Muscle milk is laced with arsenic, cadmium, and lead (aka heavy metal). Arctic Zero and Weight Watchers ice cream have up to 68% more calories than labeled. The latest debacle involves a cluster of protein powder products, including big brands like Optimum Nutrition, Dymatize, Shakeology.
Quality tests published by ConsumerLab.com (6.11.2013) found that 5-out-of-27 protein powder products — nearly 20% — were either mislabeled with higher-than-reported, cholesterol, carb, or sugar counts, or contaminated with lead.1
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| Protein |
Impacted products include:2
Shakeology Greenberry – contaminated with 12.7 mcg of lead/scoop. Keep out of the mouths of children; they’re vulnerable to lead poisoning at just 6 mcg/lead per day.
Prolab Advanced Essential Whey, Milk Chocolate — had 68% less protein than labeled, coming in at only 7.3 g of protein per scoop — NOT 23 g. It also packed 16 g more carbs and 3.4 g more sugar than claimed.
Nature’s Plus Spiru-Tein, Vanilla – contained 4.2 g more sugar than labeled (12.2 g, not 8 g), 6.7 g more total carbs, and 26 additional calories — that’s a 50% increase in sugar content; 26% increase in total calories.
Dymatize Nutrition Elite Casein, Smooth Vanilla – contained 10.2 mg of cholesterol, 1.2 g of sugar per scoop; claimed 0 g of both.
Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Egg, Rich Chocolate – contained 14.2 mg of cholesterol per scoop; claimed 5 mg. That’s nearly 3x more than labeled.
The Takeaway
While some offences are more egregious than others (i.e. Prolab), this isn’t mindblowing, considering that the FDA doesn’t regulate the supplement industry. More concerning is that the tests only cover 27 products, leaving the majority of the protein universe unvetted by 3rd-party companies.
Your best move: Unless you’re a Prolab Advanced Essential Whey or Shakeology chugger, don’t throw your whey into a bonfire — the majority (70%) of products tested were completely clean, healthy, and consistent with their labeling. BUT, given so much uncertainty, it’s best to eat within the industry that IS regulated as much as possible.
The Lean Muscle Mochaccino
For a shake that’s ridiculously simple, The Lean Muscle Mochaccino packs massive flavor and over 24 g of HQ whey protein. It’s liquified decadence that’ll help you slim down, cool off, and simultaneously recover, grow, and build fresh lean muscle.
Using only two ingredients – Optimum Nutrition’s Mocha Cappucino Whey Protein & Flax Milk – plus a little bit of ice, you can quickly whip up a Starbucks-esque Frappuccino without anywhere close to the calories, fat, or sugar in the real thing. If you’re a coffee connoisseur like me, it’s an absolute must-add to your protein shake arsenal.
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| whey |
Calories – 200
Fat – 5 g
Omega-3’s – 1,800 mg
Total Carbs - 11 g
Sugar - 8 g
Fiber - 0 g
Protein – 24 g
Calcium – 55%
Vitamin D – 25%
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Creatine
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| Creatine |
Although creatine is one of the most popular supplements, it should be noted that each individual may have their own response. About 20-30% of the population are “non-responders” and cannot substantially increase muscle creatine stores, therefore having little-to-no effect on strength and lean mass16.
Since creatine was first heavily researched in 1993 there have been numerous inquiries into its safety, particularly on kidney health. There is no evidence in scientific literature that indicates any potential health risks from supplementation with creatine17.
Creatine dosing should be 5g/day, every day, including non-training days. I recommend creatine monohydrate, as this is the cheapest and most well-studied form of creatine. There are other more expensive forms of creatine — including creatine ethyl-ester and creatine HCL — that claim to enter muscle cells more efficiently, but existing research does not support the notion that alternative forms are significantly more effective18.
As an aside — it is normal to gain up to five pounds within the first week or two after starting a creatine cycle. This is simply due to increased water retention within your muscles — it is NOT fat — and is an expected physiologic response to increased creatine reserves.
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Beta Alanine:
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| Beta Alanine |
Beta Alanine is an amino acid that is relatively new in the sports nutrition world. The concentration of beta-alanine inside muscle tissue is the limiting factor in the production carnosine, a major component of an intracellular buffer system that prevents muscle acidosis (aka the burning sensation in your muscles during a tough set)1920. The goal of beta-alanine supplementation is to temporarily hold off muscular fatigue, allowing the athlete to perform more reps and/or use heavier weights and ultimately produce long-term improvements in strength2122. In addition to strength improvement, beta alanine can help enhance body composition by increasing lean mass and decreasing in body fat232425.
Although studied dosing has ranged from 3.2 to 6.4g/day, most research has shown beta alanine to be effective at 3.2-4g/day. Stick with the 3.2-4g/day range, otherwise it can get expensive without any added benefit. On training days, take beta alanine about 30 minutes prior to your workout; on non-training days, take the beta alanine whenever is convenient.
