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I. Basic Nutrition

Understanding the Fundamentals of Human Nutrition

Before you can understand sports nutrition, you are going to have to understand basic nutrition. I'm always amazed when I talk to people at the gym about nutrition. Most of the them are well educated and have good jobs, but do not know the first thing about nutrition. I ask them how much protein they're getting in their diet, and they don't have a clue. Most of them could care less. That is until I tell them they may be wasting their time and energy by not supplying their body with the vital nutrients to repair muscle tissue during intense training sessions. We'll get into that a little later. First, let's take a look at the fundamentals of human nutrition.We are all collections of molecules that move. All of these moving parts are arranged in complexity and order; cells, tissues and organs. Your skin for instance, which seems to have covered you without changing from the time you were born, is not the same skin that covered you seven years ago, it is made of entirely new cells. The fat beneath your skin is not the same fat that was there a year ago. Your oldest red blood cell is only 120 days old, and the entire lining of your digestive tract is renewed every three days. Why am I telling you this, and why is it important to you? In order to maintain yourself, you must continually replenish the energy you bum and replace the pieces you lose.To put together an actual person with nothing more than the purified chemical ingredients, (supposing it could be done) would be very expensive. We contain a gold mine of molecular information in a highly organized form. The protein hemoglobin of the red blood cells for example, costs several dollars a gram, the hormone insulin is close to $50 a gram. If we were to estimate the value of all the chemical constituents of a single human body, it would be somewhere around six million dollars (and that's without Steve Austin's bionics!) That's also before computing the cost of assembly, preservation and maintenance. As amusing as this calculation may be, it illustrates that we are the most information-dense structures on the planet, surpassing passing even the most expensive and elaborate computers. All the pieces you are made of have come from your food, and what you put into your body. You are made of exactly what you eat.

Macronutrients
The food that you eat is composed of hundreds of different kinds of materials, but mostly, it is made up of three main nutrients; protein, carbohydrates and fat. These are commonly referred to as macronutrients. The science of nutrition is the study of how this takes place - the study of the nutrients in foods and the body's ability to handle those nutrients. You can metabolize a lot of different nutrients, such as vitamins and minerals. However, you can only derive energy from these three macronutrients, or energy nutrients as some books refer to them. They are vital to life and without continual replenishment of the energy you expend daily, you would soon die. When oxidized in the body, the energy nutrients break down, and some of their components bind with other compounds and form waste materials. As they are broken down they release energy. Some of this energy is released as heat, some is transferred into other compounds that make up the structures of our body cells and some is used as fuel for our activities.

Calories and Nutrients
This energy that is released by the macronutrients can be measured in calories, which are familiar to everyone as a measure of food energy and of the energy the body spends in large quantities during heavy exercise. Both carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories per grams, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram. Just by looking at these amounts we can see that it takes more than twice the amount of energy to bum a gram of fat, than it does to burn a gram of protein or carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are your body's primary fuel source, because it is easier for your body to break down a gram of carbohydrate for energy, than it is to break down a gram of fat. In order for your body to use fat as energy, you either have to be doing something aerobic (like riding a bike) for at least fifteen minutes, or be completely depleted of carbohydrates so your body has no other choice than to use stored body fat for energy. The energy content of a food is determined by how much protein, carbohydrates and fat it contains. If you don't use these nutrients immediately after you eat them, your body will store them in the form of body fat and put them away for use between meals and overnight. A simple rule to understand is that if you consume more than you use, you will gain weight. It doesn't matter if it is in the form of protein, carbohydrates or fat. measure of food energy and of the energy the body spends in large quantities during heavy exercise. Both carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram.

Calories and Nutrients
This energy that is released by the macronutrients can be measured in calories, which are familiar to everyone as a measure of food energy and of the energy the body spends in large quantities during heavy exercise. Both carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories per grams, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram. Just by looking at these amounts we can see that it takes more than twice the amount of energy to bum a gram of fat, than it does to burn a gram of protein or carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are your body's primary fuel source, because it is easier for your body to break down a gram of carbohydrate for energy, than it is to break down a gram of fat. In order for your body to use fat as energy, you either have to be doing something aerobic (like riding a bike) for at least fifteen minutes, or be completely depleted of carbohydrates so your body has no other choice than to use stored body fat for energy. The energy content of a food is determined by how much protein, carbohydrates and fat it contains. If you don't use these nutrients immediately after you eat them, your body will store them in the form of body fat and put them away for use between meals and overnight. A simple rule to understand is that if you consume more than you use, you will gain weight. It doesn't matter if it is in the form of protein, carbohydrates or fat. measure of food energy and of the energy the body spends in large quantities during heavy exercise. Both carbohydrates and protein contain 4 calories per gram, whereas fat contains 9 calories per gram.

