A lot of people who are fitness-minded love protein shakes. They’re a good way to help stock up on the proteins you need to build muscle, after all! However, some people like to use protein shakes as meal replacements in order to love weight.
Can protein shakes help you lose weight? Let’s look at the facts.
Protein Shakes and Weight Loss
Meal Replacement
Replacing a meal with a protein shake isn’t a surefire way to lose weight. When people are losing weight with protein shakes as part of their diet, there are likely a few things at play. Firstly, if you replace a meal with a protein shake, you’re taking in less calories that day. Well, assuming you’re otherwise eating healthy.
Secondly, replacing a meal with a protein shake does you no good if you don’t follow that up with exercise.
Simply intaking less calories won’t get you meaningful results when you’re looking at nutrition. You’ve got to go back to solid food eventually, and when you do, you have to make sound nutrition choices in order to keep the weight off.
Overdoing It
Keep in mind that you need around 46 to 56 grams of protein per day. If you’re eating a healthy diet, you’re already getting that many grams, and you’re likely doing just fine. Adding more protein on top of that isn’t going to get you any different results from dieting or exercise.
Further, keep in mind that adding protein shakes to your normal diet might actually have the reverse effect of what you were planning. That’s because protein shakes contain calories fitting of a meal replacement. If you’re not using them to replace a meal, then you’re just taking in more calories, full stop.
How to Use Them
If you want results in weight loss involving protein shakes, here’s our advice. Get a steady workout regiment going, and only use protein shakes as a meal replacement on the days you exercise. Otherwise, eat a normal healthy diet that gets you the right nutrition.
One of the best ways to keep yourself in good shape and keep the weight off is to exercise regularly. There are no magic answers when it comes to health and fitness. Anything worth having is going to come as a result of hard work. That includes a proper diet, regular exercise and responsible use of meal replacements.
Hopefully, this helps you when considering what role protein shakes should play in your diet!