Picture this: You put all of your hard-earned supplement dollars into a nice little mound on your kitchen table. You divide it in two, and pocket half. Then, you pull out a lighter and torch the rest of the money! Sound crazy?
If you're relying on whey protein for your primary protein supplement, you may be burning over half of your hard-earned supplement dollars, not to mention sacrificing your precious muscle in the process!
That may not be what you want to hear, but you deserve straight talk, and that's what you can expect from me, Lee Labrada.
Let's Set the Record Straight on Whey, Time-released Proteins, and MRP's. Major supplement companies have pumped BIG dollars into elevating whey protein to near-sainthood status with their multi-page ads. Don't get me wrong: whey protein has its strengths. (In fact, my company makes an excellent whey protein called ProPleteÆ Gold) But whey protein is not the end-all it's cracked up to be, and that includes the new time-released wheys. You see, whey protein, like all other proteins, is broken down in the stomach into short protein chains called peptides, before being passed into the small intestine, where the peptides are absorbed. Whey protein is broken down very quickly, flooding your body with nitrogen-rich amino acids. That's exactly what you want if you have just finished working out and need fast muscle support to jump-start recovery.
At Meal Time or Snack Time You Are Best Served with a High Quality Protein Blend. Here's Why Your body can only use so much of the amino acid surge that follows the ingestion of whey. Once your body uses what whey amino acids it needs immediately, the unused portion is shuttled to the liver where it is converted to blood sugar by a process called gluconeogenesis. As much as 58% of whey is unused there goes over half of your protein supplement dollars!
What Could Happen Before Your Next Meal?
There's more. Because you're getting a big shot of amino acids up front, there may be no amino acids left over to nourish your muscles and keep you in positive nitrogen balance in the hours leading up to your next meal! Whey protein only lasts about 90 minutes in your system. This means that after your muscles get their initial fill of amino acids, you could go catabolic in the hours that follow. Catabolism, or muscle breakdown, may occur when there is an insufficient amino acid supply available. There's little else that will cause muscle wasting faster than a lack of amino acids. It's like putting a match to dry wood! Poof gone. All of your hard work in the gym is for nothing. See Why a Protein Blend is the Answer? What you need then is a protein source that is broken down and absorbed slowly. This type of protein source should provide amino acids to your muscles for hours, so your muscles don't starve in between meals. This way you're not sacrificing your hard-earned muscle!
Recently, some manufacturers have started adding glycerine to whey protein, claiming to slow down its absorption for hours, yielding a time released protein.
If that is true, then you can make the same claim for many protein bars! Popular protein bars typically contain several times the amount of glycerine found in a serving of these latest-fad whey powders.
The fact is that a protein blend consisting of multiple sources of protein is superior to any single-protein source, including whey, for sustained, time released nutritional support.
A protein blend can provide a staggered uptake, as the different proteins that comprise the blend are broken down and absorbed at different rates. High-quality milk protein isolates and casein are superior to whey, due to the fact that they are absorbed more slowly, while providing benefits that whey in and of itself simply can not provide.
What's in a Protein Blend?
Milk Protein Isolate (MPI) is made up of both whey protein and casein. It offers the best of both worlds and is actually a purer protein than whey protein isolate or ion exchanged whey protein in that it contains less lactose and ash. Lactose is the milk sugar that can cause intestinal distress in people lacking the enzyme lactase, which is necessary for its digestion.
Casein, the other milk protein, has been demonized by the sports supplement industry and is often thought to be inferior to whey protein since it has a much lower biological value (BV) than whey. Casein has a BV of 77, while whey protein concentrate scores in at about BV 104, with whey isolates scoring as high as BV 159. As far as bioavailability, there is no contestãwhey is king. However, many people don't know that casein has many unique functional properties and strengths that whey cannot match.
Additionally, casein is extremely high in the amino acid glutamine; in fact, casein is composed of 21% glutamine peptidesãmaking it a better source of glutamine than egg or even whey protein. Glutamine accounts for approx-imately 60% of all free amino acids in the body. Muscle cells are especially high in glutamine. Recent studies show that glutamine supplementation prevents muscle breakdown.
