Month: July 2021

If you are here, clearly you are wondering can eating too few calories cause weight gain ?

There is this notion amongst the fitness space that eating too few calories is going to absolutely wreck your metabolism.

Thus leading to either weight gain or no weight loss.

You and I are here today to learn everything about this topic and the validity of it.

I am going to break down all you need to know about this topic, piece by piece.

Please do me a favor though, read the entire article.

If you are going to read one thing in it’s entirety today, make it this why don’t ya?

You are already here, you might as well stay and educate yourself to the fullest.

We have a deal? You aren’t lying to me right?

Cool, if that is the case, let’s do this.

Can Eating Too Few Calories Cause Weight Gain?

How You Lose or Gain Weight

To start us off with the question of can eating too few calories cause weight gain, let’s first briefly touch on how you either lose or gain weight.

I have talked about this profusely in all of my other articles, so I won’t belabor the point too much.

Yet if you are new here, I really need you to understand this before diving into the rest of the article. Therefore if you are a returning reader, bare with me as I introduce the new members to wonderful science.

Losing, gaining, or maintaining your weight comes down to one thing, which is an overall energy balance equation.

Our bodies run off of energy, this energy comes in the form of calories. Therefore it comes down to a calorie balance equation.

There are three scenarios that can be playing out in this equation at any moment in time.

Calorie Surplus

This means you are eating more calories than your body is burning on a daily basis. This will have you gain weight.

Calorie Deficit

This means you are eating less calories your body is burning on a daily basis. This will have you maintain weight.

Calorie Maintenance

This means you are eating the same amount of calories your body is burning. This means you will maintain your weight.

How Do You Know How Many Calories Your Body Burns

Here is the scoop.

There are 4 main ways your body burns calories throughout the day, this is called your TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure.

The first is your BMR, or your basal metabolic rate.

This essentially brings up all of the functions your body has to do to keep you alive. This is what your body would burn at rest if you laid in bed all day and did nothing.

This is different for everyone, but if you want a pro tip, building lean muscle mass increases your BMR.

This is why resistance training is so important for your overall energy expenditure.

The second is your NEAT, or your non exercise activity thermogenesis.

This basically means all of the extraneous movement you do during that day that isn’t direct exercise.

Think me typing this article right now, you walking to the grocery store, flipping some guy off who cut you off on the highway.

All of these are NEAT!

The third if your TEF, or thermic effect of food.

This means how many calories your body has to burn in order to digest and break down your food.

Another pro tip, protein has the highest TEF . Therefore if you eat more protein essentially you will increase your metabolism.

Last but not least comes EAT, or exercise activity thermogenesis.

This is your dedicated exercise you do during the day. Yea, it’s only 5%. Wild huh?


Therefore no, you don’t have to go on the treadmill and burn 1000’s of calories to lose weight because your body burns way more calories in a given day outside of just exercise.

This TDEE is what makes up your maintenance calories.

Maintenance calories can be calculated by a TDEE calculator or by using this totally free calculator HERE .

Just remember though, they are all a rough estimate, and nothing is 100% perfect. You will have to put it into action to find out for yourself.

Can Eating Too Few Calories Cause Weight Gain? Diving In

I needed you to have that base knowledge of understanding because what we are going to talk about here will mean nothing if you don’t understand that information first.

Now that we have established that, we can dive into the real question here.

I can answer this rather quickly as well.

No, Eating Too Few Calories Does Not Cause Weight Gain

Though I can answer it quickly, I am going to explain why, because what’s the point if I don’t explain why?

I first want you to recall what we just learned.

The only way to lose weight is to eat less calories than what your body burns.

Therefore logically speaking, how in the world would eating “too few calories” lead to weight gain?

That doesn’t even make sense.

Now some people are going to tell you that eating too few calories causes your metabolism to slow down and go into “Starvation mode”.

Essentially stating that you will store body fat because you aren’t eating enough calories.

In fact if you do a quick google search of “eating too few calories” that is the 1st thing that comes up.

Which, is why I am writing this article in hopes of educating the masses of the utter BS that is.

There is so much wrong with that idk where to begin, but I will start with talking about your metabolism.

Eating “Too Few Calories” & Your Metabolism

First off, most people don’t even know what their metabolism is.

It is not this magical thing that is waiting to burn fat at your wish.

It controls your entire body. Your reproductive system, your internal organs, your digestion of food, your sleep.

It’s not just sitting there waiting to burn fat, in fact, burning fat is the last thing your metabolism wants to do.

