The Fitness Industry is Not Eating Enough Protein.

Summary

Highlights

• The traditional 1.6 g/kg protein target may not be ideal for everyone, especially lifters. 📊
• New studies suggest up to 3 g/kg of protein could enhance muscle growth for weight lifters. 📈
• The fitness industry might be overlooking better protein recommendations due to outdated studies. 🔍
• Plant-based and older athletes might need higher protein to maximize gains. 🌿
• Meal structure, including night-time protein intake, can slightly boost muscle growth. 🌜

Key Takeaways

• Excessive protein might not be as beneficial for muscle growth; balance is key. 🤔
• Updated research indicates benefits in higher protein intake for lifters up to 3g/kg. 💪
• Older and plant-based lifters may need slightly more protein intake. 🌱
• Meal timing and distribution can impact protein's effectiveness; aim for 4 meals/day. 🍽️
• Reevaluation based on new research is crucial for optimal fitness results. 📚

Overview

The Fitness Industry is Not Eating Enough Protein. Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the fitness industry is missing the morom protein there is not a single study that has found benefits of more than 1.6 G per kilog per day nearly all data on Naturals illustrates that a gram per pound of protein is usually Overkill in almost every case here the best research recommends 1.6 to 2.2 G per kilo or 0.7 to 1 G per pound per day 73 to 1 G per pound
• 00:30 - 01:00 is good for the general population but it's missing a lot of context and probably not good for you across the board Today's Fitness influencers advocate for a protein Target that is probably reducing your muscle growth and I have the research to back that up let me explain first you need to understand why protein is important but eating too much of it can also hurt your muscle growth protein is composed of smaller building blocks referred to as amino acids when you eat
• 01:00 - 01:30 food you first mechanically break it down with your teeth to increase surface area for the enzymes in your stomach to act on food then reaches your stomach where proteins are chemically broken down into amino acids in your small intestine amino acids cross over into your blood amino acids are then transported around your body through your bloodstream your body's preferred use for amino acids is as building blocks for protein structures such as muscle mass your body also breaks down
• 01:30 - 02:00 muscle proteins continuously to gain muscle muscle protein synthesis needs to exceed muscle protein breakdown resulting in a net positive protein balance since protein is literally the building block of muscle tissue consuming more of it will help you grow more muscle that said not all protein you consume will be directed to building muscle it's also used to build proteins and other tissues in your body like your hair and your nails and although it's not your body's preferred option protein can be converted to both glucose for
• 02:00 - 02:30 immediate energy or body fat for long-term energy storage this conversion is a metabolically costly process so your body tends to avoid it you can think of it as needing to pay wire transfer fees to send money abroad instead your body will preferentially use carbohydrates and fats for immediate energy which are also easier to convert to body fat for long-term storage but as far as growing muscle goes consuming too much protein can be wasteful since both
• 02:30 - 03:00 carbohydrates and fats can make for better fuel for lifting consuming more protein than necessary can hurt your muscle growth through the opportunity cost likewise it can also literally cost your wallet since protein sources are far more expensive than both carbohydrate and fat sources insufficient protein is no good since protein is literally what your muscles are made of too much protein is wasteful since it's costly and not the best training fuel most influencers today advocate for somewhere between 1.6 to
• 03:00 - 03:30 2.2 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day this recommendation almost universally stems from a study I myself have referenced in the past in 2018 Dr Robert Morton and his colleagues performed the metanalysis on protein metanalyses are the gold standard of scientific research since they look at dozens of studies they researched all studies that included a control group where participants were given a protein supplement and were both groups
• 03:30 - 04:00 completed a lifting routine lasting at least 6 weeks they included nearly 50 studies in total which is great they performed a met regression which plots all of the subjects muscle growth and protein intakes from all of the studies on one graph this allows you to draw a line through the data that should be the best fit for the data points the distance between the data points and the Met aggression line should be minimized this approach has limitations but it does help you answer the question of how
• 04:00 - 04:30 much protein tends to maximize gains in lean body mass first Robert and his colleagues try to draw a simple line however this approach didn't work very well many of the data points were still far from the line instead they then also tried drawing two lines with a break point while this visualization was a better fit of the results of the 50 studies it reduced the distance between data points and the line that analysis was not statistically significant for what that's worth the authors even say as much as they present the graph
