Protein: How Much, How Often, and Why?
Nutrition science has evolved by leaps and bounds in the last decade. What were once hard and fast “rules” of nutrition for fat-loss, bodybuilding, and sports performance have changed… a lot.
Twenty to thirty years ago, bodybuilders and fitness nuts were “overdosing” on protein. If the goal was to gain muscle, protein was required. If a lot of protein was good, MORE was better! At the other end of the spectrum, the weight-loss and health advocates were terrified about fat intake. Low fat and fat-free dieting was the rage. The American Heart Association went to war with the meat industry, claiming that high cholesterol foods, like beef… caused heart disease, cancer, and was deadly.
In the early mid-nineties to early 2000’s, nutrition swung back the other direction. Low-carb dieting became the all the rage and The Atkins Diet, originally published in 1972, regained popularity. The fat-loss crowd embraced high protein again, and high fat! Bacon and sausage, and red meat were all “in” while bread and pasta was OUT! Even the American Heart Association actually “modified” their opinion that high(er) fat, low(er) carb dieting was NOT bad for you, and was effective at controlling weight and reducing the risk of heart disease driven by obesity and high blood sugar.
In the past few years, nutrition science has struggled to crawl out from underneath extremes of fear-monger diets. Huge advancements in our ability to monitor actual blood levels of nutrients, and new insight into cellular level activity has started to shine new light on how our body actually uses the food we eat, as well as which foods hurt us, and which help us.
Re-enter bodybuilding and fat-loss/performance nutrition. We’ve been taught in the fitness business two “hard truths” for decades, that we now know have been disproven… but they still resonate. The first is regarding HOW MUCH protein people need at different energy levels, and with different goals. The second is protein “timing” and utilization misunderstandings.
The New Science… Protein Requirements:
How much protein you need (outside of rare medical conditions) is based on your current lean mass (body weight – fat weight), activity level, and your goals. Many people argue that 0.8g/kg is the gold standard for “requirements”, but this is based on a sedentary person, of normal bodyweight, who is looking to neither gain muscle, nor lose fat. 0.8g/kg of weight is a pretty small amount of protein. It’s about a half gram per pound of bodyweight, using the English measurement system, but it is sufficient for basic cell turn-over and the daily needs of a completely sedentary adult.
As soon as you start to exercise, your body’s demand for protein goes up pretty quickly. Exercise damages your body (by design). This damage initiates your body’s natural repair processes, and that repair process uses a lot of protein. Your skin, muscle and even bones are all made of various amounts of protein. Muscle is, of course, predominantly protein. This repeated damage and subsequent repair is the way your body adapts to exercise, and how we build more muscle, get stronger, and improve. When you train your body on a regular basis, 0.5g/lb of protein intake simply isn’t enough.
If you eat too little protein, your body will still heal, but it will “steal from Peter to pay Paul”… Basically, in order to heal your legs after a run, or a leg-day, your body will rob healthy muscle from your upper body to fix the damage. You will lose muscle in one area, in order to heal it somewhere else… resulting in a net loss of muscle, or at best just staying the same. Many consistent runners do not want to get any more muscle, but they must keep every bit they have, so their requirements approach 1g/lb, nearly twice the intake of a sedentary person. If you add in some strength training to your regular cardio, your requirements climb higher... typically into the 1.2g/lb range, which is based off of your LEAN weight, not total weight.
If you graduate up to intense strength training, or intense combination training of strength and running, or bodybuilding with an emphasis on gaining serious muscle, your needs can quickly climb to 1.5g/lb of lean mass. (Add in the influence of anabolic hormones, and the body can utilize as much a twice your lean mass in grams of protein per day.)
The New Science… Protein Timing:
Up until a few years ago, it was believed that your body could only digest so much protein in one sitting, and that ability limited protein utilization. The rule of thumb was only 20-30g of protein in a meal, and then waiting another few hours to get that digested, then add 30g more. This theory lead to a lot of bodybuilding’s “bro-science” of eating meals every 2-3 hours all day long… fearing that eating only two or three huge meals with massive 110g protein contents would be a “waste” of protein.