xMinerals
Minerals are much smaller than vitamins and occur in much simpler forms. Like vitamins, minerals do not provide energy. There are dozens of minerals found in nature, of them 21 are essential in human nutrition. Some of the ones you are probably most familiar with are sodium (which is salt), potassium (aids in muscular contractions) and calcium (good for bones and teeth). Minerals are just like vitamins, in that they act as helpers in delivering nutrients and aiding in certain functions in the body. They are different however from vitamins due to the fact that they are indestructible. When you prepare your food you need to be con- concerned about over-cooking because it is very easy to destroy vitamins. This is not the case with minerals.

Water
Water is indispensable and abundant in the body. It actually forms the major part of every tissue within the body. Most people often take water for granted because it is everywhere. The amount of water you actually need compared to the other nutrients is enormous, about two to three liters per day. That's 2,000-3,000 grams. Considering bodybuilders need I grain of protein per pound of body weight and the average person weighs less than 200 pounds, that's more than 10 times the amount of water needed as compared to protein. That's a pretty amazing figure! You obviously don't have to drink that much water each day, because there is water in the foods we eat. Water is a very important nutrient in that it provides the medium for which most of the body's activities are conducted. It also participates In many of the metabolic reactions that occur in the body and helps transport vital materials to the cells. One function that is of great importance is that water serves as the vehicle in which glycogen is transported into muscle cells. Glycogen is often referred to as muscle fuel, because it powers muscle contractions. A simple calculation for determining your water requirements is to multiply your body weight by .6 and divide it by 12. This will give you the amount of water you need in 8 ounce glasses. Example: If you weigh 200 lbs. Then calculate as follows. 200 (weight) x .6 / 12 = 10 (8 oz.) glasses of water per day.

II. Sports Nutrition

Now that you have an understanding of basic human nutrition, we can take a look at sports nutrition more specifically. There are so many cutting edge products coming out on the market today, it is unbelievable. I think I am a little more educated than the average consumer as well as privy to more information, and even I have a hard time keeping up with all the new products. First, there was powdered creatine, which we all know works very well. Then we heard liquid creatine was better, then we heard it wasn't. Then came the testosterone boosters. First it was DHEA, then androstenedione. Now there is androstenediol, 4-AD, 5-AD, 19-nor and the list goes on. Lately, there has even been a push with a new sublingual homeopathic growth hormone. How are you, the consumer supposed to make sense of all this, and determine which products work and which ones don't? Unless you want to try every single product on the market and spend a lot of money doing it, you probably will never know for sure. You can read the latest literature and scientific university studies done on these products, but I think they only tell half the story. Over the years we at Max Muscle have seen literally hundreds of products introduced with hyped up claims backed up by university studies. Most of these products fall by the wayside. If the product really works the customer will buy more. No matter how much marketing and hype it's only as good as the customer says it is. We like to refer to this as the acid test. Creatine monohydrate is a great example of a product that lived up to it's expectations. Customers love creatine, because it really can dramatically increase muscle size and endurance. HMB is an example of a product that never quite passed the "Acid Test" The marketing and hype was there, but the product never lived up to the expectations the marketing created. We are now reviewing a new study that combines HMB with several other ingredients and looks awesome on paper. Our next step will be to give it try and let you know if it really works. The point here is that there is a place for supplementation in your program, but you have to be smart about it. I have talked to many people that spend their last dime on supplements. We're talking $700-$800 a month. I guess that's ok if you can afford it, but half these guys can't even pay their rent! What you have to determine when implementing your program is what you actually need, and what you can do without. It all boils down to the fact that people are searching for that one magical supplement. Sure there have been major advancements in the past five years in sports nutrition supplements, but the bottom line is if you want results, you must incorporate proper training and recuperation with a sound nutritional program.

