Long, long day, today, especially as I had a really crappy night, yet again - lots of tossing and turning. -_- I didn't work out this morning, and now I'm too tired and drained to workout this evening, though I may do something light later on; that might be a crappy excuse, but my saving grace is that I did a lot of walking, ... about an hour and half in total. (I went to see a place I may end up working, and visited my brah; had a great time, and the job looks very promising! Lots of heavy lifting, so... )

I use anabolic whey protein shakes, but I wouldn't bother with them if you don't have much of a high protein requirement. I need rather a lot because I aim for building a lot of muscle. (and also "whey" quite a bit. -_- Apparently that's something to do with it)

I take just two scoops a day alongside my other sources of protein (typically tuna, veg-type stuff, and chicken) aiming for protein in almost every meal, or every meal, if possible.

It's amazing stuff, though, and you could quite easily just take less and probably get away with it even if you don't really need it; it certainly does wonders if you do the work, too. Quite pricey, though. Honestly, if you only need something like 60g of protein a day, then I wouldn't really bother, as it's pretty easy to get that protein in 3 of those meals. (assuming you do the 5-6 meals a day thing - not each enormous meals)

I'm told that you should avoid shakes with creatine, as apparently it's dangerous; this seems to be a dodgy subject amongst body-builders, so I tend to just avoid creatine and keep shtum about it.

An example of a typical day for me:

* Wake up.
* Workout for 15-40 minutes, depending on how hard I go and what I do.
* Protein shake. (I aim for 20g, but it probably ends up somewhere between 20-27g, which is a bit much, but hey-ho)
* Meal (typically half a tin of decent tuna in 2 slices of whole meal bread, maybe with a piri-piri pepper or two, and/or maybe some sauce, oh and definitely some olives)
* Protein shake.
* Final regular meal. Something like cous-cous, or the tuna sandwich, or something I have a lot, which is a decent-sized Greek salad.
* Typically have a snack later on, but I try not to keep it too soon before I sleep.

Towards the evening, I have a tendency of working out again, sometimes heavy, sometimes light; it's a problem, to be honest, because when I workout too late, it makes sleeping kinda difficult, at least I presume that's it. The above doesn't include days I walk, such as going to the shops (granted, it's 2 minutes away ) go trekking off for an hour or more with a weighted (10KG) rucksack, or the times I walk to town for college, which takes about 30-35 minutes, I think, or, finally, the times I walk to my folks' house which takes about 15-17 minutes.

One of the reasons I'm gaining muscle is because it really helps with weight loss, at least long-term. I mean, since I was about 16, I've been into body-building, I just sucked at it until I recently got back into it and learned that it's not just about the exercises, the diet is extremely important, but also, that I have to push myself to lift heavier weights and try new things; I since I sorted that, I've seen lots of improvement. (granted, I was still skinny and had muscle, but I could've been a LOT bigger had I known what I do now -_-)