ExRx.net

I love milk and have always drunk loads (maybe too much?) of the stuff. How good (or not) is it as a source of protein and as part of a diet intended to gain weight/ muscle?

The protein is OK. It does have a lot of sugar in it and a lot of people have some alergy or sensativity to milk.
The fat in milk is not particularily healthy.

Cow milk (whole)
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 60 kcal 250 kJ
Carbohydrates 5.2 g
- Sugars 5.2 g
- Lactose 5.2 g
Fat 3.25 g
- saturated 1.9 g
- monounsaturated 0.8 g
- polyunsaturated 0.2 g
Protein 3.2 g

To me this seems like a lot of sugar to get relatively little protein.

Low fat milk is an option for those concerned with fat intake but low fat milk is reconstituted from powdered milk and poteins may have been damaged in the transition.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

Given the low levels of protein in milk, it's cheaper to get your protein from whey and you avoid the extra sugar.


Stu

I read (can't remember where sorry) that milk is the best drink for you to have after a workout other than some mixed drink like a protien shake. I drink skim milk after my workouts with my protien mix. The nilk i drink has a little different stats than what stu posted...

fat: 0
cholesteral: 1%
sodium: 152 mg
sugar: 12 g
protien: 8 g

while thats still not a ton of protien its still something good to drink after a workout if its skim or 1%.

The difference is that my stats were per 100g, yours were per serving.

I'm going to weigh in w/my 2 cents. I don't even drink milk, but I do know this. Doc Sear's of The Zone highly recommend it because of it's close to 40-30-30 ratio (C/P/F) (whole milk), and recommends a glass after a workout. I also know that when I was in Jr High and messed up my knee, I got fat in the cast, and Doc put me on a common sense diet close to Berardi's 7 habits (and this was 40 years prior to me hearing of Berardi). He also advised chocolate milk because apparently (back then anyway) it was lower in fat. As far as gaining weight, it's been used by the old timer's with great success, and was used in my HS days (1960's). Not as much as Rippetoe is recommending, but it was fairly common to see the football types work out in summer, then knock down a quart of the stuff for post workout. Not saying it's great, but it was effective. Of course those guys were also knocking down half a cow at a setting, and eating a can of pork and beans before going to bed as well. Very similar to what Coreless is talking about. One last thing about milk's history. The famous Super Squat or 20rep squat routine was laughlingly known as the "Milk and Squat" diet for weight gain. That routine was taxing and bordering on the insane, and JC Hise was known to knock down a gallon of milk after a workout. Hise gained over 100 lbs in a little over a year. It was considered, though, to be too excessive and specfic to squatting and not enough devotion to overall athleticism.
Tim

haha tim yea im trimming my diet as we speak drinking more water instead of soda and also trying to trim caffiene from my diet entirely also im going to be eating lean meats more greens and less high calorie foods haha LOVE MILK THOUGH and read that chocolate milk post workout is = to or better than gatorade powerade etc so its not bad but if you want to gain weight .eat untill your sick of eating haha that definitely would help but don't do that long term. I heard long term high calorie intake can be bad for ya.

I'm actually a huge fan of post-workout chocolate milk. I remember reading a year or two ago that the University of Washington football team started using chocolate milk as a post-workout recovery drink for all of its players.
Here's the link: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2969182

I did a Google search and found this as well, a study by an Indiana University physiology professor: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/tips/page/normal/1674.html

Besides, chocolate milk is just so tasty.