Drink milk after your weight training workouts, and you may gain more muscle and lose more body fat than if you drink a soy or carbohydrate drink, according to the results of a new study.

Researchers compared the effects of drinking nonfat milk, a soy protein drink, or a carbohydrate drink on building muscle and burning fat after completing weight lifting workouts.

All three groups gained muscle, but the milk drinkers got the best results, says researcher Stuart M. Phillips, PhD, associate professor of kinesiology and an exercise physiologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The study was funded by the National Dairy Council and published in the Aug. 1 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Participants weight-trained five days a week for 12 weeks, and all the participants were novices. They had not done any weight training for the past eight months. The exercises were done on standard weight training machines, which worked out all the major muscle groups, with participants increasing repetitions as they gained strength. Each session lasted about one hour.

The drinks were all vanilla-flavored, served in opaque containers, and had an identical number of calories –178 per serving.
The milk drinkers also lost more body fat.  Source WebMD