The most common side effect of beta alanine supplementation is a tingling feeling throughout the body due to stimulation of nerve receptors close to the skin. This is completely harmless and usually subsides as the body adapts to the supplement. One way to avoid the tingling is to take several split doses of 800 mg or lower throughout the day.
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BCAA’s:
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| BCAA’s |
The Branched Chain Amino Acids or BCAAs include leucine, valine, and isoleucine (amino acids). BCAAs have been shown to increase muscle protein synthesis and prevent the breakdown of muscle tissue from resistance training and cardiovascular activity. The primary benefit from supplementing with BCAAs is the reduction of muscle soreness — particularly delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) — which typically peaks 24-72 hours after training2627282930.
While dosing is dependent on individual response, 10-15 g of BCAAs during pre-workout and intra-workout periods is recommended.
CREATINE
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| CREATINE |
Creatine is the most powerful legal muscle-building supplement. Ever. That’s not just our opinion, the International Society of Sports Nutrition agrees. (study) It’s also 100% safe, with no reported disasters after decades of rigorous testing. (study, study, study) The only reported negative side effect is that sometimes some people get stomach discomfort after consuming it, and that’s just due to taking too much of it at once and/or not drinking enough water. (Creatine will pull fluid into your muscles, so drink a little bit of extra water.)
More muscle. Perhaps more interestingly, studies unanimously show that it builds muscle and improves strength. (study, study, study, study) Secretly mixing creatine into a trainee’s coffee in the morning radically improves his muscle gains? Pretty fearsome.
Check out this study showing that following a great training program for 8 weeks with post-workout sugar produced 6 pounds of muscle growth, and 9 pounds of muscle growth with post-workout sugar + creatine. Not bad. That’s a 50% improvement in muscle mass due to creatine. (And the post-workout sugar? That’s up next.)
Less fat. You’ll also gain less fat. This is because creatine is a potent supplement for improving insulin sensitivity in your muscle cells—even in those with decent insulin sensitivity to begin with (like most of us skinny guys.) It does this by pulling glucose into your muscles instead of leaving it hanging around to be stored as fat.
How? Creatine helps your body replenish ATP, which increases anaerobic power—the type of power you need to haul heavy-ass weights. Being able to lift more weight increases the mechanical tension you’re placing on your muscles and on your body, meaning that you’ll have pretty fantastic muscle stimulation and a greater acute hormonal response to your training. The real benefit comes from the increased skeletal muscle synthesis and glycogen storage that comes along with having high concentrations of creatine in your system. This means that not only will you build more muscle via your training, you’ll also get more muscle out of the food that you’re eating.
Some guys joke that creatine supports the entire muscle-building supplement industry, and that isn’t too far from the truth. When you start reading supplement ingredients you’ll be amazed at how many of them have a few grams of creatine tucked away into every serving. How many supplements out there would still produce results if you yanked the creatine out of them? Not many. Not many at all.
Think of most supplements like mix drinks. There are a lot of cool colours, flavours and ingredients, but the whole point of them is the alcohol. Creatine is the alcohol. We aren’t really fans of mix drinks, so we’re recommending that you skip all the fancy proprietary blends and just head straight to the good stuff.
Now, as with virtually everything in the supplement world, there are a lot of extremely expensive and fancy variations out there. You don’t need them. Simple creatine monohydrate is still the king of creatine. You’ll save a ton of money and get all the benefits. You also don’t need to get fancy with how you take it, as you may have heard. Mix it into your tea, coffee, water—whatever.
WHEY PROTEIN
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| Whey protein |
Whey protein powder is a cheap and convenient way of getting in your daily protein, but there’s really nothing special about it. It’s the quickly digested protein found in dairy products. It’s processed, but unlike junk food, the processing is fairly minimal. Nutritionally you can pretty much consider it a whole food instead of a supplement. It even has some vitamins in it.
Essentially it’s more or less equivalent to a chicken breast. A chicken breast would taste pretty funky blended up into a fruit smoothie though, so whey is sometimes best ;)
Muscle can only by synthesized out of amino acids (found in protein) so a shortage of those can easily slow down your efforts. Since most of us ectomorphic guys aren’t consuming enough protein to optimally build muscle, adding whey protein into your diet really will most guys build more muscle mass. (study, study)
Whey is especially effective when taken surrounding training. (study, study) It digests quickly and contains a pretty stellar blend of branched chain amino acids (BCAAs). If you really want to kick things up a notch, it works even better at stimulating muscle growth when combined with a carb source like maltodextrin. (study) The whey protein + maltodextrin combo is about as powerful as they come—it’s no secret—and almost every single workout recovery drink and commercial weight gainer will combine these two ingredients.
It’s a classic whey isolate protein powder from a reputable company, and the whey protein itself is very high quality. An interesting (indie) study recently looked into many of the popular brands of whey protein. The study got a lot of attention because of how controversial it was – a lot of popular brands were making false claims. This brand (Optimum Nutrition) wasn’t, and was thus ranked the highest.
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