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It’s well understood that providing your body with protein and essential nutrients is crucial for maintaining your overall health. However, when you’re pressed for time in the morning, preparing a nutritious balanced breakfast can be daunting, making it hard to obtain what your body needs. In such cases, reaching for a protein shake can be a quick and practical solution. But does it actually provide any benefits? According to individuals who discussed their experiences with Eat This, Not That! after replacing breakfast with a protein shake for a week, the answer is a resounding yes. Here are five significant changes they observed.
More Energy
Jennifer Rapchak, the Fitness Director at Results Fitness Gym in Alexandria, Virginia, gets her team motivated through personal and group fitness training. She required sustained energy to navigate her demanding days, so she began her mornings with protein shakes. “The most noticeable difference was my steady energy levels throughout my 12-hour workdays,” she recounts. “Before incorporating protein shakes, I would experience energy slumps around 2 PM, needing either coffee or snacks to push through. Consuming 25-30g of whey protein each morning kept my energy stable from my first BodyPump class until my evening training sessions.”
Better Recovery Time
Protein shakes also enhanced Rapchak’s post-workout recovery, stating it “improved significantly.” She elaborates, “As a Les Mills instructor leading SPRINT and CXWORX classes, I observed that I wasn’t experiencing as much soreness between high-intensity training. Furthermore, my strength training achievements improved—I increased my deadlift weight by 10 pounds that week.”
Appetite Control
An unexpected, but welcome change Rapchak noticed was appetite control. “Protein shakes kept me full until lunch, preventing the mindless snacking that used to derail my nutrition,” she says. ” After 14 years as an ACE-certified trainer, I tell clients that protein timing matters as much as total intake—especially for anyone doing morning workouts.”
Less Muscle Stiffness
Dr. Nick Hadinger, DPT, USAW-1, Founder, Streamline Performance Physical Therapy, is a former Division I swimmer who competed at Olympic Trials and suffered a shoulder injury he needed physical therapy for. “I knew my body needed serious protein to rebuild muscle tissue after the procedure,” he explains. The shake he used was Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey with frozen berries and oats and experienced a major difference within five days, “I noticed significantly less morning stiffness and faster recovery between my physical therapy sessions,” he says.
Improved Sleep
To start his wellness journey, Dr. Hadinger followed his clinic’s protocol: 1.4-2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. “At 175 pounds, that meant 110-140 grams of protein per day,” he says. “The morning shake with 30-35 grams of whey protein gave me a solid foundation to hit those numbers.” Besides less muscle soreness, another major win for Dr. Hadinger had better quality sleep. “What surprised me most was how much it improved my sleep quality – I think because my body finally had the building blocks it needed for proper muscle repair overnight.”
Heather Newgen