Protein
We know that a gram of protein yields 4 calories of energy, but why is it so important in regards to build- building muscle. Amino acids are known as the building blocks of life. Each protein molecule may contain any of the 22 different amino acids, but in order for it to be a complete protein, it must contain the essential I amino acids. There are nine amino acids that are considered essential because our bodies cannot produce them, they have to be derived from dietary sources. When we consume a complete protein, it is broken down into amino acids. These amino acids have a variety of functions, one of the primary roles being that of repairing muscle-tissue. It is important to consume enough protein in our diets, especially if we our engaging in resistance training. Resistance exercise increases protein synthesis (the body's ability to break down protein to usable amino acids) and can cause negative nitrogen balance, which suggests a need for increased protein in the diet. Whenever you are In negative nitrogen balance, your body is in a catabolic state. That means it is breaking down your own muscle tissue to get the amino acids it needs for other functions. You remember that at the beginning of this guide I told you about people in the gym wasting their time if they weren't getting enough protein? Well this is why, and it's worth repeating. If you are not getting enough protein from your diet, your body will literally rob your own muscles of amino acids. This results in negative nitrogen balance and loss of lean muscle tissue. For anyone trying to put on muscle , this turns out to be a big problem! You're defeating the whole purpose of working out, because your body doesn't have the tools to repair the muscle tissue you must spent an hour in the gym breaking down. This will rapidly lead to being in an over-trained state, and some people wonder why they never make any gains in the gym. The studies that Chesley ET. Al., 1992 conducted, reported that a protein intake of about 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight was required to maintain positive nitrogen balance in strength- training athletes. That's almost I gram of protein per pound of body weight, which far exceeds the recommended daily allowance.

Protein Testing
We know from this study and many others, as well as practical application by millions of strength-training athletes, that we need to consume extra protein in our diets. But of all the protein powders on the market, and the different types of actual protein we can get from food, how do we know which is best? For starters, there are different ways to measure the quality of a protein. The simplest way to evaluate the protein quality of a food source is by Chemical Scoring. This is where the amino acid composition of the protein itself is rated, by comparing it to a reference protein. It is possible to determine the amino acid composition of any protein inexpensively, but unfortunately, chemical scoring does not always reflect accurately the way the body will use a protein. The Protein Efficiency Ratio (PER) is the best known procedure for evaluating protein quality and is used in the U.S. as the basis for regulations regarding food labeling. The PER has become outdated, primarily due to the fact that the ratio is based on the grams of weight gained by rats divided by the grams of protein they were fed. The biggest problem with the PER studies is that the need for amino acids in rats is not the same as that for human beings. Knowing that a protein has a high PER is still a good indicator that it is a high quality protein. Net Protein Utilization is a little more complex testing procedure, but has the same basic problem as PER, in that it uses animals as the test subjects. The only way to determine the actual value of a protein as it is used by the human body, is to measure not only urinary, but also fecal losses of nitrogen when the protein is actually fed to human beings under test conditions. This determines the Biological Value of the protein. The primary reason this method is so important in determining the bio-availability of protein is because it is done on actual humans. This gives us a more accurate protein value, while determining exactly what the nitrogen retention is. This is very important because it lets us know how much of the protein we can assimilate (actually use) after we consume it.

Carbohydrates
The primary role of carbohydrates or sugars is to provide the body with energy. Their second role is to spare protein from being used as energy, so that it will always be available to build and repair muscle. This is why many times you will hear carbohydrates being referred to as protein sparing. There are two kinds of carbohydrates, simple and complex. A simple carbohydrate is made up of only one sugar. When you eat a simple sugar your body uses it for energy immediately. This results in a quick rise in blood sugar levels, prompting the hormone insulin to be released. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body and serves as a regulator. Its purpose is to level off blood sugar levels by sending the sugars where they need to go. If your body doesn't use all of the simple sugar you have just eaten, it will store the excess in fat cells. This is different from complex carbohydrates, which are composed of more than one sugar. When you eat complex carbohydrates, they are broken down into glucose and insulin is again secreted to regulate where the sugar goes. However this time, if your body does not use all of the complex carbohydrates, the excess will be stored as glycogen in either the muscle cell or liver cell for later use. When you eat complex carbohydrates you can maintain even amounts of energy levels over a longer period of time. When most people think of complex carbohydrates they think of pasta, rice, or potatoes. These are the complex carbohydrates that have a caloric value. However, fibrous carbohydrates like vegetables are also considered complex carbohydrates, yet they do not have the same caloric value. When we get into setting up your diets, starchy carbohydrates are what you are going to want to eat earlier in the day, while fibrous carbohydrates will be what you want to eat later in the day.

