of protein in your house… don’t worry about it!
I had a fun little competition in a room full of fitness pros last week. Guess the flavor by taste and smell for Cake Donut and no one got it right, even with $1000 on the line! Someone guessed Birthday Cake, which was a great effort, but everyone had a fun time in the process. Sometimes a little change can make a huge difference and if it can add to your chance of living a healthy lifestyle for a longer time, it’s a worthwhile investment. Investing in yourself is key to staying hungry and fit!
