Protein powder is convenient to have around and is a quick easy meal or you can add it to other foods to 'boost' the protein content. I haven't used PP for some months but I've always preferred a protein blend - preferably one that doesn't contain soy, more of a whey/casein blend. There are probably HUNDREDS of PP's out there - you just have to find the one that tastes the best to you (people's preferences can REALLY vary widely in this regard!). If you're planning on baking with PP, you'd probably be better off sticking with a casein-type, since whey doesn't hold up very well in heat situations.
Personally I just got burnt out on doing shakes after 3+ years, and now get all my protein from my food, which isn't really that hard for me to do - I eat a lot of cottage cheese, eggwhites, chicken breast, fish and lean meats. I know that a lot of the articles that you see at the BB sites and such have bodybuilders literally consuming HUNDREDS of grams of protein - I don't think you need all that much, even if you're lifting.
At her "weight training for women" site, Krista Scott Dixon recommends the following:
Quote:
Protein, of course, should be the foundation of your nutritional plan. The recommended amount of protein for a weight training person trying to gain mass as well as to lose mass is the same: about 0.7 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight daily.
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I've used the "1 gram of protein per pound of GOAL bodyweight" myself. If you weigh 160 lbs and use Krista's equation, that would be anywhere from 112-128 grams of protein per day (or 448-512 calories from protein/day). With your goal weight of 125, using the formula I've used, you would be consuming 125 grams per day (or 500 calories from protein/day). So it's about the same either way! All you need to do at that point, now that you've figured out your daily protein intake, is divide the grams by the number of meals you have a day - so let's say you have 5 meals a day: that would be around 25 grams of protein per meal.
Anyway, that's my thoughts on the matter...