Bodybuilders are one of the most meticulous eaters out there. Despite carrying a huge amount of muscles, they still choose their food carefully. They need to have a protein intake that’s far higher than for an average person out there. Carbohydrates need to come from quality sources and the same applies to fat.
You may ask yourself if kefir belongs to a bodybuilding diet and the answer to that question is a strong yes.
Kefir brings numerous health benefits for bodybuilders, aside from a high amount of quality and useful calories. Since you’re reading this, I guess you love bodybuilding and if you want a short answer, then go and drink your kefir.
Those who want a detailed explanation and deeper kefir analysis… well, keep reading!
Table of Contents
Where Do Calories in Kefir Come From?
As we said, bodybuilders look at the food from a different perspective. You want to eat some delicious food and feed your stomach, while a typical bodybuilder wants to feed his body and muscles. A typical portion of kefir is about 8 ounces which equals to 225 grams approximately. This is an amount of kefir that we’ll talk about in the following article. A portion of kefir has 154 calories. Divided in half, it’s around 77 calories. That’s a pretty low-calorie count for a dairy product such as kefir (in this case we are talking about milk kefir because water kefir is not a dairy product).
However, calories in kefir can be drastically different. They can depend on the type of kefir – water or milk kefir. Beware that we’re talking about milk kefir, as it’s better suited for bodybuilders, which we’ll elaborate later. Having 154 calories in a serving, it’s only 8% of the daily suggested intake of around 2000 calories. Bodybuilders love protein and let’s give it to them! The good news is that kefir packs around 9g of protein per serving, which is a decent amount. Having in mind that one egg has 6g, 225g of kefir has an amount of protein equal to 1.5 eggs.
The reason we mentioned protein first is that it’s a nutrient that lets your body repair cells, as well as muscles. Protein is a crucial nutrient in everyone’s diet and it can drastically improve your health. For bodybuilders, an ideal amount of protein is around 2g per 1kg of bodyweight. Carbohydrates-wise, kefir has only 4g per serving, which is very low. Thankfully, we don’t need that many carbohydrates in dairy products simply because it’s lactose, known to cause troubles for many people.
With a carbohydrate amount this low, it’s easy to see why kefir is a great drink for bodybuilders and people looking to cut down bodyweight. As for the fat, kefir has 8g in the 225g (8 ounces) serving. Whether it’s low or high depends on the rest of your diet. Fat from dairy products won’t cause any troubles if consumed in moderation. The same cannot be said for the sunflower oil, chips, French fries, etc. Having in mind that there are only 2g of saturated fat and 6g of non-saturated fat, you won’t have any trouble with kefir.
It’s known that saturated fat can raise your cholesterol (LDL) levels but new studies show exactly the opposite. Saturated fat is still a mandatory nutrient in your diet as long as you keep its intake lower. Around 0.7g per 1kg of bodyweight is recommended.
Kefir and Bodybuilding Diet
Kefir and bodybuilding diet go hand-to-hand with each other. Bodybuilding diet consists of lots of proteins from quality meat, eggs, fish, and dairy products. Some foods from such a diet are recommended for a Candida diet, which we mentioned in some previous articles. Since you want to consume a higher amount of proteins, kefir is an excellent addition to your diet. One or two standard portions a day won’t have any negative effects. In fact, its positive effects will emerge as soon as you start drinking it.
Not only you’ll have more proteins to digest but also make the digestion process easier. For bodybuilders looking to gain some mass, kefir can also help but not in that way, since it’s low in calories. Instead, it’s going to speed up and make the digestion process much better. When eating a lot of food, your stomach can get distended and it can even hurt. Kefir will make food digestion easier and you won’t feel such symptoms. Needless to say that it will feed on the sugar in your gut, reducing sugar intake from some starchy carbs.
Kefir and Bone Density
If you’ve ever been into bodybuilding, you know that you can’t make muscles with minuscule weights. Those girls that you see lifting the 1-pound weight over and over again, probably look the same as before. Instead, pushing your boundaries and getting stronger is a way to go. But, it’s not your muscles that will prevent you in that. Your bones and tendons will also scream for help. A damaged bone, joint or tendon is very hard to repair and recuperate but you can make them stronger with kefir.
Thanks to a substantial amount of vitamin B12, magnesium, vitamin K2, and calcium, your bone density can be improved. While every dairy product has a decent amount of calcium, we still recommend kefir, as it’s the best of them. Magnesium is also great for your bones, as well as for your brain.
Kefir and Prebiotics
If you think that we’ve mistaken a letter, that’s because you’ve never heard of prebiotics. Probiotics need prebiotics in order to thrive. They are basically indigestible food ingredients which probiotics love to eat. It’s like the air for any living being out there. Without air, you can only live for a few minutes and then you die. As they’re indigestible, you can’t directly digest them but good bacteria located in kefir or any other probiotic drink can.
There are tons of benefits of getting enough prebiotics. They can improve insulin sensitivity, reduce your appetite, improve weight management, and improve mineral absorption and bone density. Prebiotics are nothing more than fibers and fibers can be found everywhere around us. In food like oatmeal, fibers are ever-present. In a 100g portion, oatmeal has 65g of carbs, of which 11g are fibers. The recommended amount of fibers is around 30 to 50 grams a day, meaning that 100g of oatmeal will satisfy around 30% of a recommended daily intake.
Other foods where you can find fibers include whole grains, artichokes, onions, garlic, cabbage, lettuce, and much more. Prebiotics can also be consumed via supplements – tablets and lozenges. The best way, however, is to consume it in a natural way. Chop some garlic or cabbage or make yourself a bowl of oatmeal.
So, is kefir really the best natural supplement for your body? We can partially agree with that. Kefir is surely going to boost your metabolism, improve your digestion, increase bone density, and on top of all that, it’s going to feed your muscles with the high-quality proteins. However, supplements such as whey protein and various amino acids are also considered natural. If you want to drink kefir not only because of the number of proteins, then we can say that it’s the best natural supplement for bodybuilding.
Be sure to maintain a healthy diet whether you exercise or not. Although kefir can mitigate some of the negative effects of an unbalanced diet, you should always avoid sugar and white flour. Remember that kefir isn’t a magical elixir, but a completely natural product aimed towards anyone who loves dairy products and their own health.
If you’re all about that precious protein, feel free to grab a pack of high-quality whey protein isolate and combine it with your kefir. This way, you’ll ensure that your protein intake is up to par and you’ll even have a bonus delicious meal!