Your body likes homeostasis, it likes staying the same. Therefore losing or gaining weight is not what your body wants to do because that means more work for your body.

Changing processes for your internal organs, using different energy stores, changing your BMR, etc.

Therefore please don’t say “my metabolism is broken”. If you are alive and reading this, your metabolism is just fine, I promise.

Some people are going to try to scare you into thinking that eating “too few calories” is going to slow down your metabolism to the point where your body stops burning fat and you go into starvation mode.

First things first, here is a news flash for you.

Your metabolism has to slow down in order to lose weight. It is a necessary requirement of losing weight.

There is nothing wrong with that, that is okay. Someone who is 300lbs is generally going to have a higher metabolism than someone who is 150lbs. That doesn’t mean it is better to be 300lbs.

You can do things like

• eat high protein
• Strength train and build muscle
• Not go super low in calories

To mitigate this process and keep your metabolism as high as can be, but don’t be scared of slowing down your metabolism, because it has to happen.

This is also not to say you can’t increase your metabolism. When you go from eating in a calorie deficit to eating in a calorie maintenance or surplus for example, your metabolism is going to adapt just like it did when you went into a deficit.

When you eat less calories your metabolism slows down a bit, when you eat more calories your metabolism speeds up a bit.

You are never “damaging” your metabolism because your metabolism adapts both ways.

“Starvation Mode”

Now when it comes to can eating too few calories cause weight gain and starvation mode, here is where it really grinds my gears.

I want to first start by saying I use to think starvation mode was a real thing.

I once told one of my clients Alison this, straight to her face.

Alison is a beast, but when I first started working with Alison I told her straight to her face that her body was in starvation mode.

I told her that she was holding onto body fat because she was eating too few calories and we had to increase her calories in order to get her to start burning fat.

Boy, do I feel stupid now. A week or so later I realized it was a total scam and I now needed to inform her that it was a lie.

Increasing her calories actually did work, but not for the reason you may think. We will talk about that later in this article.

Now, I am going to link a study here below called the Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

They had men voluntary partake in a starvation diet for research.

As you can see, they lost a significant amount of weight. In fact, they are skin and bones, they were literally starving.

None of them gained weight or held onto body fat during this diet. They lost weight to the point of literally starving, unlike what you and I have on a daily basis.

If those people were “eating too few calories” and they didn’t hold onto body fat or gain weight, why would you?

Now, let me be very, very clear. I am in no way, shape, or form condoning starving yourself.

That is the farthest thing from what I mean, and we will talk about that later here in this article.

This is just simply to prove a point that when it comes to the question of can eating too few calories cause weight gain, the answer is a resounding no.

800 Calorie Liquid Diet

I want to briefly show another study that looks at eating too few calories.

They had participants partake in a 800 calorie liquid diet while resistance training.

This would certainly be eating too few calories, would you agree?

The results were they lost 32 lbs in 12 weeks and actually increased their BMR along the way, more than likely due to the newly added strength training programs they started up.

Once again, I do not condone or promote this is anyway, shape, or form. In fact, I highly advise against it as you will see later in this article.

Yet point being, these people were eating “too few calories” and not only did they not gain weight, they lost weight, a significant amount of it.

Last but not least, I want you to think about victims of the Holocaust or people in third world countries much less well off than you and I.

When you see those people, are any of them massively overweight?

Because those people were actually starving, again, unlike you and I. None of them are overweight, they are skin and bones.

Therefore “eating too few calories” and not losing weight, or gaining weight is not a real thing.

If you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.

Can Eating Too Few Calories Cause Weight Gain? What’s Really Going On

Now that we answered the question of can eating too few calories cause weight gain as a resounding no, what is really going on then?

Well, there are 3 main things that are going on if you believe you are eating too few calories and gaining or not losing weight.

I touched on them extensively in my article “In a calorie deficit but not losing weight” so I won’t go too in depth on them right now.

Yet I would like to point them out and offer some extra thoughts related to this article.

#1 Not Tracking Calories Accurately

There was a study done that had took people who were supposedly eating 1200 calories and not losing weight .

They had them self report their calorie intake for 14 days straight.

At the end of the 14 days, they concluded that the group had under reported their calorie intake by an average of 47%, so let’s round to 50%.

If they thought they were eating 1200 calories, they were actually eating 2400 calories.

The conclusion came to be, and I quote,

“The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.”

Essentially meaning the reason they were not losing weight was not because something was wrong with their metabolism, it was because they were eating too many calories.

