Research points to a whey-protein supplement as one of the smartest additions to your nutrition plan
Whey protein is the most studied sports supplement available, and today decades of research support its efficacy. Whether you’re looking to build muscle mass or lose weight, whey plays a unique role unequaled by other proteins or nutritional supplements.
The magic happens, importantly, because whey drives muscle-protein synthesis (MPS), the intramuscular process that signals muscles to grow larger (called muscle hypertrophy). In fact, under certain circumstances just taking a whey supplement – whether or not you even work out – initiates MPS. Anabolism drives muscle growth, which is why whey has an anabolic effect.
We’ll explore how whey comes from milk and milk derivatives, its exceptional benefits, how to use it to build muscle, and its importance for weight loss and overall health. We’ll even address a question many lifters have: Can whey protein make you fat?
What Is Whey Protein?
Experts cite whey as the most complete protein supplement, offering the highest biological value. It delivers a superior amino-acid profile, rich in the amino acids most effective for building muscle, and contains an abundance of the nine essential amino acids—those your body cannot produce and must obtain from your diet. Whey contains a remarkably high level of branched-chain amino acids – leucine, isoleucine, and valine – that play an especially critical role in muscle growth. In the world of bodybuilding, athletes rely on whey protein to dramatically boost protein synthesis during recovery from weight training.
Up until the early ‘90s, cheese companies generally considered whey protein a waste product. Whey is a liquid byproduct of cheese manufacturing, separated from curd (casein) during the cheese-production process. he cheese-production process separates liquid whey, which contains about 90% protein and differs from pure whey protein. The rest is mostly water, lactose, and a small amount of vitamins.
Protein supplement manufacturers have therefore created several methods to isolate the whey protein from this liquid. Different processing techniques affect whey’s purity and bioavailability, creating variations in whey protein, such as whey isolate, whey hydrolysate, and whey concentrate. Because separating the whey fraction increases costs of production, the increasing purity of the final product typically is more expensive. Let’s take a look at each.
Types of Whey Protein
Whey protein comes in different forms, so it’s worthwhile to understand these to determine which variation of whey is right for you. The most popular types are as follows:
Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC)
Despite the name, whey protein concentrate has the lowest concentration of protein of all the whey derivatives. Supplements that come under the WPC category typically have around 30% protein alongside carbohydrates, lactose, and fat. Hence by no means is it pure. So to consume a target protein amount – say 30 grams – means you have to eat a considerable amount of the other macronutrients to reach your protein mark. In that sense, WPC therefore significantly boosts overall calories per 30-gram protein serving, which can shift your daily caloric balance upward, leading to the possibility of gaining more weight than desired.
Whey Protein Isolate (WPI)
Produced from WPC, whey protein isolate is the purest source of protein on the market, with concentrations of greater than 90% purity in high- quality products. WPI contains only about 0.5% fat and 0.5% lactose, so it’s a great option for those concerned with reducing dietary fat or lactose- intolerant individuals. There are various ways to filter the whey from the other constituents, some better than others and some more expensive than others. High-quality WPI is absorbed relatively quickly, albeit not as rapidly as whey protein hydrolysate (see below), driving a rapid and substantial rise in blood amino acids. As a result, WPI has fewer calories per 30-gram serving than its counterparts, making it a value proposition for those looking to support weight-loss goals while building lean muscle mass. This makes WPI a preferred option for gym-goers and athletes in general.
Both types of whey suit any physique or training goal, though higher-quality products come with a higher price tag.
Does Whey Protein Make You Gain Weight?
How to Use Whey Protein as Part of a Mass-Gain Plan
The bottom line for putting on muscle is ensuring you’re eating more calories each day than you’re burning. That can entail complicated logging of your daily macronutrients alongside estimates of what you’re burning, then eating an additional 250-500 calories each day to ensure you’re on the mass-gain side of the equation. (Be mindful, this works for the stated goal of gaining muscle only if you’re also training not just hard, but right, and eating a balanced, high-protein meal, which is beyond the scope of this discussion). A simpler way, however, is that if you’re currently at an equilibrium level, then simply add 1-2 small protein-rich snacks to your day.
Because individual metabolism varies so greatly, it’s recommended you keep an eye on the scale to ensure you’re not putting on too much weight too fast (or too little). For most people, increases in muscle mass can be up to 2 pounds per week, at least in the short term.
If you’re putting on more mass than that, chances are high you’re adding body fat in addition to muscle. Here, extra calories are not just being used to increase muscle mass but the surplus is likely to be stored as fat. Amino acids aren’t efficiently converted to fat stores, but it can happen. In this scenario, using a WPI or WPH product over WPC can help reduce the excess calories.
That’s why the balancing act of calories in and calories expended should be closely watched over time. Anybody can overeat and build mass; you’re looking for quality muscle mass, and that simply takes more time to do right.
How Much Whey Protein Per Serving Is Recommended?
Let’s start out with your daily protein target. Non-exercises and hard exercisers have different daily protein requirements, and if you’re looking to build muscle, you’re going to favor the high end of the American College of Sports Medicine’s daily recommendation. That is, consume up to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. An easy reference that has been long used by bodybuilders is simply to round that number up to 1, such that if you weigh 180 pounds, consume up to 180 grams of protein each day.