Recently, we’ve learned that this simply isn’t true. Through a simple experiment of measuring the nitrogen content of an athlete’s body “waste”, we learned that nearly 100% of all protein consumed was used by the body, regardless of the timing that it was consumed. The body has the ability to “hold” protein in the stomach until it is completely digested, even in doses of 100+g at a time, while other nutrients pass through. The excess protein all gets converted to amino acids that the body can use to build and repair, and those amino acids are stored in the muscles, liver, and blood stream until they are needed.
For decades, we’ve taught that we NEED to consume high quality protein in a time-“window” of 30-60 minutes after a workout. This has been a RULE of bodybuilding for decades. In reality, as long as you’ve consumed sufficient protein in the past 24 hours to have enough stored in your body, there will be plenty there to heal, and even grow from… even if you go many hours post-workout without a protein source.
Is waiting optimal? No. Is eating all of your protein in one meal optimal? Definitely not! But spacing your intake out over 7-8 meals and shakes of no more than 30-40g is also not at all required.
So how much do you need? And when do you need it?
Intake should be based on your lean body weight, your activity levels, and your goals. When in doubt, err on the side of a bit too much. Excess protein not used to heal and grow, will simply be burned as fuel. If you’re dieting to lose fat, eat a bit more than you need. Being in a deficit forces your body to burn every calorie. Timing and intake becomes a bit more critical when you are losing fat.
Consult with a Sports Nutrition Specialist… as opposed to a nutritionist… for your needs as an athlete. Preferably come see Lisa at BURN, who is both a Licensed Dietitian, AND a Sport Nutrition Specialist.
As always… do your homework. Get educated on MODERN nutrition, as opposed to what “that guy at your gym” suggested. You’re likely paying WAY too much for your food if you’re eating more than you need, and you’re likely not getting optimal results out of your diet and training if you’re eating too little.
Nutrition science has evolved by leaps and bounds in the last decade. What were once hard and fast “rules” of nutrition for fat-loss, bodybuilding, and sports performance have changed… a lot.
Twenty to thirty years ago, bodybuilders and fitness nuts were “overdosing” on protein. If the goal was to gain muscle, protein was required. If a lot of protein was good, MORE was better! At the other end of the spectrum, the weight-loss and health advocates were terrified about fat intake. Low fat and fat-free dieting was the rage. The American Heart Association went to war with the meat industry, claiming that high cholesterol foods, like beef… caused heart disease, cancer, and was deadly.
In the early mid-nineties to early 2000’s, nutrition swung back the other direction. Low-carb dieting became the all the rage and The Atkins Diet, originally published in 1972, regained popularity. The fat-loss crowd embraced high protein again, and high fat! Bacon and sausage, and red meat were all “in” while bread and pasta was OUT! Even the American Heart Association actually “modified” their opinion that high(er) fat, low(er) carb dieting was NOT bad for you, and was effective at controlling weight and reducing the risk of heart disease driven by obesity and high blood sugar.
In the past few years, nutrition science has struggled to crawl out from underneath extremes of fear-monger diets. Huge advancements in our ability to monitor actual blood levels of nutrients, and new insight into cellular level activity has started to shine new light on how our body actually uses the food we eat, as well as which foods hurt us, and which help us.
Re-enter bodybuilding and fat-loss/performance nutrition. We’ve been taught in the fitness business two “hard truths” for decades, that we now know have been disproven… but they still resonate. The first is regarding HOW MUCH protein people need at different energy levels, and with different goals. The second is protein “timing” and utilization misunderstandings.
