by Chris Shugart
Body Insurance
Life gets crazy sometimes. Use this simple strategy to protect your muscles, stay lean, and boost your health.
You can handle anything life throws at you if have a rock-solid marriage. That's the theory at least. Financial woes, illness, job stress: everything is easier to deal with if your marital foundation is strong.
I like that idea, and it's a good way to think about other stuff too, even your diet. Life throws 88-mile-per-hour curveballs. Plan all you want, but schedules change, emergencies pop up, work demands increase, and kids do what kids do. But if you have one foundational diet strategy in place, everything will be okay.
I call this the one-shake strategy. It's a simple idea. No matter how crazy life gets, it'll be okay if I have one shake a day with some add-ins that fit my needs and goals. Call it body insurance.
While traveling recently, this strategy saved my dietary tail. Meals at restaurants that weren't exactly physique-friendly, two delayed flights, rental car issues… the list goes on. My nutrition plan took a curveball to the noggin, but it was fine: I had my shake that morning.
The One-Shake Foundational Strategy
My shake will look different than yours, but here's how I make it:
- MD Protein (Buy at Amazon) (two scoops)
- Biotest Superfood (Buy at Amazon) (one scoop)
- Collagen Blend (1 scoop or 10 grams)
- Pine Bark Extract (about half a teaspoon)
- Fiber (Metamucil, about a teaspoon)
- Creatine (5 grams)
Throw it all into a blender or shaker and I'm good to go. When traveling, I add all these powders to one container and shake it up. For a three-day trip, I'll triple the dosages. Easy-peasy. The taste? Pretty good, even with the not-exactly-delicious pine bark extract. (MD Protein makes anything taste good.)
Why These Ingredients?
Each one fits my particular needs:
- MD Protein: My goal is to consume about a gram of protein per pound of body weight, or at least enough to meet the body's protein threshold and kill cravings. Two scoops provide 44 grams, so it's not that difficult to make up the rest with solid meals. MD Protein (Buy at Amazon) contains a blend of micellar casein and whey protein isolate. The micellar casein provides a steady supply of amino acids and maintains muscle protein synthesis for a long time. It's also anti-catabolic and very filling. The whey isolate is packed with leucine, the most anabolic amino acid.
- Biotest Superfood: Am I getting 18 different vegetables, fruits, and berries every day? Nope. So, to cover my bases, I add one scoop of Superfood (Buy at Amazon) to my shake. Superfood contains 18 potent whole-food extracts. It's an easy way to get all my healthy greens, reds, and blues without eating salads all day.
- Collagen Blend: A daily hit of collagen improves joint health. It restores lost collagen in ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and skin. If you've been lifting heavy weights for years (or you just don't want to feel or look your age), you probably need it. I like a blend containing bovine and marine collagens. I use Horbaach Multi Collagen (Buy at Amazon), but there are several good brands available.
- Pine Bark Extract (Pycnogenol): This stuff is kind of a do-it-all supplement. It promotes healthy blood circulation, vascular function, and nitric oxide production. (The "side effect" of all three of those also happens to lead to better sexual health.) It also helps keep blood pressure in check, aids in prostate health, controls glucose levels, makes your joints feel better, and improves skin elasticity. You can buy it in capsule form, but the powders are ridiculously inexpensive. I use this one (Buy at Amazon).
- Fiber: Psyllium husk, as boring as it is, has a host of benefits: appetite control, blood sugar and insulin management, cholesterol regulation, improved gut health, etc. I just toss a serving of sugar-free Metamucil into my shake, but if you want to get fancy, pick up some organic psyllium husk (Buy at Amazon).
- Creatine: You know what it does for muscles and performance, but it's also great for brain health. It fights cognitive fatigue, replenishes ATP (the brain's primary energy currency), and has neuroprotective properties. It even boosts mood by optimizing energy metabolism in the brain and supporting neurotransmitter function, which may help stave off depression. All you need is a modest daily dose of creatine monohydrate (Buy at Amazon).
What's in Your Shake?
Start with MD Protein and Superfood. The rest is up to you. Mine is more of a "middle-aged lifter" shake. I have it every morning.
And yes, some of these things may work slightly better as stand-alones. For example, there's some evidence that taking creatine after training is the best strategy. But consistency trumps everything else, so I just toss it into my shake and never miss a dose.
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