Fitness & Health Notes

I had been disillusioned from my days when I worked at GNC in the first couple years of the 21st century. GNC employees received a 40% discount off even sale items. This made protein very cheap and economical for me.

For years I have been huge on people taking protein powder. Depending on your goals, you may still want to fork out the money for protein powder.

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THE PURPOSE OF PROTEIN POWDER CONSUMPTION

Basically, protein powders function as a substitute for real food. This is good for several reasons:

a) By consuming protein powders, you eliminate the fats and extra carbohydrates that you would otherwise receive from eating an equivalent amount of protein in foods like steaks, hamburgers, or peanut butter (among others).

b) It is much easier to add water to powder than it is to cook a full meal (I hate to cook! George Foreman [grill] is a good friend of mine because it makes cooking easy!)

c) It is much quicker to throw together a protein shake than it is to prepare a meal, eat it, and clean up afterwards.

d) You can take a protein shake with you to the gym, and drink it immediately after your workout. This is good because directly after your workout is when your body is most susceptible to utilizing protein. In other words, your body can use the protein for rebuilding muscle most efficiently directly after a workout.

However, there are several things you should know:

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THE TRUTH ABOUT PROTEIN POWDER

a) If you think you are saving money by buying protein powder, you are sadly mistaken - you have become yet another victim of persuasive and misleading marketing.
b) You are not saving any money at all! Actually, I have discovered that 4 oz of chicken breast is not only equivalent in amount of protein to a typical protein shake, but it has many overriding benefits:

i) It is less expensive!

ii) It helps to build muscle more effectively!

iii) It tastes far better! (I love chicken)

iv) It leaves you feeling full and satisfied!

v) There are zero additives and fillers! (It’s just chicken!)

vi) That’s one less meal to cook! (You could even cook in bulk and microwave it!)

vii) A boneless skinless chicken breast has little to no fat anyways!

viii) You can add seasonings!

x) You can add variety!

xi) Did I mention it’s cheaper than protein powder!

xii) Oh, one more thing is that your roommate can’t steal your protein powder anymore! (You won’t have any for him to steal - all your protein will be in the form of chicken in your freezer! No more getting pissed at your roommate, and if you catch him stealing your chicken, just go kick his ass! It’s easy to notice if a piece of chicken is missing but impossible to monitor protein powder!)

With all this in mind, it only makes sense to just get some boneless, skinless chicken breast from Costco or Giant (when it’s on sale at Giant) for $1.99/lb!

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THE MATH

What triggered my decision is when I actually took the time to do the math. Here’s what I got:

Cheapest [good tasting] Protein Powder: SciFit Econo Whey

PRICE: $34.99

SERVINGS: 80

PROTEIN PER SERVING: 18 grams [used to be 24!]

GRAMS OF PROTEIN IN BOTTLE: 18 [grams] x 80 [servings] =  1440

PRICE PER GRAM: $34.99 [price] / 1440 [grams in bottle] = $0.02(429861) [per gram of protein]

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Giant or Costco Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast

PRICE: $1.99/lb (pound, 16 oz)

SERVINGS: 15.075(37688442211) [servings for a package that costs $7.50 @ $1.99/lb]

MATH TO FIND SERVING SIZE:

Step 1.   $7.50 [total price]/$1.99 [per pound] = 3.76(8844221105528) [total pounds in package]

Step 2.   16oz [ounces in a pound] / 4oz [serving size for 23 grams of protein] = 4 [servings per pound]

Step 3.    3.76(8844221105528) [total pounds in package] x 4 [servings per pound] = 15.075(37688442211) [servings for a package that costs $7.50 @ $1.99/lb]

PROTEIN PER SERVING: 23 grams

GRAMS OF PROTEIN IN PACKAGE: 23 [grams] x  15.075(37688442211) [servings for a package that costs $7.50 @ $1.99/lb] = 346.733(6683417085) [grams of protein for a package that costs $7.50 @ $1.99/lb]

PRICE PER GRAM: $7.50 [price for package] / 346.733(6683417085) [grams in package] = $0.02(16304347826087) [per gram of protein]

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This proves that even the absolute cheapest protein is more expensive than good quality chicken! To give some perspective, 80 servings of 18 grams of protein in the form of chicken (the same amount of servings and grams of protein that is in the cheapest good tasting protein out there) will cost:

18 [grams] x 80 [servings] =  1440 [grams of protein in a bottle of the cheapest good tasting powder]

$0.02(16304347826087) [per gram of protein from a chicken breast]

x   1440 [grams of protein in a bottle of the cheapest good tasting powder]

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$31.14(782608695652)

as compared to the $34.99 of SciFit Econo Whey, which is the cheapest good tasting protein.

If you take an average costing protein, or an expensive protein powder, the difference in price is exponential!

Protein powders are not as effective as meat, no matter how many things they add in there. If you want better protein absorption, then add some other supplements like Glutamine (which enhanges recovery) or Leucine (a BCAA that has many great benefits to exercise).

IN CONCLUSION
You see, the problem here is that the protein manufacturing companies know how well their marketing has hypnotized the general public, and because of this, they have steadily raised the prices over the years, and steadily decreased the amount of protein per serving (another way to raise prices).

As a result, unbeknownst to me, even the most economical protein powders have slipped past the price of good, solid food. This means I have been wasting money on protein powder when I could have been spending the money on chicken instead! I’d love to eat chicken 2-3 times per day - now I can afford it!

Since I am now making the transition of investing the money that was previously spent on protein powder, into real food like chicken and milk, I am considering buying a bigger George Foreman Grill so I can cook in bulk faster. Right now my smaller model only makes 2 at a time.

The awesome thing about the George Foreman Grill is all I have to do is plug it in, wait 5 minutes and do some homework or something, then stick on the chicken (or hamburgers), close the top and go back to homework or whatever (TV anyone?), set the timer for 9 minutes, and come back and I have a meal that tastes better than if I had cooked it myself in the oven. There’s like no work involved except cleaning it. That only take about 5 minutes to do. Get a wet paper towel and stick it on there right after you unplug it. Close the lid and a couple minutes later just wipe it off. That effectively "steam cleans" it.

Then I have a ton of Tupperware and I just shove ten extra pieces I made for the week in the fridge. Heat it up in the microwave when I come back from my workout. Meal and all is done and I’m happy and full, and back to homework. The life of a college student lol.

I hope this review of protein powders helped a lot of people. Hopefully you can now make a more educated decision when decided whether or not to fork out $80 for that top-notch protein powder!

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