It so happened, and it’s good that cottage cheese has become the single most affordable protein-containing product for athletes. Due to its amino acid composition, a dairy product is not only a product of a healthy lifestyle, but also a product of gaining/maintaining muscle mass.
Today we'll talk about cottage cheese. We’ll discuss which cottage cheese is best for you, based on the athlete’s goals, and also share a couple of interesting fitness recipes.
Cottage cheese: one of the favorite dishes of athletes
Cottage cheese, as mentioned above, is a unique product in its amino acid composition, which contains the amino acids necessary for gaining muscle mass. In addition, cottage cheese is absorbed by the human body better than meat. It is softer and more tender than most other high protein products.
The only problem with cottage cheese is that some people suffer from dairy intolerance.
What can you add to cottage cheese for even greater benefits?
To enhance the beneficial effects of the curd menu on the body, you can show your imagination and combine the product with various ingredients or prepare separate dishes from it.
Here are several options for the curd menu:
- as an ingredient in protein shakes;
- add to various vegetable and fruit salads;
- dietary dessert with the addition of nuts, honey, jam, dried fruits;
- do baking;
- prepare casseroles;
- add to banana milkshake.
In fact, the ways to add cottage cheese to your diet are varied: from a simple snack to a full meal.
Homemade cottage cheese, fatty cottage cheese: what is the difference for sports.
Among the types of cottage cheese, the following are found on the shelves: fat and low-fat. Below Power-fit.ru looked at which is better to use cottage cheese for gaining muscle mass and drying the body.
The difference between them is not only in the percentage of fat content, but also in the amount of protein per 100 grams of substance. Low-fat cottage cheese has more protein, fatty cottage cheese has less.
This does not mean that low-fat cottage cheese is better, fatty cottage cheese is good for the initial stages of weight loss and fat burning. 9% cottage cheese is more filling, thanks to which you can calm your appetite for a long time. But you shouldn’t get too carried away with fatty cottage cheese, otherwise the body will use these fats as the main fuel, and then the diet or fat burning will come to naught. After all, 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories.
At the same time, dry cottage cheese, that is, low-fat cottage cheese, is better suited as a natural and healthy substitute for protein powder. “Adopt” after training to use low-fat cottage cheese as a dinner, and also immediately after training to close the protein-carbohydrate window.
And if you are training for weight, then any type of cottage cheese will do. The main thing is not to starve!
Cottage cheese for gaining muscle mass
Professional athletes need to consume cottage cheese daily, since this is an urgent requirement both to increase the volume of muscle mass and to preserve its structure from destruction.
Did you know? 200 g of cottage cheese contains up to 30 g of protein, and this is equivalent to one serving of a protein shake.
Let us consider further why exactly the curd menu is useful for an athlete, what is the right choice of product, at what time is it best to consume it and in what quantities.
What's the use
The main feature of this dairy product is its high content of various nutrients, which make it valuable for the diet.
We are talking about the following components of cottage cheese (per 100 g of product):
- fat content - 0.5-15% (depending on the type of cleaning);
- protein - 15-18 g (casein up to 70%, the rest is easily digestible protein);
- fats - 5 g;
- carbohydrates - 2-4 g;
- mineral and vitamin composition of potassium, phosphorus, calcium, etc.
This unique composition makes cottage cheese indispensable for strength loads, since its digestibility rate is low, and this allows you to maintain the process of restoration of muscle structure for a long time. This is the main essence of its use by athletes.
Important! When buying cottage cheese, be sure to read its composition on the packaging: a natural product should not contain vegetable fats, starch, artificial flavors or dyes.
A few more benefits of a diet containing cottage cheese:
- it is quickly absorbed by the body;
- inexpensive and accessible;
- it can be combined with other foods and drinks.
When to use
If we take into account the rate of absorption of cottage cheese by the body (from 1.5 to 5 hours), then consuming the product immediately before strength training will not be reasonable.
Here are some recommendations for choosing the optimal time to consume the described product for gaining muscle fiber weight and restoring it:
- an hour or two before the training, so that at the beginning of the training the eaten dish has already been broken down and absorbed;
- during the daytime, cottage cheese can be eaten regardless of time (between main meals);
- The correct time to consume a dairy product before bed will be because the muscles will be saturated with amino acids for a long time, which will reduce the catabolic process.
