Lets talk about protein
Today we’re going to look at macronutrients. In the previous blog, I said about calories but over this and other blogs we’re going to look at macronutrients and what our food is actually made up of as we know that calories are important but we also want to know what the food is made up of as this is important as well.
Over the course of these blogs, we will cover the following-
Macro - The ‘Big’ Nutrients
Fats
Carbohydrates
Fibre
Alcohol
Macronutrients- The ‘big’ nutrients are nutrients that we need in large amounts.
Today’s blog is about the macronutrient that is protein.
Protein- So when we think of protein we think of our lean meats such as fish, chicken, lean beef etc and then other foods such as eggs, greek yogurt, whey protein, cottage cheese and then things like beans, tofu and lentils mainly like vegetarians tend to have.
Protein provides 4 calories per gram. Protein is also made up of small building blocks which are known as amino acids and you may have heard of some bodybuilders taking these in some of the BCAA’s (Branched Chain Amino Acids). It basically doesn’t matter if you’re getting these from a chicken breast or a protein shake because they are all made up of these tiny little building blocks called Amino Acids.
These blocks form not only the building blocks for our muscles but for our teeth, our skin and our bones. They are also important within a wide variety of functions as they basically form enzymes that control nearly every reaction in our body.
How much protein do you need? The current recommended daily allowance is 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight so as an example if you are a 100kg individual then you would be eating 80g of protein.
However this is very much on the low side and it will probably prevent you from getting ill from protein deficiency, however, that doesn’t mean that it’s optimal, not only not optimal for health but not optimal for your performance in the gym and for weight loss etc, so therefore normally if you want to have a rough idea of how much protein you need then I’d tend to say to people to head towards 1.2-1.5 grams per kilogram of bodyweight so again if it was for a 100kg individual then they would be looking at having 120-150 grams per day and this will perhaps put them in a better place especially if they’re training hard.
There are times where there may be a requirement to go higher than that and if you’re somebody who’s very lean and looking to maybe step on stage then you may have to go much higher than that but for most of us, 1.2-1.5g per kilogram of bodyweight is going to be absolutely fine. You might even work all the way up to 1g per lb which is 2.2 grams per kilogram but your coach/PT would discuss that with you.
Protein - The health benefits
Healthy skin and hair
Improved weight loss and this is a big one as when we eat protein well it actually takes more calories to digest protein than it does to digest fats and carbohydrates, this is called the thermic effect of food and so, therefore, it’s also almost impossible for us to convert protein into fat but we can convert it if we have too much of it into carbohydrate
Protein has a lot of benefits and nearly every nutrition study where protein isn’t matched between the 2 groups it’s what has confounded because protein has such a strong impact on weight loss as -
It increases satiety - It keeps you fuller for longer so out of protein, carbohydrates and fats, well if you was to have 100 calories of each one then protein would keep you the fullest for longest so already you can see that it takes more calories to burn/to process and using fewer calories and it actually keeps you fuller for longer so this is a magic scenario when it comes to weight loss because now you are actually putting in/eating fewer calories but you are actually more full so this is great for that
Protein can aid with muscle retention (metabolism and toning) - So when we’re doing hard training we break down our muscles and we need amino acids (these are what makeup proteins) in order to rebuild the muscle and hopefully make them bigger/more toned looking and this is also important even if you’re looking to gain muscle which we call hypertrophy and if you’re looking to tone as toning is actually just building a little bit of muscle and losing some fat so we can then reveal that muscle so it provides you with more shape, as well as your metabolism as there’s a small benefit to having more muscle on your body
Immune function- Protein plays a large role in immune function as if you go too low in protein then you might find yourself getting ill regularly
Recovery from training- When we talk about resistance training and breaking down our muscles well one of the largest impacts on our calories burnt was the repair of muscle so we need to be providing our muscles with protein after our training sessions
There is no real need when we talk about nutrient timing for someone to have to slam down a protein shake or to get a meal within you very quickly post-training but if you’ve eaten in the 2-3 hours before training then they’ll be enough to sustain you there but if you’re an early morning trainer and you train without eating breakfast then it’s probably a good idea to get something in you afterwards.
Won’t too much protein hurt my kidneys?
There was this big thing years ago that too much protein will hurt your kidneys and luckily there’s been a lot of studies done recently or over the last 20 years or so which showed that people who increased their protein, well it didn’t impact their kidneys.
A recent study that was done in 2000 said that it appears that protein intake under 2.8 grams per kilogram does not impair renal function in well-trained athletes so this is even way above the recommendation that was mentioned before at 1.2 to maybe 2kgs so the 2.8 is way above and still is absolutely fine for your health.
There was also another study done that was ds done in 2016. This study was conducted for over a year and it was a study done in men that we’re well trained in resistance training that consumed a high protein diet which was at 2.5 - 3.3 grams per kilogram of bodyweight so if we go back to if it is a 100kg individual well if that individual was participating in this they would have in this study 250-330 grams of protein per day.
The people in this study did this every day for a year and it showed that there were no harmful effects on measures of blood lipids as well as liver and kidney function so we’re getting pretty confident now that there are no adverse effects especially to the level of protein that we will be asking you to strive for.
What are the protein takehomes?
Most people don’t eat enough protein - Over time this should be nudged up to ensure that people are getting the right amount of protein in for themselves and there are lots of protein sources and ways that you can try to incorporate more protein into your meals too
Increased protein helps us stay fuller for longer
It helps us to recover from training
It helps us to build muscle
It helps us to burn calories which is great especially when it comes to fat loss etc
We also don’t have to think or worry about all of these grams all of the time of protein that we should be getting, as to do it roughly we could follow the portion control guide which basically states to shoot for 3-5 servings of 20-30 grams of protein per day and remember if we think of our portion control, well then for males they can easily get that protein in if we do the two palms of protein and for females, we will probably get that if we do our one palm of protein.