Chocolate Milk

 Chocolate milk can help your body preserve, repair and replenish muscle—and improve your performance the next time you work out. Here’s a summary of the science:
 Preserve muscle: Using nonfat (“skim”) chocolate milk as a recovery drink may help to preserve muscle more than a carbohydrate-only sports drink with the same amount of calories, researchers from the University of Connecticut found. Runners who drank 16 ounces of nonfat chocolate milk after a moderately intense run had lower markers of muscle breakdown. 
Repair muscle: Drinking nonfat chocolate milk may help to repair muscles better than a carbohydrate-only drink. Researchers from the University of Connecticut, University of Arkansas and the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine took muscle biopsies of runners after they exercised. The results showed that their muscles were better able to repair and rebuild themselves when they drank 16 ounces of nonfat chocolate milk than when they drank a carbohydrate-only sports drink.
Replenish muscle “fuel”: You’ve probably heard that it’s important to consume carbohydrates after a workout to replenish your muscle glycogen stores. But new research suggests that the mix of carbohydrate and protein in chocolate milk may be superior to just a carbohydrate-only drink. Researchers at the University of Connecticut found that when runners refueled with 16 ounces of nonfat chocolate milk—compared to when they had a carbohydrate-only drink with the same amount of calories—they had greater muscle glycogen concentrations shortly after exercising.