Hello MAPers. My thread got lost somewhere. I could not find it. Anyway, here's my question. I'm thinking of drinking musle building shakes but I have uncertainties about what will happen to my physique. Is it suitable for a woman? Will I have huge muscles? Is it the same as a protein shakes? Can it help lose weight? When or how many times a day should I drink it? I don't want to have huge muscles like bodybuilders but I want my body to be ripped. U know just nice. Ermm...kinda like jessica biel's fit body u know. Currently, I don't take any supplementary pills or what-so-ever. Just physical workouts/exercises. I'm losing weight slowly but progressively.:running::happy: Hope you can shed some light on this matter. Ten-Q.Terima Kasih.Arigato.Xiexie.:hat::bow1:
if i were you, i wouldnt bother. Im not a lady, but i found that just cutting out most dairy/sugar/fats and bread and doing a lot of conditioning work have all helped get me in shape more than any shake did. Also, just from my experience, if your not wanting big mass, just dont eat big. Eating big takes energy away from you and can make you sluggish. Dont starve yourself, just eat very little and often - mainly fruit, nuts seeds and very small amounts of meat - get some good chicken if you have to. I wouldnt waste your time and money on shakes.
This is a common myth amongst women and needs to be dispelled wherever it's encountered. Many women believe that if they drink a few protein shakes and pick up a free weight that they'll suddenly sprout muscles all over and end up looking like a man. Simply not true. (And FYI, "Muscle building" shakes are just protein shakes but are called "muscle building" as it sells more tubs to gullible young men.) Drinking protein shakes alone will make no noticeable difference to your body whatsoever. IMO, the main purpose of protein shakes is as a supplement to enable someone to ensure they get enough protein in their diet if they feel that they're not able to get it all from food for some reason. If I were you I'd do (or keep doing) the following: * Tidy up your diet by cutting out all the crap and replacing it with real food. * Eat at a slight calorie deficit (translation: "diet, but don't starve yourself" if you diet too quickly you end up causing yourself more problems long term). * Learn how to lift free weights. * Do some sort of cardio. Oh and take it from me - any woman who lifts heavy weights will only become more and more attractive and more feminine as a result.
Very true! The difference between a skinny woman and a woman with a low body fat + some healthy muscle is what the rest of the world decides to call 'toned'. If you want the healthy, fit look over the hungry anorexic look then free weights are a great way to do this. Just to add to what the fish said, when lifting weights go for heavy weights + lower repetitions rather than the lower weights + higher reps confusingly chosen by both women trying to loose weight and men trying to get muscular. edit: forgot to say congratulations on your progress, Good work!
You rang... As a woman who weight trains, I'll tell you now that building huge muscles is very difficult, you just don't have enough testosterone. In fact, to get really big you'd need to be taking steroids. 'Ripped' is just as much related to diet as it is weight training. You could have fantastic muscle development, but if it's covered by a layer of fat you won't be able to see it. A 'muscle building' shake is not a magic substance that will transform your physique over night. If you don't have your diet sorted, and just add it to whatever else you eat, it might actually make you put on weight - if you're consuming more calories than you're using up. Cosmicfish and Coma have given you the right advice. Sort out your diet - eat clean, do free weights (low reps, heavy weight) and do cardio - preferably some form of higher intensity interval training.
So, it doesn't matter if i drink it or not but if i do it just balance my protein intake. Now i understand. What makes me doubt was bcause of the way the packaging are advertised. U know pics of muscular biceps n all. Another reason was because i want my weight loss progress to be faster. I'm losing like just 1-2kilos/week. I wanna lose like 5kilos/week cos i have like extra 30kilos of body fat to burn. Honestly, i'm just not satisfied. I'm scared that i would lose the motivation and just give up. HELP ME!!!!!
