Can Taking A Protein Powder WITH Meals Increases More Muscle Mass?

I found a study that was just published on the Interwebs that came to the conclusion that taking a protein powder with meals helps put on more muscle mass.  Not only that but you’ll lose fat as well.

effectsofprotein

Some people like to get real scientific and debate this and debate that, but if you want to get nitpicky you can debate the whole thing starting out with the protein powder that they actually drank!  I like to just theorize why this happened because its..well fun to think of different ways to increase muscle mass.

95% of the time I tell people to take protein powder between meals and post workout.  I do not think I have ever told someone to take protein powder with a meal, unless that meal lacked protein.  Therefore this study intrigued me because protein powder was consumed with the meal.

I theorize that this worked to build muscle mass better than protein in between meals for a few reasons.

A simple increase in calories usually means more muscle.  Over the years ANY time I increased my calories I gained muscle and strength.  Talk to any nutrition professor at any university and ask them how to gain weight and they will tell you the same thing.

Most of the time I recommend taking protein powders with carbs.  Hell, just today someone was texting me about cutting out carbs altogether and I told him that this was not really a good idea.  The body will simply just take the protein and use it in place of the carbs (layman slang).  When you supply your body with carbs and protein at the same time, I feel that protein consumed will help increase muscle protein synthesis.  In addition, carbohydrates have an impact on insulin, probably one of the most anabolic hormones in the body.  Therefore when you consume protein with carbs, you spike your insulin and therefore you give your body a better chance at being “anabolic”.  In addition, a simple addition of creatine monohydrate, like Creapure will help increase muscle mass as well as opposed to just taking creatine alone.

I also think this “worked” better in improving the participants’ physiques because the “quality” of the meal increased.  Without question, you eat higher quality food and you are going to feel and look better, with the addition of better-looking skin and more energy.  Dump all the krappy, artificial food out of your life and you’ll see an improvement in your physique.  Protein powders are nothing more than high-quality foods.  If you take the straight-up protein powder without all the junk, you have one fine quality food source.  I theorize that over the course of the study, the participants overall quality of their meals increased resulting in the improved muscle mass and lower body fat.

In conclusion, do I recommend taking a protein powder WITH your meals?  I’m sorry I just can’t recommend that, unless you seriously want to gain some weight.  However if you are a woman you may want to consider this as women tend to keep their calories really low for some reason.  If I was going to use one protein supplement so to speak, I would definitely use my leucine peptides.  You should know already that leucine is THE amino acid to help increase protein synthesis, and maybe adding this to your meals will help that cause.  Remember my leucine peptides is not a free form amino acids.  Technically it is a hydrolyzed whey protein that just so happens to be 50% Leucine.  Great stuff right here baby.  Use 2 tsp and spinkle it on your meatloaf!!! LOL. just kidding!  Find a better way to consume it…but hey if you want to spinkle it on your moms beautiful loaf of meat..be my guest!!