I would say 8/10 people who come to me telling me they are tracking calories, are doing so incorrectly, which leads to no results and frustration.

Lucky for you, I did an entire video teaching you exactly how to count calories in depth. You can watch that HERE .

I promise if you follow what I say in that video, you will start to see progress.

#2 Only Using The Scale

The second point to touch on here is the fact that the scale is not the end all be all when it comes to progress.

Especially for example if you are strength training.

You very well could be body recouping, which is just essentially losing fat and building muscle at the same time.

If you lose 5lbs of fat but gain 5lbs of muscle, the scale isn’t going to move at all because 1lb of fat weighs the same as 1lb of muscle.

Yet the composition is different. Muscle is more dense than fat, therefore you will look different and see changes in your body.

Yet the scale wouldn’t move!

Therefore do not rely on the scale as your only form of fat loss progress. Make sure to accurately track progress, like I outline in this video HERE .

On top of that, you need to be sure you have realistic expectations.

Most people think they need or should lose 5lbs a week or 10lbs in a month.

That is simply inaccurate. A healthy, sustainable rate of weight loss would be .5-1lb per week on average.

So if you lost 2-4 lbs per month, that is considered amazing progress, not even mentioning the other forms of progress talked about in that video I liked above.

#3 Binge – Restrict Cycle

This right here is an important one when talking about can eating too few calories cause weight gain.

This happens to a lot of people, so listen closely.

Let’s say you are trying to eat 1200 calories. You very well could be eating 1200 calories… Monday – Thursday.

Then, when Fri, Sat, Sunday roll around, you are starving, you have over restricted yourself the entire week on food, and you are ready for an all out binge.

You go out Friday night with your friends, eat all of the chips and guac on the table, now you feel like you f*cked up.

So then you keep going and eat everything the entire weekend.

Then, on Monday morning, you try to “get back on track” with your 1200 calorie diet.
This cycle happens in perpetuity.

Therefore you are eating 1200 calories 4 days out of the week, but eating 3000+ calories 3 days out of the week, leading to either no weight loss or weight gain.

Which that is the reason you would be seeing those results, not because “your metabolism” or “eating too few calories”.

It would be too few calories because it would be too restrictive and cause you to be inconsistent.

What makes it even worse is you are THINKING about your 1200 calorie diet the whole time.

All the time you are thinking about restricting foods, about eating 1200 calories, about losing weight.

So even when you are eating more than 1200 calories which is why you’d not be losing weight, your head is thinking about it.

It is all you think about, so you swear up and down you are eating too little and that’s why you can’t lose weight.

Yet the reality is somewhere along the line you are eating many more calories than you think, the thought of eating so little calories is taking over your brain.

Therefore stepping back and being able to honestly and accurately assess your consistency over the past 31 days can be incredibly helpful.

If in the past 31 days you have hit your calories any less than 26 days, that would be less than 80% consistent.

If you are less than 80% consistent, then that is why you would not be seeing progress with your weight loss journey. Not because of “starvation mode” or eating too few calories.

How To Be More Consistent?

I showed you studies above about how these people ate insanely low calorie diets. I don’t want you to do that.

That was purely for the purpose of showing you “eating too few calories” and not losing or gaining weight is not a real thing.

That is the exact opposite of what I want.

This is not a game of how little calories can you eat to lose weight. Rather, this is a game of how many calories can you eat and still lose weight.

This will help you be more consistent with your nutrition. Instead of trying to eat 1200 calories, and ending up binging for 3 days.

If you would just eat say 1700 calories instead and do that with 85% consistency over the course of the month, you would see more results by “eating more calories” because you were able to be consistent.

This is what happened to my client Alison above who I told you about. I increased her calories because I thought she was in “starvation mode”.

Later to find out starvation mode isn’t real, but increasing her calories “worked” because she was able to be more consistent with her calorie intake.

Thus, leading her to see better results. Consistency is the most important part when it comes to your nutrition, therefore eating a bit more calories consistently will always beat eating fewer calories with less consistency.

You Don’t Want To Lose Weight Fast

We talked earlier about those studies of people losing weight very rapidly eating very few calories.

We also talked about a healthy rate of weight loss would be anywhere from .5-1lb per week on average.

Let’s talk about why you don’t want to lose weight very rapidly.

First and foremost, as mentioned above, it is going to be incredibly restrictive and unsustainable.

If what you do to get the results are unsustainable, the results will be unsustainable as well.

And losing more than maybe 1.5 lb per week max is going to lead you to be doing incredibly unsustainable things.

