Benefits of Drinking Protein Smoothies

Protein smoothies have many benefits for your health and performance. However, it's necessary to select quality products to make sure you'll be getting the most out of them.

Drinking protein smoothies has many health benefits. Despite the bad reputation they endured from previous decades, we’re actually talking about healthy products, generally of high quality. You can make protein smoothies using whey powder as a nutritious base. Why not use them to complement a balanced diet?

Before getting started, we’d like to point out that there are significant differences between the various protein supplements you’ll find on the market. If they’re available, it’s best if you purchase whey concentrate-based products since the nutrient concentration will be higher.

Main benefits of drinking protein smoothies

Let’s start by taking a look at some of the principal benefits you can get from drinking protein smoothies, as well as the scientific evidence.

Improves body composition

Protein is closely linked to your body’s lean muscle health since it helps to repair muscles and is responsible in part for the growth of new muscle tissue. According to an investigation published in Nutrition Reviews, consuming high levels of proteins aids in improving body composition, or the ratio between fat and muscle.

This is due to two main processes. Firstly, during low-calorie diets, protein helps to retain lean muscle mass and avoid catabolism (breaking down molecules). And secondly, if you have a high intake of protein and add to that an increase in exercise, it helps you to build muscle.

Reduces the risk of muscle-related disorders

Drinking protein smoothies doesn’t just improve your body composition, but also the health of your muscles. Various lines of evidence confirm that increasing your high-quality protein intake can significantly reduce the risk of developing sarcopenia during old age. This is what a study published in BioMed Research International indicates.

Sarcopenia is a disorder that appears in older adults. It means a significant loss of strength and muscle mass over time. This is very limiting (and potentially disabling) from a functional point of view. The two keys for prevention are an adequate diet and sufficient physical exercise.

Improves recovery time

When you do physical exercise, many of your body’s tissues go through a process of wear and tear. Then afterward, a series of mechanisms begin to work at adapting and compensating within your tissues, which repair the muscles and make them stronger for the next time.

However, for these processes to work, you need certain nutrients in your body. One of the most important nutrients is protein since it’s involved in lean tissue’s recovery.

With that in mind, drinking protein smoothies before or after physical activity helps you to reduce your body’s recovery time and improve the efficiency of these repairing processes. This also has other positive effects on your body, such as reducing the risk of developing muscle injuries.

How to choose a good protein smoothie

You’ve probably noticed that there’s a huge range of different supplements and proteins on the market. Have you got doubts as to which are your best options? Well, here’s one tip. For higher quality vs price, products with a whey protein base are an excellent option.

Among these products, whey concentrates are recommended because they’re higher in protein and lower in sugars such as lactose. But that’s not the only thing you should know.

You should also check to make sure the product doesn’t contain added sugar to improve the flavor if it’s a flavored product. At the same time, watch out for sweeteners. It’s a good idea to avoid products that include aspartame. You could opt for a protein powder that has stevia as a sweetener, for instance.

Drinking protein smoothies can be healthy, but don’t go overboard

It’s essential to make sure your daily diet is covering your protein needs. That way, you’ll help to reduce your risk of developing disorders related to your lean tissue over the medium and long term.

However, protein smoothies definitely can’t replace a balanced and varied diet. They’re simply a useful complement to cover extra needs you might have from physical exercise or other circumstances.

Of course, as we’ve seen, you have to know how to choose a good quality product. That way you’ll maximize the benefits and avoid any possible negative effects from harmful additives.