Basic Nutrition Tips- Why Does Everyone Say Eat More Protein? + Common Question & Answers
How many times have you heard you should eat more protein and wondered why? At Resilient Body, we are always talking to personal training and wellness coaching clients both about the many benefits of eating more protein, but sometimes it’s not clear when many people assume it’s “more muscles, blah blah blah”. The reality is that eating more protein than what you may be eating now may have some other benefits that are related but go beyond just putting on more muscle tissue.
What is protein?
Protein is not only structure, like muscles, but also function.
Protein isn’t just big muscles. Various proteins give tissues (and the organs they make up) their scaffolding and shape, as well as help them perform all of their complex processes on a cellular level. They also provide structure and function within cells serving as the materials and catalyst for almost every biochemical reaction that occurs in our bodies. Without protein we would not exist. In many ways we are walking talking bags of protein containing protein vessels (I know, kind of gross, but true). Proteins are made of peptide bonded amino acids (with amino acids being the smallest true building blocks). The ways these amino acids organize themselves with peptide bonds and various interacting side chains create their final shape they fold into; and also their function often times based on that form.
When talking diet, we are mainly focused on talking about the 9 essential (we can’t make them on our own) Amino acids we get from specific foods that can come from both plant and animal sources. When we say a complete protein, we essentially are referring to a protein that has all 9 in balanced sufficient amounts for the most part.
One amino acids that stands out in particular for this discussion is leucine which is required as a “trigger” for building processes of proteins (protein synthesis). Think of leucine as the ignition switch and the other essential amino acids (and beyond) as the gas tank and materials. Typically you will need to consume about 2-3g of leucine in a meal to pull that trigger so it is good to look for protein sources that have 2.5g in a serving size you will eat or drink. That amount can be found in most all common animal based and some plant sources as well like pea and soy.
Storage:
Unlike carbohydrate and fat, you can’t really store protein for later. You’re body doesn’t really want to do that, and the pathway to turn protein into quick energy like glucose is also not the most efficient one since your body prefers other sources by nature. While our body does a great job at holding on to carbohydrate for glucose later on via glycogen stores in the liver, muscle and small amounts in other tissue; it doesn’t do this with protein. Therefore, you really need to eat protein regularly and definitely get enough overall in total amount.
The above is a limited view but we will leave it here for now to answer why we want to eat protein as basic function of your entire body wasn’t convincing enough!
Outdated Suggestions:
Understanding the critical role protein has beyond muscle, also makes it easier to take the leap to see how important it will be to build big lumps of proteins like muscles. Unfortunately, many of the suggestions around protein that you may be adhering to or been told to adhere to in your diet (.8g/kg daily based on WHO guidelines) are for staving off protein loss determined using nitrogen balance studies to see what would prevent protein wasting (bad news for the body when this is happening regularly). The problem here is that this will only tell you how much protein you need to not be in a loss rather than what is optimal or to build. It is tricky to target how and where building is occurring and nitrogen balance techniques cannot tell you that.
What’s more, if you’re more active, getting older (beyond 40-50 like me), or have unique circumstances you may need more to avoid negative balance. This does not even account for what is optimal yet, let alone to exploit the greater potential (higher ceiling) of the increased activity.
When it Comes to Muscle- Rules When Trying to Lose Weight and/or Keep or Gain Muscle
Protein requirements may not only be higher for what is optimal based on the original nitrogen balance studies, but we may want to consider things like our activity and age when thinking about what is optimal. This is definitely the case when trying to build muscle or lose weight (or both) but we will tease the two apart.
When you try to lose weight you will need to put your body in an energy deficit with either more activity or less food, but this creates a situation that can lead to muscle loss depending on a few factors. This is less likely when you have more energy stores in the form of fat, resistance train, and eat adequate protein; but it can still happen; and the leaner you are, the more likely it seems to happen.
Increasing protein when trying to lose weight and not already at a lean level (you have ample fat stores) in a calorie deficit can help for several reasons. Eating adequate amounts with enough frequency can help tell the body to hold on to the muscle it has and preferably not touch them or other healthy lean tissue for energy. While it is not as likely it can still happen, but the additional protein can also help you displace other calories that you may have been more likely to overeat. This is especially the case if you are prone to all or nothing thinking and have a difficult time controlling yourself with treats tending to go all in. That added protein can also help you burn energy and build muscle without any other factors, just from eating the protein itself. Related is the fact that protein is very satiating so it will help keep you feeling full when you are indeed in a deficit and more prone to feel hungry or have cravings.