Therefore the results you see will be short lived, this is how the yo yo dieting cycle emerges.

Idk abut you, but I have 0 interest taking my clients through their weight loss journey just so they can gain it right back. That’s just me personally.

Second, you are going to lose lean muscle mass.

Losing lean muscle mass is going to slow down your metabolism even more as we mentioned above.

It is also going to get you that “skinny fat” look. You may lose weight, but you won’t look the way you want to look.

You won’t be defined, lean, toned, etc.

Third, you are going to just hate your life for lack of better terms.

Again what you are going to have to do to lose weight very rapidly is going to be incredibly restrictive.

You will always be hungry, tired, cranky, low energy, moody, poor workouts, to name a few things.

It is gonna suck, and if it sucks, you won’t be able to stick with it and be consistent.

If you can’t be consistent, guess what, you won’t see ever lasting results.

Therefore, slow and steady always wins the race.

If you want some help on how many calories to eat to lose weight, feel free to head HERE to check out my totally free calorie calculator.

Can Eating Too Few Calories Cause Weight Gain? Final Word

Phew, first off, if you made it through that entire article, you gotta leave a comment below and let me know.

You are the real MVP.

Second, I know there was a ton of information here, so the main take away is.

No, eating too few calories will not cause you to gain weight or not lose weight.

If you are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.

If you have any questions, feel free to drop below.

I know this stuff can be super confusing at times as well, so if you want some help in your journey, feel free to head HERE To see if we might be a good fit for coaching.

I also have a video on this if you are a visual learner, feel free to check it out below.

Hope you enjoyed the article, hope you learned something, and look to chat soon.

-E

Do protein shakes help you lose weight is one of the most common questions asked on the google machine. (In fact, when this article was written about 17,400,000 people asked to be specific!).

In this article I am going to break down, in the most simple fashion, the answer to this question.

I feel as if there is a lot of mumbo jumbo out there in the fitness sphere with someone trying to sell you something or giving out information but not telling the whole story.

Well that won’t be the case here buttercup.

I am going to give it to you straight with no BS or strings attached.

If that is something you are interested in, then this article is going to be for you.

Just be sure to give the article a full read.

95% of people won’t read this whole article because #shortattentionspan in this modern technology world we live in.

Be apart of the 5%, would ya?

It is only going to help yourself see better results anyway.

Alright 5%’er, let’s dive in!

Do Protein Shakes Help You Lose Weight

How Do You Lose Weight?

Before even diving into if protein shakes help you lose weight or not, we first must identify what you need in order to lose weight.

Now if you are an avid reader of my articles (or if you follow me on instagram, YouTube, or tik tok) you probably know where I am headed with this.

Bare with me as I need to make sure people who aren’t familiar with my content and end up reading this for the first time get educated just like you did.

But simply put, there is only one true way to lose weight.

It isn’t keto.
It isn’t intermittent fasting.

It isn’t taking some detox pill that makes you pee out of your butt.

It is intaking less calories than what your body burns.

This is called being in an overall calorie deficit.

Calories are a unit of measurement of energy. Your body needs energy to survive and this energy comes in the form of calories.

Therefore if you are intaking less energy than what your body burns, this means your body has to go to stored energy.

Stored energy is body fat.

Therefore your body burns stored body fat for energy, thus this is how you lose weight.

How Do I Know How Many Calories My Body Burns?

Truth is, you don’t. You can get rough estimates, like finding out your maintenance calories or using a TDEE Calculator using a quick google search.

But simply put what you are going to have to do is track the calories you are intaking, measure progress, then see from there.

If the calories you are intaking is not leading to fat loss progress, well then you are not in a calorie deficit. This means you would have to eat less calories.

If the calories you are intaking is leading to fat loss, then bingo, you are in a calorie deficit.

Now your next question is probably going to be “well how can I find out how many calories I am supposed to eat then?!”.

I have a totally free calorie calculator HERE If you to check that out.

Then from there I need to make this very clear as well.

I said above “well then you need to eat less calories”. I do not mean starve yourself or only eat chicken and broccoli.

That is why I put the calorie calculator there above. You don’t need to over restrict yourself or eat next to nothing to lose weight, despite what some instagram influencer or random article you read told you (not this article tho, this one is good!).

Also, 95% of people do not track their calories accurately.

I am not trying to be negative it is just true. I have had people tell me they were eating 500 calories and not losing weight.

If you were eating 500, 1000 calories, you would be skin and bones. That is next to no calories.

There is no such thing as eating too few calories and not losing weight.

