When the late-night hunger roars like a lion…
by Sandy Dover / @SandmanSeven
In the NBA world, athletes in that particular universe are subject to physical rigors that most laypeople cannot comprehend. For the elite basketball player, his/her body is his/her literal temple and principal livelihood, and while the roughly 400 players in the NBA put their bodies and minds to the test daily and yearly, those outside of that realm (in the so-called real world) also have become just as conscious about their fitness and health. The FIT is a series that will concentrate on the Fuel, Information and Training (F.I.T.) that it takes for both NBAers and laypersons to be at their very best in the world, as well as focusing on the literal Food, Intelligence and Technology that also comes into play in our physical fine-tuning — because after all, without having the vital fuel, guidelines and tech advancements to feed our bodies, help us better absorb and process what’s necessary, and make the labor efficient and effective, we don’t have much to advance our collective health and performance. The FIT is here to bring to light what can make us all the uniquely tuned creatures that we presently are and can continue or aspire to be.
Basketball has a tendency to be alluring when the sun goes down, doesn’t it? I mean, obviously, it’s one of the most versatile sports you can play and requires little more than a ball and cylinder to shoot through, and it’s a great time during the daylight, but sometimes, it’s hard to escape its nocturnal nature. I mean, the games are usually at dusk and downright nighttime. Not to mention that a lot of us ballers like to get those night runs in at the rec center or YMCA (or if you’re at college or in a court-friendly area, you’ll play outside at night with bright lights edged around the boundary lines — thank you, Ohio State). So when those games end, it’s only natural to gra
b some food or get something of high caloric value in the system…maybe some pizza, chicken or Taco Bell, perhaps? Whatever it might be, usually it’s not a dietary sin to chow down on whatever we run into, because our bodies are so depleted of a whole hosts of vitamins and necessary cellular bits that our body used in the process of burning fuel. Some of us, though, are still a little cautious about what we’re eating after those strenuous court sessions for various reasons and/or we may not be starving-child-hungry like others after a few games of runball. Ever heard of casein?
Health experts and frequenters of the health food shops may be familiar with it, but for those who are not, casein is an amino acid, a basic building block of the human body in the form of protein. Particularly, casein is a type of protein that is broken down slowly in the body as it is processed and as a result, it generally keeps the body sated longer. It’s highly recommended for athletes of all walks of life who want to ingest a food that doesn’t add negatively add non-muscle tissue and keeps you from wanting to go crazy with late-night eating, when bedtime hunger can be a vulnerability. It’s also great when mixed for protein shakes or smoothies in between meals to keep the midday hunger off. CytoSport’s Complete Casein has 25 grams of pure protein (with only 2 grams of carbohydrates!), is fat-free, and for those of you who have food allergies and a weak stomach for cow’s milk, Complete Casein is also free of gluten and free of lactose.
For me personally, I have a wild schedule when it comes to timing. Sometimes, I work out extremely late and I don’t want to chow down hard on a densely packed Chipotle burrito. In the case of the CytoSport Complete Casein, it’s a godsend. Generally marketed as a “nighttime protein” product, it tastes great in the Cookies ‘N Creme flavor, it’s easy to mix and just as simple to ingest, and I was able to maintain good musculature in the days after having endured tough workouts and following up with Complete Casein. While it’s a luxury of sorts, if you have the money to i
nvest in a food product that will promote good nutrition and you like to supplement your meals with easy-to-make shakes, Complete Casein may be the best thing for you.
(And for you occasional nighttime ballers, you’ve seen the type of shape that Baron Davis has been criticized for being in. It can happen to you, too with those midnight hour food binges. Think about the Casein.)
For more information about Complete Casein, go to cytosport.com.
(A big thanks goes out to Jeff and the CytoSport group for their continued contributions and support.)
Sandy Dover is a novelist/writer, artist, and fitness enthusiast, currently working toward getting board certification as a fitness trainer. You can find Sandy frequently here at SLAMonline, as well as at Facebook and Twitter.
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