Episode 143: Is Protein Powder Good for You?

A question I get asked often is: "Is protein powder good for me?" 

Here's the answer.

Grab a copy of 8 Ways to Add Protein to Meals You're Already Eating right here: 8 Ways to Add Protein Guide

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www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong: 143: Is Protein Powder Good for You?

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Welcome back to the becoming mind strong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of mind strong, where for nearly a decade, we've been helping Perry and postmenopausal women not just lose weight, not just heal their metabolisms, but have the tools to do this for the rest of their life. As an educator, that's what I love doing, putting people in the driver's seat so they don't need us or anyone else. One of the questions that I get asked time and time again, especially Ignite, is our signature 12 week program, and we do what we call office hours, which means anyone in the community can get on Zoom, live with me. I love them, because it's a big smorgasbord of questions, and we do a big old Q and A all together. And one of the questions that, I guess, asked time and time again is this, Rachel, is protein powder good for me? And that's kind of that's more of a loaded question than you might suspect. So in today's episode, we're diving into the million dollar question, is protein powder, good for me. Check it out.

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Welcome to the becoming mind strong podcast, the official podcast of mind strong fitness. My name is Rachel, and I'm the CEO of mind strong and we are here for two things, we're here for hope in a stage of life where it feels like we are doing everything right and nothing

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is working. I am here

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to tell you you are not broken. This is fixable, and I

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promise there is hope. And number two, we are here for truth in an industry that is designed to keep us confused with shake systems and point systems and

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frozen meals. I promise you

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it doesn't have to be that difficult.

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Someone can teach you the skill of riding a bike, someone can teach you the skill of knitting, and I can teach you to master the skill of nutrition. So are you ready? Let's rock and roll. You

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you've been hanging around here listening to the podcast for a while, you know, I am not a big supplement person. I do not believe in blanket statements, like everybody needs this, nobody needs this, right? I believe in personalization. I believe that every human is different, and I believe in the definition of supplements. The definition of a supplement means to add to so again, if you've hung out here, you hear me use this analogy a million times, because it's one of my favorite. If you come to me and say, Rachel, I want to buy this house. Do I need a second job? Well, my answer is, hang tight. I have like 20 questions before I can answer that. How much do you make? How much does the house cost? How much you have in savings? How much debt do you have? I need to know where you are and where you need to be. Here's the whole point. So I can advise if you should supplement or add to your income. That's what a supplement is. It means to add to so when these these coaches out there, especially, I see these hormone coaches a lot, and they're like, just take these pills. Like, take these pills First, take these supplements first, and then address your nutrition. Pardon my French, but that is ass backwards, because nutrition alone will cure. I don't like the word cure, but will heal the vast majority of hormonal imbalances going on in any human's body, especially in menopause. And from there, once we've laid the foundation of nutrition, from there, if we want to do some deeper testing and say, oh, okay, here's where I am, here's where I need to be. Now if I'm going to supplement, if I'm going to add to I know why I'm supplementing. I know how much I need. I know how long I have to be on it. I know a game plan to get off of it. If we do a backwards and we just start popping pills and we haven't addressed nutrition, which is 90% of the game, we are playing darts with a blindfold on. We have no idea what the goal is. We're just mindlessly shooting away at it. So I say all that to say protein powder is also a supplement. The caveat with protein powder, however, is that, I mean, at this point, we've been doing this almost a decade. We've helped 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s of women. The vast majority. This part is not an exact stat, but I would venture to guess about 98% it is a large majority of women that we work with, about 98% are not getting nearly enough protein. So I will never tell someone you need to get a protein powder. We have lots of members who don't use protein powder, and it is the supplement that a lot of our members choose to use because, and here's the whole point. They know where their protein is right now, where it needs to be, and the ultimate goal is to get as close to that protein goal as possible eating whole foods, which is easier said than done. So for most people, a good protein powder is an easy way to supplement. Element to get us from where we are to where we need to be real quickly. If you need some help with protein, one of my favorite guides that I have out there is called eight ways to add protein to meals you're already eating, and it even includes a whole bunch of vegan and vegetarian options. You can go to mind strong fitness.com/protein,