Think about people who are in third world countries starving. Are any of them overweight?

No, they are skin and bones, because they are actually starving.

Therefore, to avoid tracking calories inaccurately, head HERE To learn how to count calories after finishing reading this article.

Now, how do protein shakes help you lose weight then? Not to worry my young Padawan, let’s dive into that now.

Do Protein Shakes Help You Lose Weight : The Truth

When it comes to protein shakes and losing weight, we just learned that in order to lose weight you need to be in an overall calorie deficit.

Now, how do protein shakes help you lose weight?

There are a few main reasons how, let’s go over them now.

Protein Keeps You Full

Protein is the most satiating macronutrient.

Satiating means it makes you full and satisfied.

Macronutrients are protein, carbs, and fats. This means that out of those 3 macros, protein helps keep you full the longest.

Whenever someone tells me they can’t stop over eating, or their cravings are through the roof, the first thing I go to is their protein intake.

If you are consuming a very low number of protein grams per day, your chances of being hungrier and having more cravings sky rocket.

Therefore if you are always hungry and having cravings, that makes it much easier to eat more calories.

If you are consistently eating more calories, then you are more likely to not stick to your calorie deficit.

If you don’t stick to your calorie deficit, you aren’t going to lose any weight sweetheart.

Thus inserting protein shakes.

If you can start to incorporate a protein shake during your day, that is going to help keep you more full and satisfied.

If you start to become more full and satisfied, then you are typically going to eat less calories overall.

Eating less overall calories leads you to be in an overall calorie deficit, thus leading to you losing weight.

So do protein shakes help you lose weight? For this reason yes they most certainly do!

Protein Has The Highest TEF

TEF stands for Thermic Effect Of Food.

When your body digests food, it has to burn calories to do so. Out of the 3 macro nutrients (protein, carbs, and fats) protein has the highest thermic effect of food.

Essentially what this means is when you eat protein, your body has to burn more calories digesting it than it would carbs or fats.

If you burn more calories, you essentially have a higher metabolism.

Side note: people ask me all the time about “How do I increase my metabolism Eric!”.

Sadly when I tell them to eat more protein, they look at me like I have 3 heads. Yet when someone else wants to sell them a pill, they throw their money at them.

What the heck man?

Anywho.

The higher your metabolism, the more efficient your weight loss is going to be leading back to our initial conversation on eating less calories than your body burns.

Not only will protein help fill you up which in turns makes you eat less calories, but also it will burn more calories for you.

This is massively beneficial for creating this calorie deficit and losing weight.

Therefore yet again do protein shakes help you lose weight? Well you can bet your bottom dollar they do.

Protein Helps Build & Retain Lean Muscle Mass

Protein is the only macronutrient that helps build and retain lean muscle mass.

If you are trying to lose weight lean muscle mass is massively beneficial for you.

I have heard some people be afraid of drinking protein shakes because they are afraid to get big and bulky.

No, just, no.

Trust me, I wish it was as easy as drinking a protein shake to get big and bulky. I would be freaking massive.

Drinking a protein shake is just like eating a chicken breast essentially. It’s just protein.

Please do not concern yourself with that or listen to anyone who tells you that.

Now, moving right along.

Lean muscle mass is important because the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your metabolism is.

Lean muscle mass requires more oxygen to get pumped to it. More oxygen pumped = more calories burned.

More calories burned = higher metabolism.

Higher metabolism = more weight loss.

Therefore if simply adding in a protein shake or two can help keep you full, speed up your metabolism, and build more lean muscle mass.

I think the answer to ho protein shakes help you lose weight is an astonishing, big, fat, YES!

Do Protein Shakes Help You Lose Weight : More Info

Now I want to get a bit deeper on protein shakes to help you out a bit more.

First let’s talk about which protein shake is “the best”.

The Best Protein Shake

First and foremost, there is no “best”.

When it comes to protein shakes what I have found are a few main staples I like to inform my online coaching clients on that I can share with you as well.

First, look at the calorie to protein ratio.

A good calorie to protein ratio would be per 1 serving, it should have around 100-150 calories with around 20-25g of protein.

This means there isn’t a bunch of extra calories, carbs, and fats. Just pure, lean, low calorie protein.

Second, look at the type of protein you are getting.

There are different types of protein shakes. Whey protein, plant protein, pea protein, milk protein, etc.

Generally speaking, if you are not lactose intolerant, whey protein is going to be the best choice for you.

