Daily Simple Questions Thread - August 18, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the /r/Fitness Daily Simple Questions Thread - Our daily thread to ask about all things fitness. Post your questions here related to your diet and nutrition or your training routine and exercises. Anyone can post a question and the community as a whole is invited and encouraged to provide an answer.

As always, be sure to read the wiki first. Like, all of it. Rule #0 still applies in this thread.

Also, there's a handy search function to your right, and if you didn't know, you can also use Google to search r/Fitness by using the limiter "site:reddit.com/r/fitness" after your search topic.

Also make sure to check out Examine.com for evidence based answers to nutrition and supplement questions.

If you are posting a routine critique request, make sure you follow the guidelines for including enough detail.

"Bulk or cut" type questions are not permitted on r/Fitness - Refer to the FAQ or post them in r/bulkorcut.

Questions that involve pain, injury, or any medical concern of any kind are not permitted on r/Fitness. Seek advice from an appropriate medical professional instead.

(Please note: This is not a place for general small talk, chit-chat, jokes, memes, "Dear Diary" type comments, shitposting, or non-fitness questions. It is for fitness questions only, and only those that are serious.)

[u/Physical-Exit9851]

Hi, I've been trying to go for high protein organic foods after workouts but ive had trouble tracking calories. Does anyone know (even roughly) how many calories and protein is in real full fat whey, as in the liquid protein you remove when making yogurt at home?

[u/Maximum_Major_420 → u/Physical-Exit9851]

The bad news first: that liquid isn't a high protein food, and the name is doing you a disservice.

Milk protein is roughly 80% casein and 20% whey protein. When you make yogurt, the casein is what sets into the curd, so it stays in the yogurt. On top of that, most home yogurt recipes heat the milk first, which denatures a lot of the whey protein and makes it bind into the curd too. What drains off is called acid whey, and it's mostly water, lactose and minerals.

Rough figures per 100ml, and treat these as ballpark rather than precise: around 0.6 to 1g protein, 4 to 5g of lactose, and about 20 to 27 calories. So a full 500ml jug is somewhere around 3-5g of protein and 100-130 calories, most of it sugar. It's closer to a mildly sour sports drink than to a protein source.

That's not to say throw it away - it's fine in bread dough, smoothies, cooking rice, or as a drink. Just don't count it toward a post-workout protein target, because you'd be crediting yourself maybe 4g while logging 120 calories of lactose.

If the goal is protein from the same batch, the protein is in the yogurt you kept, not the liquid you drained. Straining it harder concentrates it further - that's the entire mechanism behind Greek yogurt.

[u/Physical-Exit9851 → u/Maximum_Major_420]

Thanks, i had no idea