Protein Shakes are an Excellent Health Food

Bodybuilders aren't the only people who drink protein shakes every day. In fact, protein shakes make an excellent health food - great tasting, convenient, portable, and highly nutritious. Whether your goals are to lose weight, build muscle, or just improve your overall health, incorporating protein shakes into your daily meals can be a great way to reach your goals.

If you haven't already guessed by now, protein shakes do more than just aid bodybuilders pack on muscle tissue. For everybody (not only bodybuilders & athletes), a good protein shake can help you:

- increase energy levels

- increase your lean muscle mass (It doesn't matter if you're male or female - this is always a good thing!)

- enhance your immune system

- promote healing/recovery

- boost metabolism (which in turn, burns fat quicker)

- reduce appetite and food cravings (protein digests slower than carbohydrates)

- increase your heart health

- lower cholesterol and blood pressure

Unfortunately, choosing a great tasting and high quality protein powder is not easy. Make the wrong choice and you'll be stuck with having to drink shakes that taste like chalk (not that i've tasted chalk).

Not only that, protein powders can be really expensive when compared to the tin of MILO or Horlicks or packet of Milk you're so used to buying.

Some brands have recipes that are geared towards taste, and not nutrition and are loaded with sugar — often 30 grams or more — and frequently have no more than 10 or 15 grams of protein. Thats the nutritional profile of a milk shake not a protein shake!

So, to do everyone a favour, I'm going to do the choosing for you.

Now, I've tried all flavours from EAS Myoplex, Designer Protein, GNC's Pro Performance Range, Weider's Muscle Builder, Horley's and Optimum Nutrition's 100% Whey. So trust me when I say that I've tasted all sorts of protein powders out there to have learnt that sometimes, flavours like 'Vanilla Ice-cream' actually means 'leftover Vanilla pudding from last week's bachelor party'.

Taking into consideration the quality, results, taste, price, recommendations from others, I strongly suggest Optimum Nutrition's 100% Whey Protein. If you're a Chocolate lover, try mixing 1 scoop of powder with a glass of milk. The taste alone would blow you away - believe me. If you think you can find a better tasting protein powder with a higher protein content, less sugar, etc, all at a great price - dont bother. Trust me. There just isnt anything better you can get at this price. It is 100% value for money. I practically stopped trying new protein powders the moment I tried this. This is my protein powder of choice and I've been consuming this for the past 2 years at least. And I also know of many others who have done the same.

Josh Stone, also known as DM, is the author behind the site http://www.dailymuscle.com which offers the author's personal views on real-life fitness, bodybuilding, sports nutrition, cardio, fat loss, training information, and on all things that surrounds fitness.

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