More specifically speaking, a whey protein isolate or hydro isolate. That is the form of whey protein, you can find out if a protein shake has this by looking at the “ingredients” section of the label.

If you are lactose intolerant, you may want to opt for a more plant based protein shake.

Though I will say I have had clients in the past who have had issues with dairy who were totally fine with whey hydro isolate, so maybe check for yourself (just be near a bathroom?!).

Those are really the two main criteria I tell my clients to look for when selecting a protein shake.

Now I can link some of my personal favorite ones here below, but I don’t want to tell you that you HAVE TO get any specific one because there are so many out there.

And again, it isn’t “special”. It is just helping you get more protein into your diet in a quick and easy fashion to get all of the benefits we mentioned above.

LEGION

I like the entire legion brand because of the owner Mike Matthews. He is a very smart and respectable human inside the fitness space.

His products are awesome and his protein powders taste great.

This is by far my first go to option for protein powders.

If you want to try out legion, simply head to their website HERE, and you can use my code “ERIC” at checkout to receive 20% off your order!

PREMIER PROTEIN SHAKES

A lot of my clients enjoy these, especially those who are super busy.

Could you get better quality? Possibly, but the convenience and ease of these are second to none.

And that is the name of the game for me. Something is better than nothing, so if you know you want a grab and go shake, these are a great option.

When To Take Them?

I get asked often “when should you have a protein shake?!”.

Before workout? After workout? In the morning when you wake up?

Again, remember. There is nothing special about a protein shake. It is just extra protein in your diet, it is just like eating a chicken breast but eating it (which, I wouldn’t recommend.. Have done before, not very tasty!).

The best time in my opinion to have a protein shake is when you know you won’t be able to get a good quality source of protein (like chicken, steak, eggs, etc) but you know you need to have some extra protein in your diet.

A lot of my clients use them in the morning as part of their breakfast or throughout the day as a snack.

Also, when it comes to having a protein shake after your workout.

There used to be this myth that you needed to have a protein shake within 15 minutes of finishing your workout or the whole workout was a waste!

Yea, that is just not true. You aren’t wasting a workout, ever.

Now generally speaking it is a good idea to get some protein after your workout because again, like we learned above, it is the only macronutrient that helps build and retain lean muscle mass.

Therefore getting protein post workout can help kick start the recovery process to help you recover from workouts.

I would say look to get some sort of protein within 30-120 minutes post workout, whether it is a shake or your post workout meal.

But don’t overly freak out about trying to chug a protein shake with hot water out of your sink faucet within 5 minutes of your workout… speaking from experience here, don’t do that. It sucks.

Will You Get Big & Bulky?

I have sprinkled this in throughout the article, but just want to make sure I cover this by itself one more time.

Some people think taking a protein shake will automatically make you big and bulky. That could not be farther from the truth.

We talked earlier about being in an overcall calorie deficit to lose weight.

In order to get “big and bulky” you need to eat in a calorie surplus, which means you are eating more calories than what your body burns.

You also need to be lifting very heavy weights for a very long period of time.

It doesn’t happen overnight, just like you don’t get skinny overnight.

Plus, the people you are thinking of in your head who are “big and bulky” have either been training 2+ hours per day everyday for years on end, or are taking performance enhancing drugs, or probably both.

Protein shakes do not make you big and bulky. They are just a very simple, very effective way to get more protein into your diet.

How Many Per Day?

By now you have seen that do protein shakes help you lose weight? Yes, yes they do.

But protein shakes are a supplement, meaning they are supposed to supplement your current diet.

Aka, your entire protein intake for the day should not be coming from protein shakes. You would be missing out on so many key vitamins and minerals like zinc, b12, iron, etc.

Generally speaking I tell my online coaching clients to not have more than 60g of protein from protein shakes.

Make the rest of your protein during your day come from real, nutrient dense, whole foods.

If you need more help on how to get more protein into your diet, check out this video HERE .

This way you can work in some protein shakes to help you, but you aren’t depending your entire diet on protein shakes.

You are still getting in proper nutrients for your overall health.

Do Protein Shakes Help You Lose Weight? Final Word

Well there you have it.

I told you at the beginning of this article that 95% of people wouldn’t finish it, so if you did, congrats 5%’er.

I also told you that this article would be a simple, no bs, way to answer the question of do protein shakes help you lose weight.

I think I did just that for you, feel free to let me know in the comment section below though.

Either way, I hope this article helped you.

If you are interested in coaching with me, feel free to head HERE to fill out my application form to see if we may be a good fit.

Other than that, wish you well, and chat soon.

-E