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guide, or just use the link in the comments below to grab your copy. Now, let's get back to the episode. That's it. We're going to dig deeper in that. But that's the overarching why you would use a protein powder if you don't know how much protein you're currently eating, and you don't know how much protein your body currently needs, and I've got past episodes talking about both those things. We're playing darts with a blindfold on right drinking protein powder just certainly does not make you lose weight, and it's not Popeye spinach. It's not like we drink protein powder and good, good, suddenly our muscles pump up. The point of a protein powder is to supplement, to add to our protein intake. As you heard me say a second ago, the goal is to get as much protein and eating whole foods as possible. And for most of us, that's easier said than done, so a protein powder is a way to supplement. Now let's dig a little deeper. Because, again, if you've hung out here, you know, I do not like the words good, bad, allowed, not allowed. So when people tell me, is a protein powder good, my next question, and I'm not trying to be cheeky with this, is, what do you mean by good? Right? Define good? Here's what I here's my more technical definition of that. If we're defining good as a way to get in more protein without a lot of carbs and fat, then yes, a protein powder is fantastic. That's the point of a protein powder. Protein powder is a good protein powder because there's a lot of garbage on the market, a good protein powder will have a lot of protein, ideally anywhere from 20 to 30 grams per serving, with a minimal amount of carbs or fat. I don't like to see more than five grams of fat or carbs. Sometimes carbs can push up to maybe 10, but I don't even like saying that number. I want to see five grams or less of protein, five grams of less, oh, sorry, five grams only less of fat, five grams or less of carbs, and then 20 to 30 grams of protein. That's what I mean when I say a good protein powder. So is it a good source of protein without a lot of carbs or fat? Yes, a good protein powder is a great source of protein without a lot of carbs and fat. In my world, what in our world, the mind strong world, we use the words nutritious and less nutritious. And that, to me, is a very different conversation, right? If you look at the ingredients on protein powders, a lot of protein powders, we can't, we can't name half of those ingredients. I can't pronounce them because they're a processed food. Now, there's levels to that, right? If you get a really clean vegan protein powder, there's going to be a lot less ingredients, and there's going to be more ingredients that you can pronounce. If you get a fun Chips Ahoy flavored whey protein powder, there's going to be a lot more processed ingredients in there. That is a very different conversation. You can still find protein powders that are a fantastic source of protein and very processed. Now let's take it one step further. We know processed food is not great for us, right? Which is which is more nutritious? A salad or a Mickey D's burger, we know the answer to that because one is very processed and one is not. It's the same with protein powder, a very processed food with lots of ingredients we can't pronounce, is not the most nutritious thing for you. And some people are more okay with that than others. For me, in my cabinet, literally, right now, as I'm recording this, I have two different types of protein powder. I have a vegan protein powder that is super clean, very minimal ingredients, and it doesn't taste very good. I have a, I shouldn't say very good. It's fine. It tastes fine. And you'll see why I said that in a second. I have a Chips Ahoy protein powder that tastes like dessert. It is freaking delicious, and it's very processed. So on days where I need a little boost to get more protein in. Sure, I have a protein shake most days. Do I drink the super processed one every day? No, because it's not the most nutritious for me, so I'll change it up. I'll have the vegan one now and then, maybe I just add some fruit to it or something to make it taste better. So there's two separate conversations here, which is why you heard me say in the intro that it's a bit of a loaded question. If Question number one is a is a protein powder a good way to get more protein in? The answer is yes, as long as it's a solid protein powder, meaning 20 to 30 grams of protein per serving, under five grams of carbs and fat per serving. Yes, it's a great way to supplement to add to if you know where your protein is, where it needs to be, a solid protein powder is a great way to get protein in without a lot of carbs or fat. Is it good for you? Meaning nutritious? Well, number one, that depends on how regimented you are when it comes to nutritious. And number two, it depends on what kind of protein powder. As you heard me mention this in passing, but I'll reiterate it here. There are vegan protein powders that tend to be held to a higher quality standard. They're going to be less processed, less ingredients. It tends to be the whey protein. This is not a blanket statement. There's plenty of less processed whey proteins, but those more fun flavors, the Chips Ahoy and all that, those tend to be more processed. That part comes down to personal preference. Last thing I'll say is this, we have plenty of members who hit their protein goals without touching the stuff. We have lots of members who are who are vegan, who eat super clean, who don't like processed foods. You can absolutely hit your protein goal using whole foods alone. Is it harder? Absolutely? It means you're eating more throughout the day. It means you're eating more, either more meals throughout the day, bigger portions, or both. And for those of us who live off snacks, like you girl right here, that's tough for me to do. I just don't eat enough throughout the day. I don't eat large enough meals. So I'm someone who's comfortable supplementing, because I know it's an easy way to add more protein and get me closer to my goals.

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