Fat
Fats are the ideal fuel for long-term energy. This is the reason you need to incorporate some sort of aerobic exercise into your program. If you don't, you, you can never effectively utilize fat stores. Fat is classified into three different groups, and the one we really need to be concerned about is simple fats, also known as triglycerides. This is the only group of fats we can derive energy from. There are saturated fats and unsaturated fats, and when we talk about fats in our diet, we want them to come from unsaturated fats. Unsaturated fats come from plants and vegetables, whereas saturated fats come from animals.

III. Diet

We now know what nutrients we want to incorporate into our diet, but what are the best foods to get them from, and how much of them do we need? First, remember that it doesn't matter if everything we are eating is perfect, if too much of it is consumed, we will get fat. And if our goal is to get lean, that isn't what we are going to want to do. Again, if our goal is to build muscle, we better make sure we are eating enough protein. So how do we go about putting together our game plan. There are a million different diets, just as there are a million different training routines. You've got everything from the high protein diet to the high fat diet and to this day experts in our field still argue as to which diet is the best. It's funny that these supposed Diet gurus sit around and argue their theories, meanwhile it looks like the only diets they incorporate into their lifestyle are ones consisting of donuts and pizza.Human nutrition may be a science, but by no means is it an exact science. What I mean by that, is every single person's metabolism is different. Each one of us was born with our own unique DNA that determines our genetic makeup. We all have different physical characteristics and process nutrients based on the blueprint that was given to us at birth. So don't think the diet your personal trainer wrote for you is going to work for you or anyone else for that matter, based on some magical formula he or she came up with. There are formulas out there to determine your basal metabolic rate, and from there you can deter- mine how many calories you may need. But more specifically, out of those calories how many should come from protein, how many from carbohydrates, and how many from fat? What I'm getting at, is that you need to establish what works best for your body based on trial and error. Don't get me wrong, it's good to have a starting point, which I'm going to show you in a minute. It also helps you to understand which nutrients do what (which is why I spent time going over them). But more importantly, we just have to start somewhere, get going, and then make adjustments. If you try to make it to exact, or spend too much time analyzing your diet, you're going to end up looking like those diet-gurus.

Getting Started
There is a few basic rules that everyone should follow when setting up their own diet plan:
1st: Remember to eat smaller more frequent meals throughout the day. This will help speed up you body' metabolism and help keep you from storing fat. It will also help you stay controllably hungry, which will make it easier not to binge or cheat.
2nd: Keep your protein high. This goes for you ladies as well. Remember, if you are incorporating a strength, training routine into your program, you need at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Even if you decide not to use weights, keep in mind that dietary protein taken every 3-4 hours will prevent you from loosing lean muscle tissue, even while doing aerobic training. The last thing you want to have happen , is your body to rob the amino acids from your own muscles!
3rd: Keep dietary fats to a minimum. While fat is important in our diet, it makes it very hard to get lean with too much dietary fat being taken in.
4th: Watch your carbohydrate intake. Carbohydrates are considered protein sparing, but too much of them in our diet will prevent us from losing unwanted body fat. If you are burning the carbohydrates from your diet all day long, it will be virtually impossible for your body to burn stored body fat for energy.
5th: Make sure to eat protein right after your train. This is your "window-of-opportunity" when your muscles need that protein to help repair them after they have just been broken down in the gym.
6th: Plan your meals with carbohydrates and fat, earlier in the day, After 5pm, you don't want any more calories to come from starchy carbohydrates.
7th: Be sure to drink a lot of water. Protein has a dehydrating effect on the body and water will help moderate that as well as help transport the nutrients.
8th: Watch your sodium levels. Too much sodium will cause you to retain sub cutaneous water, which will blur muscle definition.

Determining your calorie intake
The first thing I would do when I was getting ready for a bodybuilding contest, and what you are going to do for the MaxFormation Championship, would be to access my current diet. By that I mean I would write down exactly what I had been eating for the last week and then calculate out the totals and take an average. Now I could see how much protein, carbohydrates, fat and total calories I had been eating each day. This was my starting point. If I determined that I had been eating 5000 calories per day, and I may have also noted that I was carrying way too much body fat, then I would reduce my calories about 20% to start with. To figure this out I would calculate the calories I was presently consuming (5000) times (.2 or 20%) = 1000. Then subtract 1000 from 5000 to have a starting point of 4000 calories. If you feel you are eating too few calories you may need to increase your calories in order to gain weight. The first couple of weeks will determine whether your calculations were done correctly. More than likely you will need to make corrections since metabolic rates vary in all of us depending on age, activity level, and of course our unique genetic blueprint. Now, I had to decide what it was I wanted to accomplish. Obviously, since I was getting ready for a bodybuilding show, I wanted to keep as much muscle as possible, while getting as shredded (very lean) as possible. In order for me to do that, I would have to keep my protein as high as possible , while limiting my carbohydrates and dietary fat. For you, it might be to bulk up or tone down. The important thing is to figure it out before you get started. You have to have a clear vision of what it is you want to accomplish before you expend any energy toward your goal.

