Muscle Evolved

Is It Bad to Only Drink Protein Shakes Every Day?

By Zac Hyde · · Updated

Contents

As a strength training beginner, you will hear all about the benefits of protein shakes. After all, it is the easiest way to supply your body with the necessary amino acids for muscle hypertrophy.

However, the frequency of taking these shakes is often a topic of controversy. One coach will tell you to take them before exercising, whereas another recommends post-workout protein shakes. Moreover, some people take this one step further and only drink protein shakes on a daily basis.

In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about the frequency of drinking protein shakes.

How protein shakes help your body

Research about the optimal time and frequency of taking protein shakes is mixed.

In fact, some studies even questioned the real benefits of drinking protein shakes around the time of your workout.

For completeness’ sake, a few clinical studies showed some benefits of taking protein shakes during the pre or post-workout periods. However, others did not reach the same conclusions.

To put an end to this discussion, researchers analyzed 23 studies that covered the effects of consuming protein around the time of exercise.

The results were surprising! Once the researchers accounted for total protein intake, the timing of protein had no significant effect on muscle growth or strength.

Instead, the strongest predictor of muscle growth was the amount of protein intake per day. In other words, the primary factor that determines muscle hypertrophy (besides exercise) is the overall intake of protein.

For this reason, a daily protein shake is fine for most healthy people, as long as your total intake stays in a sensible range. For people who exercise, that is about 1.4 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day.

Living on shakes alone is a different story. A shake is a supplement, not a full meal, and it lacks the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that whole foods provide.

However, excluding protein-rich foods means you will be missing out on a lot of benefits, including:

  1. Hormonal regulation

When your body has appropriate levels of protein, fullness hormones such as GLP-1, peptide YY, and cholecystokinin tend to rise, while the hunger hormone ghrelin tends to drop.

That helps explain why higher-protein meals keep you fuller and can make it easier to eat less.

  1. The high thermic effect

Your body uses more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs or fat.

The effect is modest, but it means a slightly larger share of protein calories gets burned off during digestion.

  1. Prevention of metabolic slowdown

The slowdown of basal metabolic rate (BMR) is a normal process that occurs as we age.

Fortunately, protein will stimulate the right metabolic cascades that help preserve muscle, and muscle is a big part of what keeps your metabolic rate up as you age.

  1. No more late-night cravings

In one study, researchers put 27 overweight or obese men on a reduced-calorie diet with either normal protein (14% of calories) or higher protein (25% of calories) for 12 weeks.

The higher-protein group felt fuller through the day. Their late-night desire to eat was about half that of the normal-protein group.

Note that 25% of calories from protein is well within the normal recommended range.

Takeaway message

Drinking a protein shake every day while respecting the recommended amount is probably safe. Replacing all your meals with shakes is not a good idea, because you will miss out on the fiber and nutrients that come from whole, protein-rich foods.

Hopefully, we managed to answer the questions you had about the frequency and safety of drinking protein shakes.

If you have a personal experience with protein shakes that you want to share, please do not hesitate to do so in the comment section below.

Sources

More in Diet