Podcast recommendation - Protein
Click the image above to listen in Spotify or go to AOM.is/protein.
As someone who has studied the human body for my entire life, I cringe often when I hear any of the countless myths about the right diet to follow as an athlete. This can be especially confusing for non-scientists and young athletes just beginning to learn about their bodies. This is one of the best, no-nonsense discussions on how the human body digests, utilizes, and stores protein.
If you are a parent and want to skip to the part that specifically discusses kids, skip to minute 37.
Bottom line:
How much protein do athletes need?
An active athlete should get 0.8-1g per pound of body weight for teens trying to gain muscle mass.
There is NO benefit beyond that. Excess protein will be converted to fat or burned as fuel. In fact, the body regularly burns protein during endurance exercise, so it is very important to get 1g per lb during the season to prevent muscle loss.
When is the best time to eat it?
Breakfast is the most important time to get protein to promote muscle growth. Research on athletes shows that protein immediately after a workout is no different than 3 hours later.
Aim for 35 g of protein at breakfast and dinner and add extra protein over the day to get to about 1g per lb. Over 60g in one meal is unnecessary and can’t be utilized.
What type of protein is best?
Well, that’s a more complicated question…
All protein is made up of amino acids. If you eat whole proteins (meat, eggs, etc), your body will break them down into amino acids. You can also get many amino acids from non-meat and dairy foods like fruits, grains, and vegetables.
Amino acids are then used for lots of things in the body, including building muscle cells which is actually a small portion.
There are 21 total amino acids, 9 of which are called “essential” because your body cannot manufacture them on its own from other sources.
Whole proteins found in meat, eggs, and dairy sources contain all the amino acids including those essential ones. Plants do make proteins and contain many amino acids, but may not have all essential amino acids.
There is no “best source” of protein (i.e. amino acids), but some sources do not have all the amino acids needed to build muscle.
The best total diet is a variety of plant and animal-based proteins (meat, fish, eggs, dairy). Getting all protein from one source might get you the AA you need to build muscle protein but you could miss essential fatty acids for DNA and hormone synthesis or necessary vitamins and minerals to create a healthy muscle cell. It’s like having all the bricks to build a very strong wall but if you don’t have the mortar of the fatty acids and vitamins and minerals, then you can’t build anything.
The other *** AAs can be synthesized by your body from a variety of other foods besides protein (carbs, fat). Similarly, extra protein in your diet can be converted into energy sources or converted to fat. Yes you can get fat from eating too much protein.
One AA - Luceien triggers muscle protein synthesis. Ex. Whey has ebough Lyceum 3g to stimulate growth. Collegen protein on the other end of the spectrum is missing 4 essential AA so isn’t very helpful
Protein leverage - 16% of diet should be protein. The old food pyramid fucked everything up. Then came the obesity epidemic.empty calories from most carbohydrate base snack foods increase the total calories that people are consuming when really, the body needs protein.The body recognizes when to stop eating when you’re eating proteins, but doesn’t have good limits on carbohydrates, the example from the episode is perfect, after can you go out for a meal and are full if they brought you another steak you probably would refuse it, or take it home to eat later, but if they brought you a carbohydrate, rich chocolate cake, you might be able to stuff that down.
Metabolictransformation.com
