mrmusclepants’s BodyBlog

If you workout even once a week, chances are you want to increase muscle tone while decreasing bodyfat, right? Casein protein is the key to reaching those goals. Casein protein is the most unknown, unheard of, and least utilized weapon in someone’s fitness arsenal, yet it is the ONLY protein that does exactly what everyone that works out is searching for:maintaining muscle mass while decreasing bodyfat. Now a little info and background…

If you think you’ve never heard of casein protein, think again. Does the rhyme, "little miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey" ring any bells. Whey is obviously whey protein, but the "curds" are casein proteins that have coagulated, or formed a food clot.

Casein and whey are the two protein components that make up the much larger and synergistically more efficient milk protein. Whey is the liquid milk protein which makes up about 20% of total milk protein, while casein is the solid milk protein that accounts for the other 80%. When cheese manufacturers produce their products they separate and extract nearly all liquid whey protein(this is then sold to supplement companies or used in other "cheese product"), leaving only solid casein as the protein source in cheese. Interesting stuff, right?

Now pay very close attention and take it all in…

Everybody and their mother has HEARD of whey protein, but before you read this blog did you KNOW that whey was a liquid milk protein?  An even better question is, until you started reading this blog had you ever even HEARD of casein protein?… I didn’t think so. The fact that nobody has even HEARD of casein is an absolute shame, since it is undisputibly the best protein for maintaining muscle mass. Now to elaborate on why I said maintain instead of build.

Whey is great at BUILDING muscle, but what happens to that muscle once you’ve built it? Your body uses mainly carbohydrates and fat as it’s energy sources, but it also uses protein for energy. Granted it’s a very small proportion compared to carbs and fat, but why make your body breakdown the muscle you’ve worked so hard to build when you can give it another protein source to pull from instead?

Casein, like carbohydrates, is a muscle sparing nutrient. Casein has an extremely high molecular weight(it’s extremely compared to whey) and is sensitive to pH(acid/base scale) changes in the stomach, which causes it to clot when ingested by itself(like you’d do with a powdered supplement). This clot causes a much slower breakdown than whey, and can take anywhere from 2-8 hours depending on the dose, whereas a supplemental serving of whey typically takes less than an hour to be fully absorbed. This slow release of amino acids(the things that protein is made of) is the reason casein is so efficient at MAINTAINING muscle.
Casein is best taken before long periods when you won’t be eating like before work, school, bed, or before working out to ensure that your body will have a steady flow of proteins to maintain muscle mass.

There are only a few options for getting casein proteins from normal food sources, and since casein is a milk protein the only reasonable food options are milk containing products. Cottage cheese(notice all those little curds), cheese, and cow’s milk are pretty much your only choices. Be careful if you’re lactose intolerant since suddenly eating a whole bunch of dairy can cause some uh… discomfort, and be positive you are not allergic to milk protein(very low possibility). If you ARE lactose intolerant I suggest a supplemental source of casein, or getting some lactase tabs to aid lactose digestion and reduce gastro-discomfort, or discomfArt as I like to call it. Sorry, couldn’t resist. A positive note about supplemental casein for the lactose intolerant is that supplement companies usually take out nearly all lactose from their products because of the frequency of lactose intolerance.

Thanks for reading.

-Brian

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 4th, 2008 at 3:54 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.