I knew it was important, but I'm a believer now! In about a week of adding protein shakes 2x/day, I have:

1) Lost weight this week at a faster rate than previous weeks, even though caloric content is the same or even a slight bit (200) higher
2) Dropped measurable body fat or fat weight, if you can trust my bfscale, which I've been using consistently since September
3) Increased my weights on both my ubwo and lbwo when I seemed I was pretty much stalled on getting any increases since late October

Now, true, this could all be purely coincidental, and if it was just increasing my lifting you could convince me that it was just "time" for this to happen. But all 3? Oh, and I got into 2 pairs of pants from my "waiting" pile. Hmmmm........

So are these shakes on top of your 6 mini meals?

How much protein (g) do you get every day now?

Yay! good stuff

Mel

Great job Fran. I panic whenever my supply of protein powder begins to run low. My DH teases me about it but it really has made a difference in my progress as well.

Fran,

I took a protein shake this morning at 11, as you mentioned in the other thread, and the funny thing is I did not freeze at lunch anymore. Quite the opposite!. I* might even have been a bit less tired, in any case i craved usgar less. Only one day yet, but still...I plan to add a shake in the afternoon as well.

rabbit

My meal plan during the year I was losing weight was three real meals (with protein) and two protein shakes per day. I give 'em a big thumbs up!

Wow Rabbit, I didn't know about the internal combustion - heating benefit!! But it makes total sense - while I was in NY, I was BURNING UP the whole time. On the train, everyone else was comfortable, and I was walking out to the space b/w trains to cool off. I was walking around outside w/o a coat. My face always looked like I had just gotten done doing cardio (flushed). So that's due to protein?

Fru, for the past one week I did meal replacement smoothies, to try to budge myself off of a mini-plateau. So they are not in addition, but in place of. I'm getting on avg 100grams of protein a day now. Maybe not a lot but incrementally huge for me - about a 50% increase from the additional 54g coming from the protein smoothies. 1200-1400 cals total per day, plus cardio each day. Weights as normal. I'll be going back to the 5 mini-meals and 1500-1600 per day starting tomorrow. I've gotten down from 240 to 217 since 9/1.

Fru, how much do you take in on an avg day now?

I aim for over 120g protein, but yesterday I consider a good day and had 146g and 1650 kcals, which is probably about right for me

This month has not been "typical" and some days are more carb-based than others, but I realised that my body might be slow to recover from the hardcore martial arts I've been doing because I haven't had enough protein over the weekend so I'm going to start aiming for 150g pro.