Protein this, protein that. The food world is inundated nowadays with all sorts of specialty foods advertised as high protein. What does that mean? What does that do for us? And should we spend our money on it? Protein is becoming more and more commonly used as a buzzword to sell food. Doctors are now recommending higher protein intake along with prescribing strength training, once you begin strength training it is only a matter of time before food hacks and diet recommendations take over your feed. There is a lot of noise surrounding protein and diet culture in general. A lot of good information and perspectives get lost in the drive to sell consumers products they don’t need or to make products look more beneficial than they truly are.
We’ve cut through some of the noise in the “calories” world, now let's get to protein.
Boring stuff first. “Protein” is a macronutrient. There are 3 macronutrients if you don’t include alcohol. All calories come from macronutrients: Lipid (fats), Protein and Carbohydrates. Protein contains about 4 calories per gram meaning, if you read a nutrition label and it has 25 grams of protein: 100 of the calories are calories from protein. The recommended daily allowance suggests getting 15-25% of our calories from protein, though I recommend shooting for closer to 45% (not easy, but a good target).
Simply put, protein is the sand we use to mix our body’s cement. It provides our body the supplies to form structure. We need a certain amount to live, without it we run into serious health issues. The minimum recommended protein intake is about 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. Protein is also essential to both muscle preservation and muscle growth, and for those purposes comes with a much higher recommended dose (0.6-1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily).
How? How what? How do we get enough protein- where does it come from? Should I use a supplement? How do we get enough protein while not overconsuming calories? How much protein should I try to get each day/meal?
I will quickly dispel a couple of common protein myths before getting into the fun part: the ‘How’.
A) ‘You can only absorb 25-30 grams of protein at a time’. False, your body uses it over long periods of time. You can take upwards of 100 grams of protein at once and it is utilized equally.
B) ‘High protein diets (or protein powder) damages your kidneys’. No evidence of protein causing kidney damage.
The good side of protein: it is the most satiating macronutrient (you’ll feel more full from 100 calories than any other macro), it has the highest thermogenic effect (your body burns more calories digesting protein than fats or carbs), it also has a more difficult time being converted and stored as body fat. Calories from protein build muscle and make it less likely to put on weight.
These questions are answered at an individual level. They all depend on your current eating habits and your relationship with food itself. To give you blanket answers would be irresponsible. What I can do is suggest tweaks and behaviors that make protein a higher priority than before and make it more likely that you hit your protein goal, build the muscle you are after, and adjust your diet in a way that achieves the goals you want to achieve.
I tell my people to shoot for about 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight for a couple of reasons. One, they probably aren’t eating as much protein as they think they are. Many of these ‘high protein’ foods aren’t as high in protein as they claim. Eggs in particular, but also things like yogurt are excellent protein sources in that the amino acid profile is incredible, but eggs contain about 6 grams of protein per egg and about 70 calories. To get a full meal’s worth of protein you have to eat 5 eggs: 350 calories before anything else is added. Add: egg whites.
Shooting for 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight gets us into the range where building muscle is more than just ‘doable’. It also isn’t quite as big of a jump as 1.2 grams would be. In order to achieve this goal we need to read food labels and pay attention to the protein-to-calorie ratio. Many foods claim to be ‘high protein’ but leave out that they are incredibly caloric. A ‘protein food’ should contain at least 30% (if not closer to 50-60%) of its calories in the form of protein. If a food claims 20 grams of protein (80 cal of protein), it shouldn’t have more than 300 or so calories.
A quality protein supplement can help make the difference in meeting, or not meeting your protein, muscle building and fat loss goals. The supplement industry, however, is not FDA regulated. I do suggest people look into supplementing protein as a way to hit their fitness and health goals, but a quality & transparent supplement company is crucial to making sure what the label says is accurate. I’m not trying to get you to switch supplements, but I do work with a company ‘NutraBio’ that has some of the best reviews in the supplement industry for transparency. They are Third-Party Tested, meaning a private entity tests each product to verify the labels accuracy. They use high quality ingredients and have a long list of supplements I use and trust to recommend to my people. They are by no means the only option, so don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, but here is a link below to get a discount on their products.