Find out more about when and with what it is better to eat cottage cheese and whether low-fat cottage cheese is healthy.
Which one is better and how much is there?
Despite the availability of the product described, making the right choice is not so easy: the store chain offers a wide variety of dairy products. Nevertheless, by adhering to some recommendations, you can choose the option that is acceptable to you.
When purchasing cottage cheese, pay attention to the following criteria:
- The consistency of the cottage cheese should not be completely crumbly, but more homogeneous and soft, grainy.
- Evaluate the smell: it should smell like milk, without other foreign odors.
- The taste of cottage cheese should be moderately sour; if its acidity is increased, then the shelf life of this product has expired; A “greasy” taste will indicate that the product contains palm oil.
- If you want to not only gain volume, but also dry it out, opt for cottage cheese, which has a fat content of up to 1%.
- If you do not set a goal to dry, then you can buy cottage cheese with 5% fat content.
- Homemade cottage cheese will also help achieve good growth results, since its fat content is always higher than that of store-bought counterparts. You just need to buy such products in specialized departments on the market, from trusted sellers who have product quality certificates.
- Regardless of the type of workout, sometimes give preference to low-fat types of product: it contains more protein, less fat, and also reduced calories. This will allow you to consume up to 500 g of the product without exceeding the daily calorie limit, and will also spare the gastrointestinal tract.
As for the amount of cottage cheese eaten, it is important to consider several factors:
- what is the mass of the athlete;
- the amount of muscle tissue and excess fat;
- frequency and intensity of training.
Did you know? Drinking milk with high fat content (over 3%) helps overcome muscle pain that occurs after training.
It is also necessary to remember that the body can only absorb a clearly regulated amount of protein:
- 300-500 g can be absorbed by the male body;
- 150-200 g - female.
This amount of food should be divided into two or three meals per day. It is important not to forget that the daily amount of protein consumed must also include other protein-containing foods (low-fat fish and meat, eggs, other dairy products).
What types of cottage cheese are there:
1. Store-bought full-fat cottage cheese [9% fat] 2. Store-bought low-fat cottage cheese [0% fat] 3. Homemade fat-free cottage cheese 4. Homemade low-fat cottage cheese
When you buy homemade cottage cheese, don’t even ask the seller how much fat it contains. The sellers are most likely newcomers and will just throw up their hands, because, really, how would they know?
In store-bought cottage cheese, the fat content is accurate, but you don’t know what kind of milk it was made from. Most often, such cottage cheese is made from powdered milk.
The benefits and harms of cottage cheese
Let's take a closer look at the beneficial and harmful properties of cottage cheese.
The benefits of cottage cheese for an athlete
The benefits are expressed by the following points:
- It is a source of high-quality and inexpensive protein of animal origin
. In bodybuilding, proteins of animal origin are considered complete. About the usefulness of vegetable protein; - Contains casein, which is necessary for an athlete before bedtime
. Casein protein is more expensive than regular protein. Cottage cheese is the cheapest source of casein; - It is a source of vitamins and minerals
, without which muscle growth is impossible, and the athlete’s health deteriorates. Cottage cheese contains B vitamins, calcium, phosphorus, selenium and other minerals; - Cottage cheese plays a role in bodybuilding
. Improves digestion, speeds up metabolism. Contains amino acids that help improve mood and improve performance; - Improves health
. All body systems function better, including the brain.
Harm of cottage cheese for an athlete
- Cottage cheese contains a lot of proteins
. This is cool for a bodybuilder and any athlete. But only healthy ones. A high amount of protein becomes a factor that will significantly worsen your life if you have diseased kidneys. The harm lies not in the cottage cheese, but in the protein, which should not be consumed in high quantities if you have diseased kidneys. Bodybuilders consume 2 or even 3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Healthy kidneys can withstand 2 grams, but sick kidneys “slip” even from a gram; - The harm of cottage cheese is the development of a disease such as acne
. Again, we are talking about a high amount of protein. Here we are talking about genetics, predisposition to skin diseases; - Risk of running into a fake
. They are minimal, but it is better to check the cottage cheese for fake using the method below. Unscrupulous manufacturers use starch instead of the product in question. Sometimes palm oil is added. This is rare, but worth considering.