Body fat percentage
Next, you will want to measure your body fat, to give yourself an idea of where you are at presently. This will give you a percentage of body fat that will help you determine how much fat you need to lose. Remember as you build lean muscle, this will help you to burn body fat more quickly and efficiently. There are many different methods, probably the easiest and most convenient, is the skin fold test. It uses an instrument called a caliper and measures your body fat by taking skin folds at various sites around your body. The test is painless and can be done pretty quickly. A lot of gyms and health centers offer free body fat testing. To give you an example of how to incorporate your body fat result into your program lets take a look at what I did. I started with a body weight of 265 pounds at about 12% body fat. This meant I had about 32 pounds of fat on me. You can figure this out by multiplying 265lbs x. 12=31.8lbs of fat. I wanted to get down to about 4% body fat, which meant I had to lose about 21 pounds of fat. To arrive at this number, figure that 265 x 4% body fat is 10.6 pounds, subtract that from the 31.8 pounds of fat I was at currently, and I would have to lose 21.2 pounds of fat. Now remember this isn't exact. No testing procedure, not even hydrostatic weighing is completely accurate. So leave some room either way for error. You also have to remember that bone and water will also affect the end results. I ended up coming into my last show at 238 pounds and under 4% body fat, which meant I was pretty close to my target weight. Based on the calculations, I would have been around 243 pounds. The other 5 pounds was probably water that I eliminated during the last few days preceding the contest. This is to bring all of your muscle definition out for the day of the show, which I will explain how to do for your after pictures. This is part of the process towards the end called peaking.

A formula for lowering body fat levels
You know where you are at presently, and where you want to be at the end of your program, so what next? We have to figure out what to eat to get us to achieve our end result. In my case, I had 14 weeks to diet and had to lose 21 pounds. That meant I needed to lose approximately 1.5 pounds of body fat per week to attain my target weight, which is right about at the limit of how much weight you want to lose each week. For the most part we are all going to have to lose some fat, unless you are a genetically gifted wonder. If you lose anymore than 2 pounds of body weight in a week, you are most likely sacrificing lean muscle with fat. And believe me you don't want to sacrifice any muscle! So lets use Mike as our example. He is 200 pounds at IO% body fat, and he wants to get down to 5 % body fat, how long does he need. First, remember we multiply 200 x .10 = 20 pounds of body fat. That's where he is at currently. Mike wants to get to 5% body fat, which would be 10 pounds of fat. Now subtract that from the 20 pounds of fat he is holding and that leaves him with 10 pounds of fat to lose to be at 5% body fat. That gives Mike a good ten weeks, which would allow him to lose I pound per week and still enable him to reach his target weight. See how easy that is. I simplified it for practical purposes, but just follow the formula, and you shouldn't have any problems. We know Mike needs to lose a pound a week for the next ten weeks. Mike is planning to do a 16 or maybe even 20 week MaxFormation -- this will give him plenty of time to make any adjustments so he will look awesome for his after photos.

Protein requirements
We have our starting point of how many calories Mike has been eating to get to where he is presently. So the first thing we need to do is make some adjustments. Let's start with protein. We know that Mike will be incorporating a strength-training routine into his program, so he should be eating at the very least I gram of protein per pound of body weight. If he has only been eating 180 grams of protein, then we are going to have to do some rearranging. Since protein and carbohydrates are both 4 calories per gram, I would simply ply subtract the same number of carbohydrates from his diet, that I am adding with protein to keep the caloric value the same. So what we just did, was add 2O grams of protein to his diet, and subtract 2O grams of carbohydrates. The caloric value remains the same because we just switched the protein and carbohydrates.