The New Science… Protein Requirements:
How much protein you need (outside of rare medical conditions) is based on your current lean mass (body weight – fat weight), activity level, and your goals. Many people argue that 0.8g/kg is the gold standard for “requirements”, but this is based on a sedentary person, of normal bodyweight, who is looking to neither gain muscle, nor lose fat. 0.8g/kg of weight is a pretty small amount of protein. It’s about a half gram per pound of bodyweight, using the English measurement system, but it is sufficient for basic cell turn-over and the daily needs of a completely sedentary adult.
As soon as you start to exercise, your body’s demand for protein goes up pretty quickly. Exercise damages your body (by design). This damage initiates your body’s natural repair processes, and that repair process uses a lot of protein. Your skin, muscle and even bones are all made of various amounts of protein. Muscle is, of course, predominantly protein. This repeated damage and subsequent repair is the way your body adapts to exercise, and how we build more muscle, get stronger, and improve. When you train your body on a regular basis, 0.5g/lb of protein intake simply isn’t enough.
If you eat too little protein, your body will still heal, but it will “steal from Peter to pay Paul”… Basically, in order to heal your legs after a run, or a leg-day, your body will rob healthy muscle from your upper body to fix the damage. You will lose muscle in one area, in order to heal it somewhere else… resulting in a net loss of muscle, or at best just staying the same. Many consistent runners do not want to get any more muscle, but they must keep every bit they have, so their requirements approach 1g/lb, nearly twice the intake of a sedentary person. If you add in some strength training to your regular cardio, your requirements climb higher... typically into the 1.2g/lb range, which is based off of your LEAN weight, not total weight.
If you graduate up to intense strength training, or intense combination training of strength and running, or bodybuilding with an emphasis on gaining serious muscle, your needs can quickly climb to 1.5g/lb of lean mass. (Add in the influence of anabolic hormones, and the body can utilize as much a twice your lean mass in grams of protein per day.)
The New Science… Protein Timing:
Up until a few years ago, it was believed that your body could only digest so much protein in one sitting, and that ability limited protein utilization. The rule of thumb was only 20-30g of protein in a meal, and then waiting another few hours to get that digested, then add 30g more. This theory lead to a lot of bodybuilding’s “bro-science” of eating meals every 2-3 hours all day long… fearing that eating only two or three huge meals with massive 110g protein contents would be a “waste” of protein.
Recently, we’ve learned that this simply isn’t true. Through a simple experiment of measuring the nitrogen content of an athlete’s body “waste”, we learned that nearly 100% of all protein consumed was used by the body, regardless of the timing that it was consumed. The body has the ability to “hold” protein in the stomach until it is completely digested, even in doses of 100+g at a time, while other nutrients pass through. The excess protein all gets converted to amino acids that the body can use to build and repair, and those amino acids are stored in the muscles, liver, and blood stream until they are needed.
For decades, we’ve taught that we NEED to consume high quality protein in a time-“window” of 30-60 minutes after a workout. This has been a RULE of bodybuilding for decades. In reality, as long as you’ve consumed sufficient protein in the past 24 hours to have enough stored in your body, there will be plenty there to heal, and even grow from… even if you go many hours post-workout without a protein source.
Is waiting optimal? No. Is eating all of your protein in one meal optimal? Definitely not! But spacing your intake out over 7-8 meals and shakes of no more than 30-40g is also not at all required.
So how much do you need? And when do you need it?
Intake should be based on your lean body weight, your activity levels, and your goals. When in doubt, err on the side of a bit too much. Excess protein not used to heal and grow, will simply be burned as fuel. If you’re dieting to lose fat, eat a bit more than you need. Being in a deficit forces your body to burn every calorie. Timing and intake becomes a bit more critical when you are losing fat.
Consult with a Sports Nutrition Specialist… as opposed to a nutritionist… for your needs as an athlete. Preferably come see Lisa at BURN, who is both a Licensed Dietitian, AND a Sport Nutrition Specialist.
As always… do your homework. Get educated on MODERN nutrition, as opposed to what “that guy at your gym” suggested. You’re likely paying WAY too much for your food if you’re eating more than you need, and you’re likely not getting optimal results out of your diet and training if you’re eating too little.