I've been a skimmed milk drinker for about 15yrs and I have to say I've got to the stage where it tastes perfectly normal to drink. I'm naturally heavier than I'd like to be for bike racing and used to obsess a bit about keeping my weight as tight as possible (used to race at about 7% body fat), so skimmed seemed to make sense.
However, a friend who has just been revisiting his sports nutrition training is trying to persuade me to go back to full fat. Am yet to read anything myself but in a hearsay kind of way it sort of makes sense to consume smaller quantities of less modified foods. I've already switched back to butter.
hh45 – back of fag packet maths – 5pints of whole milk a week = 100grams of fat. Common nutritional advice is 30-33% of energy consumption through fats which for most people on a maintenance diet = 50-60gms a day of fat in your diet. Your milk consumption a week equals the best part of 2 days worth of your recommended total fat intake a week. I guess if you are very active (which your might well be seeing where I'm typing this), you might need more calories than this. What I'm trying to illustrate is that even though something might only have 3.5% fat, if you have enough of it (and you have nearly 3kg of milk) it all adds up. 5 pints of whole milk has the same fat content as nearly 300gms of full fat cheddar cheese, which is quite a lump!