Research also shows that ingesting casein results in higher balances of the amino acid leucine seven hours after ingestion than whey protein alone. Leucine is essential for growth because it stimulates protein synthesis in muscle. Leucine also stabilizes blood sugar and can be metabolized to produce energy.
Enter in Lean BodyÆ MRP!
In my personal experience, nothing beats a good meal replacement powder (MRP) for sustained nutritional support for muscle.
Just as an aside, at least two major supplement companies have truly missed the boat by developing MRPs containing whey protein as their only protein source. In the typical me-too fashion of the sports supplement industry, these companies blindly jumped on the whey protein bandwagon without a thought to the application for which people want an MRP in the first place: a high-protein meal that provides sustained nutritional support. In 1996, the Labrada Research Group and I developed Lean BodyÆ Hi-Protein MRP packets to provide you, the athlete, with sustained, daily nutritional support. Lean BodyÆ is not for everyone. It is not the most inexpensive MRP on the market, but it provides the best value.
Here's why
Lean BodyÆ was field-tested before it was ever intro-duced into the market-place. Being a pro-fessional bodybuilder myself, it was important to me that Lean BodyÆ worked. So, I sponsored an eight-week, doctor-supervised study to prove it. In this study, participants using two packets of Lean BodyÆ per day in conjunction with their exercise regimen gained, on average, 6.5 lbs of lean body mass, and lost 14.4 lbs of body fat.5 Lean BodyÆ is a nutritional powerhouse containing 45 grams of fresh, high-quality Lean ProÆ protein blend which includes milk protein isolate, casein, and whey protein concentrates and isolates, providing an advanced, time-released protein matrix. You get both quickly absorbed, and slowly absorbed proteins! Additionally, Lean BodyÆ provides complex carbs, vitamins, and minerals. Lean BodyÆ is low in sugar, low in fat, and contains NO added salt, mono- and di-glycerides, or corn syrup solids, which are common ingredients found in other popular MRPs and used in coffee creamer. Surpised?
I made sure that Lean BodyÆ's formula is simply incredible, but I didn't stop there. After years of suffering through a bodybuilding diet of dry chicken breasts and baked potatoes, I wanted Lean BodyÆ to be the best tasting MRP ever made. Meal replacement drinks are your best friends when you must feed your body 5 to 6 times a day. A great tasting meal replacement breaks up the monotony of your diet. So when it came to delicious taste, Lean BodyÆ had to be the hands-down winner.
Lean BodyÆ was taste-tested under the independent supervision of a professor of Food Science at Texas A&M University. 611 college-aged student users of the athletic recreation center in College Station, Texas, took part in a blind taste test which compared the Vanilla flavors of Lean BodyÆ with the leading brand of MRPs. Of those who showed a clear preference for either product, 80% preferred Lean BodyÆ over the leading brand!
Quality & Taste Guaruntee
What's more, the American Culinary Institute has awarded Lean BodyÆ its Gold Medal Taste Award for five years in a row! Lean BodyÆ comes in 10 delicious, award-winning flavors. Best of all, you can TRUST Lean BodyÆ as the foundation of your daily supplementation and nutrition program.
That's because Labrada Nutrition lab tests every single shipment of Lean BodyÆ at an independent lab. I back Lean BodyÆ with my personal Quality Seal Guarantee, which you will find on all Labrada products: If it's on the label, it's in the product. That gives you peace of mind and your money's worth.
For more than 6 years, Lean BodyÆ has been field-tested, lab tested, and athlete tested. Award-winning Lean BodyÆ is tried and true, and is your dependable choice to meet your daily bodybuilding nutritional needs. So as I do: train hard, eat right and use delicious, easy-to-use Lean BodyÆ Meal Replacements twice a day. If you're like me, Lean BodyÆ will become a valuable tool for achieving a more muscular physique.
Get Your Lean BodyÆ Today!