Protein seems to be a very poorly understood topic. I could write for days about this, but today’s post is limited to one critical message:

Contrary to popular belief, protein supplements are for weight GAIN, not weight loss.

If you are hoping to lose weight, or just maintain a healthy weight, you probably shouldn’t be taking in protein powder supplements nor protein shakes or bars.

While protein shakes and bars have been marketed as diet foods, they are actually not good tools at all for people who are watching their calories. If that’s you, you should be choosing foods that are low in calories but high in volume. Bars and shakes are the opposite: they pack in a lot of calories within a very small volume. For this reason, protein bars were originally developed as meal replacements, and they should stay that way. These products don’t make you feel full, plus they often have too much sugar in them.

So if you’re trying to lose fat but gain muscle at the same time, should you be taking protein supplements?

NO! Even if you are doing resistance training (like a barre workout), protein supplements are only needed if you can’t get in enough calories in order to GAIN mass. If you have a little extra fat to spare, those reserves will burn down so your muscles have fuel to tone up.

Even if you did need more calories to tone up, they don’t all need to come from protein. At the end of the day, in order to increase muscle, your body just needs enough fuel (calories) to make that happen, and those calories can come in the form of fat, carbohydrates or protein.

Moral of the story: Eating more protein does not equal having a muscular physique!

ps. If you’re someone who eats a limited diet, making it hard to meet your daily protein recommendation, then this post isn’t for you. Keep on takin’ your protein supplements if that’s what you need to do.

Now I want to hear from you. Does this surprise you? Have you taken protein supplements and experienced difficulty getting the physique you want? Let us know in the comments below.