bitful

Ever since I started having a more serious approach to weight training, I have tried to eat at least one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. Opinions vary on the subject, but this amount seems to draw some consensus.

Naturally, I try as much as I can to get most of my allowance from food, and fortunately I am not getting bored yet with daily portions of chicken breast, tuna in spring water, egg whites and low-fat cottage cheese.

Sometimes though, especially during the recommended 30 to 40-minute window right after working out, protein shakes are handy and provide the added bonus of a good protein/carb balance. Also, peeling boiled eggs while sitting on the mat in between abs sets is somewhat frowned upon at my gym.

But man, do these shakes taste foul (apart from those suspiciously lovely ready-made Multipower ones I occasionally but at the gym – unfortunately, they are a bit too pricey at £2.90 each).

Holland and Barrett does a good half-price offer every now and then on big tubs of protein powder, and the chocolate flavour one is tolerable. On those grounds, I bought the vanilla version, and it has been sitting on my kitchen counter for a couple of months now. I try mixing a bit of it in with the chocolate-flavoured protein, but it taints everything it gets in contact with. Mixing it with melted Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie would help – but somehow denies the whole point of the operation. Not that I have not considered it, mind you.

Yesterday I fancied a bit of a treat and an upgrade, so I took advantage of another half-price offer currently on the Holland and Barrett website. These boxes of 20 individual sachets are a bit more expensive, which made me hope that some of the extra cash went into proper research into improved flavours that would actually appeal to humans.

By now I have learnt my lesson and have gone straight for the chocolate-flavour version. Big mistake. Not only is the taste so bad I cannot even find words to describe it (the words 'saccharin' and 'manure' come to mind), it also feels like sucking raw egg whites through your teeth. Yum.

Nineteen sachets now need a good home with no sense of taste or smell. One tin of tuna ONO

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2005 at 8:27 am and is filed under uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.