How much protein is in 100 grams of cottage cheese:
Cottage cheese is one of the most amino acid-rich foods in the world. Below we will prove why:
— For 100 grams of low-fat cottage cheese there are 16.5 grams of protein.
— 100 grams of full-fat cottage cheese contains about 14 grams of protein.
It's up to you to decide which cottage cheese is best for you. It all depends on your goals.
As we mentioned above, fatty cottage cheese can fill you up well and stave off hunger. But by eating a lot of fatty cottage cheese, you will stop the fat burning process, while you can eat as much as you like on low-fat cottage cheese. More fat means more calories, less fat means fewer calories.
If you are overweight, then in the initial stages, focus on full-fat or half-fat cottage cheese. But it’s better not to eat such cottage cheese at night. You may experience heaviness in your stomach or intestines.
If the percentage of fat in the body is not very high, then it’s time to switch to low-fat cottage cheese. But there is a nuance here. If the weather is warm, then you can survive on low-fat cottage cheese for a long time, but if it’s cool, then cutting down calories and disdaining sweet healthy foods: fruits, honey; You risk losing your temper and starting to binge on food waste [chips, crackers, fast food] again. But if your motivation is very strong, then low-fat cottage cheese will help. Feel free to have dinner with it before bed.
Try to diversify your menu, otherwise, no matter what goals you set for yourself, the monotony of foods will sooner or later push you to a breakdown and you will start eating everything.
The benefits and effectiveness of cottage cheese during weight training
Professional athletes consume cottage cheese every day. This is a necessary condition not only for muscle growth, but also to prevent their destruction. Due to the slow rate of absorption, protein enters the muscles over a long period, which allows you to maintain anabolism for a long time. The main feature of the product is that it contains mostly casein. The rest is the so-called “fast protein”. Cottage cheese also contains many vitamins and minerals, which makes it an indispensable product in the diet. In general, the composition per 100 g contains:
- Protein - about 17-18 grams (of which 70% casein and about 30% quickly digestible protein);
- Fats - from 0.5% to 15% (depending on the type and degree of purification);
- Carbohydrates - about 2 grams;
- A large amount of vitamins and minerals (especially potassium, calcium and phosphorus).
The main point of using cottage cheese in strength sports lies precisely in its slow rate of absorption.
Experts and nutritionists recommend that all people eat cottage cheese in sufficient quantities. This is necessary to strengthen bones and obtain all the necessary amino acids.
Cottage cheese recipes for weight loss and weight gain:
For further motivation, Power Fit presents a mouth-watering selection of cottage cheese recipes.
Classic protein: milk, cottage cheese, bananas.
To prepare this dish you will need:
- 100 grams of cottage cheese - 2 ripe bananas. - 1-2 glasses of milk.
Mix the ingredients in a mixer until thick and liquid. It is advisable to use full-fat cottage cheese, and add milk gradually so as not to turn your thick protein shake into a liquid one.
Experiment with serving sizes. You understand - different portions are obtained for men and women. If you want less carbohydrates, add less banana. If you want more protein, more cottage cheese.
This cocktail is perfect at any time of the day, as well as immediately after training to close the protein-carbohydrate window.
Homemade weight gainer: cottage cheese with condensed milk.
Cottage cheese with condensed milk is a super-easy dish to prepare. Prepared in a hurry.
- 100 grams of cottage cheese. - Condensed milk to taste.
The recipe is simple. Place the cottage cheese on a plate and pour over condensed milk. Is our cottage cheese with condensed milk ready?
The dish is suitable for those athletes who train to gain muscle mass. You can safely eat both before and after training.
Fitness salad: cottage cheese, eggs, chicken breast and a little salt.
What can I say, before your eyes is a recipe for a real fitness salad. Not sweet, and will work as a variety for a side dish.
- 200 grams of cottage cheese. - 2 hard-boiled eggs. - from 100 grams of boiled chicken breast. - salt and spices to taste.
