muscle milk or protein powder?

[AmberD86]

Hey hey! Talk about being a new challenge for any info lol.

I can NOT chew food. Due to a brain surgery last year, I lost jaw closure so diet is soft foods or a crap load of shakes

question is:
because I use it to help with a meal replacement, what is better to use, muscle milk or protein powder?

Im not fully new to work out things and did protein powder for a long time after working out. But after surgery I felt I needed 'more' since I cant eat so much now. So ive been using muscle milk powder to shakes. And I even did the math to all that I add to it and your looking at a 7-900 calorie shake LOL mind you, im 27 and 125 pounds and over the course of past year(since surgery) ive only gained 3-5 pounds bc that shake is filling and im only on a 3 meals a day and before bed snack atm. But im here now to figure out if its to much.

I had to start with this shake while im learning what I CAN manage to digest. I put a packet of instent oatmeal in the cup, scoop of muscle milk, 3 SMALL ice cream scoop fulls of peanut butter and about 5 to 6 scoops with same small ice cream scooper. I fill the rest with 2% milk.

Im starting to think, now that im able to really start trying again and finding more to eat, that I should either go back down to protein powder or maybe split this shake in two and spread it out so its not consumed all at once. This shake is the one major thing just keeping weight but now that I plan to start working out, I wanna figure out if protein powder would be better to stay with?

Due to the surgery(ill explain more in profile of it shortly) I got a fractured back and I was unable to stand from sitting on floor, by myself, for a few months after surgery. So right now I dont workout much. But once I get a better handle of meds I take and the food I eat I will then come back here to figure out a workout routine with the equipment I have at home.

Thanks for any advice!

[Boss Man]

Muscle milk is quite well rated as is an egg white product. I just did a bit of research and you can actually get something called Muscle Milk 'N' oats, which has about 30g protein, 34g carbs and 300 calories, the only discrepancy I could find was that the saturates, polys and mono's, account for 5g out of the stated 6g fats, which means either there is some or all of the remaining 1g of unstated fat, that could be trans fat and / or hydrogenates, or the 6g listing is a typo.

I'm not overly concerned about that though.

As with protein powders you'd have differing choices. I'd avoid the ones with loads of ingredients in as they're pricey and unnecessary and just go for a bog standard one with about 4-6 ingredients in. If you go low carb you could mix in some crushed oats, or if you go with a carb based one, then usually they often contain maltodextrin, or waxy maize starch.

Ones with enhanced levels of BCAA, (leucine, isoleucine and valine), would be good, as they affect muscle mass and enhanced glutamine as well, as that affects sleep and immune function positively.

You can go for concentrate which is the cheapest type of whey product, then you have isolate and finally hydrolysate, the most pure, but it depends on what you think is best and are willing to pay, but obviously bigger tubs of any of those save money as it's bulk buying.

You can also use soy powders and some companies make vegan powders made from vegetable or legume based matter, like nutrisport protein 90+ vegan, bu whether you can get that stateside I don't know, as they're British.

There is also a site called Hemp Oil Can, based in Canada that sells hemp oil products and possibly others that do hemp protein powder too. Soy foods have the most concentrated amount of protein at 33%, but hemp is 25% and then I think it's beef and eggs at around 18%.

You can actually use a site like True Nation and get customised mixes if you prefer.

If you find a protein powder a little funny tasting, you could alter the taste with things like mocha powder, vanilla essence, ground ginger, ground nutmeg, cinnamon and honey.

Water is better for digestion purposes, as it results in a quicker digestion shake than mixing with milk, for four reasons.

1. Milk makes the product more viscous.

2. Milk adds more slow digesting casein protein.

3. Milk adds more calories.

4. Milk requires lactase enzyme production to break down the galactose molecules in the lactose di-saccharide, which could therefore increase enzymatic competition and slow down absorption.

However adding milk would work at bedtime if you chose to consume something like that before bed, as the casein would allow more digestion time and preserve more muscle mass.

You can also have casein protein powder as well, but that occasionally causes a little bit of bloating for some, but is not usually an issue. Then as it has no carbs in it usually, just use the crushed oats if you like, add water not milk and flavour it in the ways suggested, if it tastes a bit blerch.

As for splitting the consumption of a powder or muscle milk, then yes, you could halve the quantity and consume in split doses rather than the whole thing at once, if you prefer.

There's also the egg white product I mentioned if you want to do research on that, but the only downside there is, you'd have to find some sort of carb content to add to it and crushed oats would probably taste like cack mixed in with it.

Hopefully all that waffle helps in some way .

[saurabh bhargava]

According to me Muscle milk is the best option and with that you can also go for juices.

[SuppleLion]

regular whey protein and a good colostrum supplement is ideal.

[lbh005]

I would think that by using muscle milk, and other protein specific supplements that you would be gaining a lot of weight due to the fact that protein that isn't used for muscle building purposes is stored as fat in the body.

One of friends is on a diet exactly like yours after having facial reconstruction and jaw surgery. The Doctor recommended a supplement that he had used before called Prime. He said that this would provide her with most, if not all, of the nutrients that she would need on a daily basis.

[JamesBrunet]

Two different things optimum whey is whey. Muscle milk is a blended protein-casein and whey
its better for pre-bed or pre-WO. whey is better post-WO or in the a.m., when you need a faster digesting protein. IMO, muscle milk is a great product and tastes awesome as far as proteins go.