Adding protein when you are trying to lose weight and/or gain muscle when you don’t have very much body fat to lose (you are quite lean) may be even more of a requirement at higher levels. At this point your body doesn’t seem to want to build very much and it is harder to gain with what equates to a reduced signal in the body to build based on the science available now. Retention may be similar since your body may see the lean mass you want to keep as costly energy wise when you are so lean and don’t have as many energy reserves.
A great exception to the above is if you are a novice to extra movement like weight training or an activity like hiking, but you want to recompose your body by gaining or keeping muscle while losing fat. This is much more doable when you are not as advanced with resistance training or other exercise and your body is more receptive to the growth and change. In these situations you may be able to get away with less protein then you may later be able to and still gain or maintain.
With all this considered, a good rule of thumb is to eat the amount of protein in grams for the body weight you want to be because if you are trying to lose fat and have fat to lose, you may not be as likely to lose muscle since you have energy store; BUT if you are lean already and trying to maintain or gain, you will want to eat at least that amount to prevent loss (and more may not even hurt).
Some Common Questions this Raises in Health and Fitness Circles:
Can I eat too much protein?
A: Likely not, but…There isn’t a straightforward answer or number to this, but likely not. All of the studies that have been done do not show any damage from eating high amounts of protein 1.5g/lb and some anecdote of much higher by some athletes and bodybuilders for long periods of time (unless you have issues with your kidneys). It is more likely you will reach an upper threshold you can use but that will also depend other factors like how active you are and the amount your body will need to function and repair. One scenario where you can truly eat too much is when you have so much protein that it displaces enough carbohydrate and fat that you would normally consume in your diet so that it falls to levels that are below what your specific requirements may be.
Can I eat too little protein?
A: Yes! as you may have gathered…While the .8g/kg (.36g/lb) may prevent negative nitrogen balance, it may not apply to active folks let alone be optimal for health, more active people, recovery or gaining muscle. 0.7g/lb may be a better absolute minimum to shoot for. If you’re looking to maintain then .7-1g/lb of your body weight currently may be a good range.
What if I’m older and fighting muscle loss a bit more?
A: You may indeed need even more protein as a baseline…While the .8g/kg (.36g/lb) may prevent negative nitrogen balance when you were younger, this is no longer the case. You may do better to aim higher at 1.2g/kg (or at least .6g/lb); but remember this still just prvents loss and doesn’t account for how active you are. Optimal for health, more active people, recovery or gaining muscle etc may even be a bit higher than the 0.7g-1g/lb range to shoot for.
How to I get enough total? It’s hard to eat that much!
A: Not so fast! it may be easier than you think… 0.7-1g/lb bodyweight for a 175 person is 122- 175 grams, or 3 meals with 40-60 grams of protein. That is basically 1-2 of your palm sized portions of lean protein per meal over 3 meals. Essentially 1 palm would be something like ~3-4 oz cooked meat/tofu, 2 whole eggs, 1 cup of Greek yogurt, etc. The greater likelihood is that you have not tried it consistently to see or that you are filling up on other types of food. Here’s another idea that may help whether you have difficulty getting protein or are trying to hedge your bets with really making sure you are topped out. While most food sticks around for many hours to digest and so does the amino acid supply while digesting, you can make your meals in a way that seem more appealing and add in extra protein around your workout time if you have one as a high protein shake or snack and do similarly before bed. This will up the total amount if you have a difficult time getting it and also spread the timing out.
I get it, eating protein is likely the most important thing for weight loss, correct?
A: Disagree! It is quite important but… We may rank it lower than some things like just eating a balanced diet in a modest deficit and getting on a solid resistance training program. Those two things can have massive impact and we may rank those even higher in a situation where someone wants to lose fat and even gain muscle but has bodyfat to lose. Yes, high protein can help a lot here as well but it may come in third depending on your situation (it’s stil top 3!)
If you are curious how to better structure your meals, include protein in quantities best for your needs, or perhaps even have more nuanced questions like “casein vs whey at bedtime?” or how can I play with protein timing then please reach out as we would love to help answer those for you!
For some more reading and a revisit on a fundamental habit that goes hand in hand with eating more protein, have a read here.
If you’d like to get down to business with a solid online training program that checks a lot of boxes and takes less than an hour to get into, check out our online programming or set up a time to speak with one of our coaches one on one! https://www.resilient-body.com/rb-services-membership