Cooking: it’s up to you to decide which cottage cheese is best suited for salad.
Finely chop the meat, peel the eggs and grate them. Place cottage cheese, eggs and meat in a bowl. Add salt and your favorite spice to taste. Maybe mayonnaise. Greens will also serve as a good addition to this dish: finely chopped dill or parsley.
Mix all the ingredients and our fitness salad is ready!
Fitness cheesecakes from Denis Seminikhin: get your 50 grams of protein.
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Why do you need cottage cheese in bodybuilding?
Bodybuilders use cottage cheese for:
- . We supplement proteins from fish, meat and eggs;
- . During fat loss, athletes consume a lot of protein foods with a low amount of fat. They quickly become boring and the diet becomes torture. Many inexperienced bodybuilders use ONLY chicken breast or other protein products, which leads to eating disorders;
- Savings
. Protein from cottage cheese is not inferior in quality to proteins from meat or fish. The cost is several times lower. In terms of grams, protein from cottage cheese is even cheaper than protein from eggs or milk, which makes the product under review the most beneficial for the athlete’s pocket.
Beer with sour cream for weight gain
Quite a long time ago, the opinion appeared that sour cream allows you to gain weight in a short time. At the same time, scientists have determined that this food product cannot be completely processed in the digestive system. According to available information, only about a quarter of the sour cream that ends up in the digestive system can be absorbed. The remaining 75 percent is simply excreted from the human body.
But beer is almost completely processed due to an increase in the acidic environment in the stomach. In addition, beer contains special substances that speed up food processing and also allow fats to be absorbed faster. This suggests that beer can significantly increase nutrient absorption in the digestive tract. This fact applies to any product that is consumed together with beer.
We also note that beer itself cannot speed up the process of gaining weight, no matter what they tell you. We know that sour cream mainly consists of fats and a small proportion of protein compounds. Thus, if you drink beer to gain weight with sour cream, then more than 90 percent of the fats contained in the dairy product will be absorbed by the body. It is with the increased ability of the digestive system to absorb the fats contained in sour cream that weight gain is associated.
Which cottage cheese should athletes choose?
Let's first find out what types of this product exist:
- Acid rennet – produced from pasteurized milk using a special rennet enzyme and lactic acid.
- Acid curd - to prepare the product, skim or pasteurized milk is used, and only lactic acid.
- Separate - first, low-fat cottage cheese is made, and then the resulting product is mixed with cream. As a result, you can get cottage cheese with any fat content.
We have already said that athletes need to pay attention to the fat content of the product. The best choice would be low-fat or low-fat cottage cheese. At night, we recommend consuming grain curd, which is curd grains mixed with a certain amount of cream. This product has a fairly low energy value, which is about 155 calories for every hundred grams of cottage cheese.
You should not pay attention to the various curd cheeses and masses that are present in abundance on store shelves. They contain a lot of fat and sugar, which is unacceptable. Any bodybuilder wants to progress and for this he tries to choose only a high-quality product. Choose only cottage cheese that has a crumbly consistency.
Low-fat cottage cheese may contain a minimal amount of whey. Its taste and smell should be fermented milk, and its color should be white, with a slight creamy tint. If you decide to buy a first-grade product, it may have a slight taste of wood and bitterness. It is also necessary to pay attention to the date of production of cottage cheese, because the maximum shelf life of this product is only one week.
The benefits of cottage cheese when performing strength exercises
Cottage cheese is very useful in fitness for the following reasons:
- It consists of casein and protein in almost equal proportions. The first component provides energy for 5 hours. The second component is absorbed faster - in 3 hours. Therefore, its benefits are invaluable both before fitness classes, when you need a supply of energy, and after them, when you need to recover faster. It is advisable to consume it 1.5 – 2 hours before training.
- Cottage cheese contains a large amount of vitamins and minerals. Of the vitamins these are A, B1, B2, C, PP, and of the minerals - calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, sodium, phosphorus.
- If you train in the evening, then this product will be an excellent dinner. This will help you avoid overeating at night. This is especially important for those who want to lose weight. .
