I think dairy products have gotten an undeserved bad rap. I have repeatedly heard and read about limiting or nixing dairy from your diet. This is complete craziness to me. I think as long as you use dairy strategically, and know which dairy products to choose, you can successfully make great progress by including many tasty dairy options in your diet.
While my favorite form of dairy would be ICE CREAM, sadly, that particular version of dairy HAS been removed from my normal menu 🙁 However, throughout the entire summer I had yogurt and cottage cheese on a daily basis. I also occasionally added fat free feta cheese to “scrambled” egg whites or to liven up my salads.
Allow me to explain exactly how I incorporated these dairy foods….
The yogurt: I opted for fat free ORGANIC plain yogurt because I’m really not into hormones and anti-biotics. I would eat a cup of this with one scoop of protein powder every day in the car immediately following my workout (mornings). My reasoning: the yogurt has about 15 grams of carbs and about 15 grams of sugars. As we have learned, the time to consume carbs and sugars is right after your workout. Also, since yogurt only has about 10 grams of protein in a cup, I would add a scoop of protein powder. This accomplished two goals; it gave me about 30 grams of protein in my meal, and it made the plain yogurt taste DELICIOUS.
Dairy use Part 2: Each night, I seriously looked forward to my special treat (also last meal of the day) – Cottage Cheese. My reasoning behind the use of cottage cheese at night was that it is actually VERY LOW CARB AND SUPER HIGH PROTEIN. It also has only about 3 grams of sugar which is low.
Since I really don’t like cottage cheese very much, I made it into a delectable treat by adding vanilla flavoring and a pack of Truvia (Stevia). I also used Friendly Whipped Lowfat Cottage Cheese as this consistency was more “treat-like”.
If I drank any milk at all during the Challenge, I opted for Silk Almond Milk. Almond milk is the most amazing substance ever and I love it. Most importantly, it’s delicious. Second, it only has 35 calories in a whole cup of it! It also only has ONE carb and ZERO sugars. So, this is also a perfect night time snack mixed with protein powder – i.e. chocolate for chocolate milk! Almond milk only has one gram of protein, that’s why I mix in the protein powder. Once again though, perfect way to get in your protein before bed without all the carbs and sugars!
Hope this “helps” 😉