Ignore the pictures on packaging, the models used never attain their results purely from the product, that's assuming they even used it in the first place! No legal supplement is ever going to give you irreversable gains in a short time period, so the best way of checking progress is to record your weight, body fat and diet and monitor the changes before, during and after supplementation. This way you can see for yourself whether the $45 you spent a month on 'Turbo X-Lean' or whatever product was worth the extra half a pound you lost. Chances are it probably wasn't, unless you have an excess of cash! For example, when Christian Boeving admitted steroid use in the past during the documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster, his sponsors MuscleTech fired him. Not because he had failed to disclose this to them in the past, but because he outright said that if anyone chooses to believe it was only their product that got him his physique they can if they want but he knew there was a lot more to it. 1-2 Kilos is fantastic progress! I know it doesn't seem like it at the time but fat loss is not quick. Think back to something you did in the summer. It wasn't that long ago, yet had you maintained this rate of fat loss you'd be looking at between 26 and and 52 Kilos of weight lost! Large changes in physique have to be done over the long term, yet once you learn this patience the cumulative effects can be awesome.
Totally agree with coma on all the above. This bit quoted needs emphasising though. 2kg of weight loss a week is actually pretty fast. The faster you lose weight the worse it is for your health and the more drastic the rebound and subsequent weight gain when the diet finishes. Weight-loss is a long-term thing. These days, personally, I won't dare lose more than 1kg / week. If you have 30kg to lose then 1-2kg a week is pretty good. I'd be looking at getting near your goal for mid-springtime next year at that rate. Just in time for summer.
I agree with everyone else here. You're doing a great job. Stick to losing around 1kg per week. Weight loss is not something you want to rush. There is a huge amount of evidence that those who crash diet and lose lots of weight in a short time, end up putting more on afterwards. You don't want to 'diet' in the traditional sense of massive calorie deficit leading to massive short term weight loss, you want to change your lifestyle, exercise more, eat healthy, nutritious food, lose fat and gain muscle over a longer period. In fact if you're gaining muscle, you might actually put on weight - as muscle weighs more than fat. So pay less attention to the scales and more to the fit of your clothes. As for the advertising on the protein shake bottle, Cosmicfish had it right when he said that it is aimed at gullible young men who want a quick fix, magic pill to make them ripped.
I hate the way many people use the word "diet" "diet" is not something you do. No matter how you eat, that IS your diet!!!!! What people need to do is CHANGE their diet, not GO ON a diet! I know it seems unimportant, but it's a mental block that many people stumble on. Once you think of everything you eat AS your diet, and not something you are ON...then it's much easier (to me) to make permanent, healthy, changes.
You are right. It is a pet peeve of mine that if you use the word diet, everyone thinks you mean something along the lines of the Atkins, or Cabbage Soup diet etc.
That's because the term has been hijacked by the multimillion pound 'diet' industry, who want you to buy their quick fix 'diet' solutions (books and potions) rather than having a healthy eating and exercise based lifestyle plan!
Good advice from everyone but just one little point to make. Eventually as you lose body fat and tone up from your workouts your weight loss will slow down or even stop. Don't panic. Muscle weighs more than fat and the scales will only tell you so much, how your clothes fit you will tell you much more. My boss at work started going to the gym and in six months she actually put on about 3 pounds, but she looked slimmer and more toned and went from a size 14 to a size 12.
All a "Muscle Building Shake" is is a concoction of the nutrition your body needs to repair it's muscles - like any other foodstuff it has a caloric value. If you want to loose weight these are anaethema to your goal - with muscle gain often comes fat gain. As for getting huge muscles and diet, here is a little industry secret. Almost all of what you read in health magazines is complete rubbish - the summary of what you need to know could be written on a dozen sides of A4 - I've done it, if they did this they would only run one issue then slump. Also it would be a fair bet that none of the people used to advertise products actually use those products. The way your muscles develop and grow is based on how you train them and feed them. A supplement shake only helps with the feeding part. Diet wise - there IS only one diet that is fullproof and that works without fail - a healthy balanced diet with a suitable bias based on your goals. If you want to loose weight cut 200 calories off your intake and do some exercise. If you want to get "Ripped" go to an AB Fab class.
Try thinking of everything you eat as your diet. Not as something you go on, but something you are always doing. If you eat at McDonald's, you didn't break your 'diet' you just had a bit too much of fat/calories in one sitting. It sounds corny, but it can help you stay focused.
