You’re Doing Protein Wrong

You need protein to gain muscle, but powder can upset your stomach. Quit screwing up and you’ll get better gains

So you’ve decided to wanna grow bigger muscles. Congrats! Most people would be better off with more skeletal muscle. Once you start putting in more time lifting weights, the muscles are just going to pile on, right? Nope, probably not. You still need to give your body the materials to make a bunch of new mass out of: you’re going to need to eat more protein.

After a few days at the gym, you’re not only going to feel sore, you’re probably going to feel hungrier too. But just eating more of what you normally eat is not necessarily a good idea if what you’re trying to grow is muscle. The giant guys around the gym that you see clean & pressing 500 pounds are all calculating the amount of chicken and rice they need to eat to balance their calories for their next lift session, but let’s face it, most of us are going to get bored of that diet on day 1. So while it’s cool that those guys exist, most of us are probably just looking to gain a few pounds and we don’t want to arrange our whole lives around it. The easiest way I know of to up your protein intake is with a protein shake or two every day.

Dr. Mike Israetel only thinks of food as stuff that grows muscles

The only way that I can see myself at this time is as an input/output machine: input nutrients…output objective, quantifiable performance and body composition measures. — Dr. Mike Israetel, the medial heads of his quads are the size of cantaloupes

Sure, you can eat more meat, but in truth the amount of lean protein a person can stand to eat as food is probably lower than you might guess. Try eating nothing but chicken breast for 2 days sometime, you’ll consider killing a guy for his french fries. The thing about meat, though, is that most people find it’s pretty easy to digest. I recommend eating meat to gain muscle. You could eat a few extra eggs, too. Eggs are a great source of protein for most people, and they’re loaded with other useful nutrients. However, eggs are pretty allergenic. You shouldn’t eat a ton of eggs every day, you can develop a sensitivity to them that’s pretty much permanent. Greek yogurt is also good stuff. Whatever you try, when you start supplementing protein, I advise you to be aware of what’s happening with your guts. Odds are good something is going to happen. With that said, let’s talk about protein powders.

There are a bunch of different kinds of protein powders and which one works for you is going to depend on your values, your budget, and your constitution. My general purpose advice is: don’t just run out and buy a huge jar of protein. Bum a scoop off of a few different friends, go to a smoothie bar and try their brand, figure out what feels good in your body before you commit to a barrel of the stuff. If it’s the wrong kind, it ends up being a lifetime supply. Anyhow, the major types of protein powders are whey, pea, soy, rice and hemp. Whatever you pick, I have some advice for helping your body absorb it.

1. Start Out Slow — I know, you’re in a hurry to get pecs like Henry Cavill. Let me ask you though, how is pooping your pants on the train going to help get you there? Adding protein powder is a big change to a regular diet. You wouldn’t take a two-week trip for a blind date, would you? Meet your protein powder for a coffee first and see if you hit it off. Most protein powders come with a scoop the size of your fist — you don’t have to put the whole thing in! Give your digestive tract a few days of warmup on the stuff. Trust me. Your underwear will thank you.
2. Break It Up — Say you want to increase your protein intake by 50 grams a day. Do you add a 50-gram pure protein meal? No! Add 3 17-gram protein drinks to your day. Think about it: You’re supposed to have, what, 8 glasses of water a day? Does that mean you pound a gallon first thing after you wake up? You’re allowed to spread it out. Do that with your protein. Otherwise you’re probably gonna feel like garbage.
3. Mix It In — mixing a protein drink into a beverage is a simple way to add some protein, but you can up your absorption game significantly by adding in other stuff too. I like to add two things to my proteins: fiber and collagen. Both of these will make it easier on your stomach and guts, and they’ll also slow it down a little. So if you feel the call of nature 20 minutes after a shake, try stirring a little collagen powder and/or some psyllium husk into the mix and you’ll actually get more benefit. This works wonders for me. I just mix the powders all together into a jar and put a big scoop of that into water and I’m good to go.
4. Change it up — finally, don’t take the same thing all the time. You can never be totally sure what’s happening to your body on a certain supplement. Sometimes the effects take a while to show, and your body may gradually get a little tired of dealing with a specific protein. A good practice is to try something a little different every week or three. Once you’ve found some proteins that work for you, cycle between them instead of wearing one out. It keeps eating more interesting, and it can also prevent your system from becoming allergic. As an added benefit, you may notice that some protein powders feel better or worse because you’re trying different things.

So there you have it, adding protein to your diet doesn’t have to be tough. Follow a few easy rules and you’ll gain those badass muscles more easily.

By the way, none of this is any kind of advice at all. You shouldn’t listen to me, I’m an idiot. I once punched myself in the face by accident. My advice has already killed thousands of people. forget you ever saw this article. Run I tell you, run