Eating six meals (three large, three small) a day extends the absorption period in your gut, meaning blood amino-acid levels are higher for longer, which better supports muscle growth. That’s a main reason serious lifters follow an eating plan that’s not restricted to just three meals a day. For the 180-pound person described above, that would be six 30-gram servings of protein at each feeding, spaced about three hours apart.
When to Take Whey Protein for Weight Gain
Your most important meals of the day start with these two: a high-protein breakfast (your first meal after a night-long fast) and the meal that immediately follows your training session, as that’s when your body is depleted of energy stores (sugars, namely muscle glycogen and blood glucose that provided the energy for your training session). Because replacing those sugars causes an insulin response, which effectively drives those sugars into depleted muscle cells, it’s a great time to include a large serving of amino acids (specifically, fast-absorbing amino acids like WPH and WPI) that will likewise be more quickly absorbed.
Most lifters eat whole-food meals three times daily, and that’s a good way to build your nutrition plan to ensure you’re also meeting your daily macro- and micro-nutrient needs. High-protein snacks work especially well between meals, and that’s where a whey-protein supplement can be especially helpful for a fast and easy snack. A post-workout whey-based shake with a carbohydrate source is universally appealing to those seeking to add lean muscle mass.
Taking a serving of whey pre-workout kickstarts muscle-protein synthesis, getting it going before you even leave the gym.
How to Use Whey Protein as Part of a Weight-Loss Plan
You may focus more on losing body fat than building muscle, but whey plays an important role in this process, too. Opposite of the mass-gain plan, here you’re looking to ensure you’re burning more calories each day than you consume. Again, that can entail detailed nutrition logs and calculations for utmost accuracy, but phasing in small 250-500 cuts in your total daily intake is a good place to start. (That assumes your body is currently at an equilibrium level.)
Protein intake is especially critical when following a caloric deficit. Let’s be clear, a drastic cut in your carbs can lead to an initial drop in body fat, but that reduction will be short-lived. The problem with dieting is that your body is constantly fighting to prevent too much fat loss because human evolution was predicated on times of not only feast but famine when food was scarce. That may have been a problem for our ancestors, but it’s not a real issue for most of us today, though human evolution has not caught up.
Hence, our bodies react to conditions as if we are living 10,000 years ago. Sensing starvation, the body evolved to save stored fat as much as possible for emergency conditions, opting to selectively use muscle tissue for energy instead by stripping off nitrogen and using the remainder as fuel. That means big cuts in your carbs and calories can backfire – you’re instead likely to lose muscle mass instead of body fat while seeing a concurrent drop in metabolism, both unwelcome outcomes.
Bottom line: When dieting, just cutting calories isn’t your top priority because that’s when you need more protein. A better approach is to instead increase your protein intake and selectively cut carbs. That’s where a whey protein supplement is especially useful as your body falls into a catabolic state. Increased protein consumption is the most important tool you have to fight back.
As with gaining mass, a high-protein breakfast is the best place to start. Numerous studies indicate breakfast is the most critical meal in a successful diet strategy.
Whey Protein and Your Health
Not all research on whey protein is necessarily related to its use as a sports supplement to aid physique goals or exercise performance.
That being said, its use for weight loss goes beyond just looking good given obesity is such a huge problem and its effect on a huge number of health issues, including cardiovascular disease (mainly heart disease and stroke), type-2 diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis, and some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).
References
Whey protein has been studied for its effect on other markers of health, and here are just some of the results:
- Whey protein may help lower blood pressure; Whey protein lowers blood pressure and improves endothelial function and lipid biomarkers in adults with prehypertension and mild hypertension: results from the chronic Whey2Go randomized controlled trial - ScienceDirect
- Whey protein may help treat type-2 diabetes (this effect is above and beyond the role whey plays in losing weight; it also has been shown to help moderate blood sugar and increase both the levels of insulin and the sensitivity to its effects); Benefits of Whey Proteins on Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Parameters and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases - PMC
- Whey protein may help reduce inflammation; Bio-Molecular Characteristics of Whey Proteins with Relation to Inflammation | IntechOpen
- Whey protein may be beneficial to inflammatory bowel disease; The Effect of Protein Nutritional Support on Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Its Potential Mechanisms
- Whey protein may enhance the body’s antioxidant defenses; The Antioxidant Effects of Whey Protein Peptide on Learning and Memory Improvement in Aging Mice Models
- Whey protein may have beneficial effects on blood fats; The Chronic Effects of Whey Proteins on Blood Pressure, Vascular Function, and Inflammatory Markers in Overweight Individuals - Pal - 2010 - Obesity - Wiley Online Library
- Whey protein is highly satiating (feeling of being full), meaning it may help reduce hunger; Dietary protein – its role in satiety, energetics, weight loss and health | British Journal of Nutrition | Cambridge Core
While the use above of the word “may” suggests inconclusively, research trials are never definitive in the sense that it’s impossible to eliminate the myriad other factors going on that influence the results. The results are not simply correctional here; there is a suggested cause-and-effect relationship.