Lowering dietary fat
Next, I would take a look at his dietary fat and cut it by about 5%. So, if Mike's total calories were 2000 and 20% of his diet was from fat, than we know that he is eating about 45 grams of fat per day in his diet. To figure this out, we just multiple 2000 calories by .20 and get 400 calories. Now remember that 400 value is in calories, so we have to divide it by 9 (because there is 9 calories in one gram of fat), and that leaves us with approximately 45 grams of dietary fat. Since we are going to start by cutting his fat by 5%, we need to figure out 15% of his diet from fat which would be 300 calories or 33 grams (2000 x .15 = 300 divided by 9 calories = 33.3 grams of fat.) That leaves us with a difference of 12 grams of fat (by sub- subtracting 45 grams of fat - 33 grams of fat). Now all we have to do is look at Mike's diet and decide where we are going to cut the 12 grains of fat. The best place to cut the fat is in the meals that he is eating later in the day, since we don't want to store that fat overnight. We want to use it up during the day, so it would be best to eat the 33 crams of fat during the first half of the day, before Mike works out. This first week, Mike should lose some fat, based on the fact that his diet has been pretty consistent for the last few weeks and his body weight hasn't changed. Keep in mind that we will be adding aerobic training to Mike's program. We only reduced his caloric intake by 108 calories, which came from the 12 grams of fat we cut out.

Don't be afraid to make changes
The first time you change your diet, a lot of different things are bound to happen, because of the initial shock to the system. If you lose more than a couple pounds, it's ok, your body is just acclimating itself to the changes. But after the second week if you are still losing more than a couple pounds, then we would want to add back some calories. Chances are though, if you just make a subtle change like we did with Mike, you will probably only lose a pound or two. So lets assume everything is going great, you are losing I pound a week and then after 5 weeks, all of a sudden you stop losing weight. It is time to go in and make another adjustment. This time, we may want to subtract another 5% from fat calories, or if we feel our dietary fat is getting too low, subtract some calories from carbohydrates. The only thing that should stay pretty constant throughout the whole diet is your protein value, however even this may need to be adjusted higher. There is a definite correlation to getting lean while eating a high protein diet. If you feel your not getting as ripped as you would like to, then try upping your protein level. Be prepared to lose a little energy, while a high protein diet is awesome for getting ripped it is not the best diet for enhancing energy levels. Don't be afraid to go in and change things around. No one, including yourself (unless you've done this before), is going to know exactly how your body is going to respond. Have fun with it and experiment Nothing is going to be exact so don't freak yourself out just be prepared to make a few adjustments as you move toward your ultimate goal, and believe me the MaxFormation will take place!

Best foods
There are many different foods that are good for you. What we have to determine is what will be the best foods for us to incorporate into our diet plan to help us attain the best results and achieve our goal. Below is a list of foods that you can choose from when structuring your diet:

One of the more common questions I get is "isn't there some protein in the carbohydrates sources and fat in the protein sources, etc."? The answer is yes. You will always have a combination of the macronutrients in all foods, however most foods derive the majority of their calories from one macronutrient and that is why they are classified as such. The protein sources above are very good sources for you to get your protein, because they all have very little carbohydrates and fat. When choosing your protein sources at the grocery store, make sure to pick the leanest cuts of meat. Remember that there will be saturated fat in our protein sources, so we want to minimize that amount as much as possible. It is better to get our fat from the essential fatty acids in unsaturated fat. When we get into supplements, you will see how easy it is to incorporate them into your diet.

Why do I need supplements
After seeing all the great foods there are to obtain nutrients from, you may be wondering why you need to take any type of supplement. The truth is, you really don't. Everything you need to build muscle and lose fat is right there in the perfect diet. The problem most people encounter is that they don't eat the perfect diet. They have the "NO" syndrome -- No Time, No Knowledge, No Money. Most of us don't have the time to prepare the meals needed to make up the prefect diet and on the rare occasion that we do, many of us fall short on knowledge or money. Enter supplements...They are economical as well as convenient, and best of all they take the guesswork out of determining the nutrients within each serving. When you consider a piece of steak at the grocery store will cost you upwards of $3.00, you can get the same amount of protein in a scoop of MaxPro for around 60 cents. Not to mention that is going to take you a lot longer to prepare that piece of steak than it is to drink MaxPro, it really becomes a no-brainer. Because of the recent advances made in the manufacturing and extraction process of protein powders, many of the higher quality products like MaxPro, are actually more bio-available and easier for your body to digest and assimilate than dietary protein.