The vitamin and mineral composition has particular benefits for the athlete’s body. This complex of vitamins is useful because it:
- promotes tissue growth and repair;
- increases skin elasticity;
- normalizes the functioning of the cardiovascular and endocrine systems;
- improves metabolism;
- strengthens bone tissue;
- improves protein metabolism;
- enhances the release of energy from carbohydrates and fats.
- normalization of blood pressure;
- removing excess fluid from the body;
- strengthening bones;
- improvement of protein and nucleic acid synthesis in muscle tissue;
- better passage of nutrients throughout the body;
- improving tissue endurance;
- accelerating the processes of metabolism of proteins, fats and carbohydrates;
- normalization of hemoglobin in the blood.
Replenishment of nutrients in the body will have a beneficial effect on the general condition of the athlete, his muscles and training performance.
Not every cottage cheese is equally healthy. If you take a store-bought product, it is quite difficult to choose it. First of all, you should understand that cottage cheese and curd mass are different things. The curd mass contains a lot of sugar and often flavorings. Proper sports nutrition does not accept them.
Therefore, cottage cheese should be clean, crumbly and without sugar. 100 grams of low-fat cottage cheese should contain approximately 17 g of protein, up to 2 g of carbohydrates and up to 2 g of fat.
It is not necessary to use it in its pure form. You can add fruits, berries or honey to it. In addition, you can prepare various dishes from it. But exposure to high temperatures reduces the amount of casein in cottage cheese, which reduces its value. However, if you simply grind it in a blender with milk or fruit, you can get a pretty tasty dish.
Most athletes, especially those whose goal is to lose weight, consider low-fat cottage cheese the best product. However, this is not quite true. The absence of fat reduces its beneficial properties. Calcium from such cottage cheese is not absorbed, which does not contribute to the production of the hormone calcitriol.
How to distinguish a fake?
It is easy to distinguish fake cottage cheese: you need to add a drop of iodine to the curd mass. The color has not changed - the product does not contain starch. If the product turns blue, purple or other colors, the manufacturer has reduced the cost of producing the product with starch.
With palm oil it’s a little more difficult, but you can check: adding oil greatly increases the shelf life of the product and makes it cheaper. A kilogram of cottage cheese cannot cost less than 2.5 liters of milk.
The best choice is to buy cottage cheese at the market
. Few people there will bother adding starch or palm oil, and most village grandmothers don’t have such technologies.
An alternative is proven cottage cheese from famous brands. They value their reputation and make money through the high quality of their products.
Beneficial features
According to one legend, cottage cheese was created by accident. The milk turned sour, and when people tried the new product, they were surprised and delighted at its pleasant taste. This event happened a long time ago, since cottage cheese was known back in Ancient Rome. There, the patricians, as well as the plebeians, loved to taste it as a dessert with honey, wine or milk.
Today, thanks to precise laboratory tests and accumulated experience, we are well aware of almost all the beneficial properties of cottage cheese.
1. The protein in this product is of animal origin, which means, unlike plant proteins, it has all the necessary amino acids for gaining muscle mass and increasing strength.
2. Casein is traditionally considered a “long-lasting” protein; it is able to saturate the body with energy for 6-7 hours after consumption. Therefore, it is beneficial to eat cottage cheese at night. But it is no less good immediately after an intense workout, since the rest of the curd protein is “fast” protein.
3. Cottage cheese is rich in iron, phosphorus and calcium. These components are extremely necessary for a person during physical exercise; they work effectively to strengthen the entire musculoskeletal system.
4. Cottage cheese contains a VIP amino acid called methionine, which has a lipotropic effect. It significantly reduces blood cholesterol levels and actively affects protein and fat metabolism.
5. The structure of cottage cheese allows it to be absorbed extremely quickly and almost completely in the body. For this procedure, only 2-3 hours are enough. It is much easier to digest than meat, fish or poultry, thanks to vitamins, folic acid, copper, zinc, iron salts, calcium and other useful components. Without exaggeration, we can say that cottage cheese is one of the lightest sources of animal protein.
6. There are indisputable facts confirming the positive effect of cottage cheese on the functioning of the nervous, circulatory and cardiovascular systems.
Let's not forget about the economic benefits. After all, cottage cheese is much cheaper than its competitors in terms of protein - eggs, fish, meat.