• 04:30 - 05:00 however this graph is what people always look at and refer to including me in the past the problem with this is that a basic line by its very nature assumes that there is no more benefit after 1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day you are no longer really fitting the line to the data you are fitting the data to your line if the data indicated a benefit to higher protein intakes even just a diminishing marginal benefit the
• 05:00 - 05:30 basic approach would miss this alog together it forces a flat slope and yet influencers have kept using this as the gold standard for protein recommendations to maximize muscle growth now for a couple of years this study really was the gold standard despise limitations but that was only true for a brief amount of time in 2020 a group of researchers in Japan conducted another metanalysis however on top of virtually every study Morton and colleagues had looked at they also
• 05:30 - 06:00 included two dozen new studies it is simply the better met analysis since it has more data and a better analysis this new study should be used to inform protein recommendations but why has this study by takawa and colleagues not been mentioned nearly as much well it likely simply has to do with the status and Eminence of the researchers as a result the science-based influencers have simply been echoing the same studies results over and over again see Fitness
• 06:00 - 06:30 influencers probably just haven't seen this better newer study the Morton meta regression has gotten an insane 1200 plus citations since 2018 in contrast published only 2 years later the tagawa Met regression has only received 80 citations in their analysis tagawa and his colleagues adjusted for a few variables that can influence hypertrophy in one of their analyses they accounted for age sex and duration of the study in another they also added weight gain into
• 06:30 - 07:00 the mix since bulking can enhance muscle building looking at a total of 72 studies in lifters and 66 studies where participants didn't lift here's what they found when not accounting for weight gain both lifters and non-li saw more muscle growth all the way to 3 g of protein per kilogram of body weight when adjusting for body weight gained non-li no longer saw benefit of high protein intakes Beyond around 1 to 1.5 g of protein per kilogram of body weight in lifters however even when adjusting for
• 07:00 - 07:30 body weight gained a higher protein intake all the way up to 3 g of protein per kilogram of body weight which translates to nearly 1.4 g of protein per pound of body weight still increased lean body mass gained note that for all of these graphs there're diminishing returns going up to around 1.6 G per kilogram gives you most of the benefit after this you do still see a benefit of consuming more protein but less of a benefit benefit this is in line with the
• 07:30 - 08:00 findings by Morton and colleagues everyone knows about however you'll also notice that in lifter specifically high protein intakes do cause greater increases in lean body mass before I give you some cave to consider make sure you pay attention there here are some rough numbers to consider if we take this meta regression at face value this is how much more growth you would get from boosting your protein intake going from around 0.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight to the usual 1.6
• 08:00 - 08:30 recommendation you're looking at around triple the muscle growth 1.2 kg of lean body mass gained versus only 0.4 if you go from the usual 1.6 to 3.1 g of protein you would gain an additional 0.7 kg of lean body mass or around 55% more muscle growth in contrast to the popular science-based narrative there likely is a benefit to higher protein intakes for lifters since lifting increases muscle protein synthesis your body May benefit
• 08:30 - 09:00 from consuming more protein than if you didn't lift because we're dealing with over 70 studies here I'm pretty confident this is a true effect while this study is stronger than the study by Morton and colleagues that everyone is relying on there are still limitations to these findings first relatively few Studies have looked at protein intakes and excess of around a gram per pound based on the data reported only around 23% of the studies included a protein intake above 2 g of protein so take the
• 09:00 - 09:30 numbers I mentioned as an estimate not a set in stone figure second many of these protein estimates in studies are based on two-day food Diaries these can be somewhat inaccurate and typically underestimate protein intake in a lucky twist of fate this could have unintentionally provided us with a bit more data on higher protein intakes this brings me to how to change your diet in light of This research but before I tell you that here's how to change your
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• 10:00 - 10:30 you'll receive a free trial and a lifetime discount now for my recommendations if you want great growth while keeping things practical and cost-efficient the recommendation of 0.7 to 1 g of protein per pound of body weight is great remember going Beyond this does offer diminishing returns and less bang for buck if you want your best muscle growth however go beyond one G per pound this isn't always super practical but it will very likely grow more muscle how much exactly should you
• 10:30 - 11:00 aim for in my opinion somewhere in the ballpark of 1 to maximum 1.3 g of protein per pound of body weight is a good idea I weigh 220 lb so to maximize my growth I'd be looking at 220 to 285 g of protein per day research suggests two populations would benefit from a bit more protein the first is older lifters it does seem that L can use more protein
• 11:00 - 11:30 to compensate for what we call anabolic uh resistance then in terms of a vegan diet like makes sense that in an animal protein that if you eat meat it kind of provides the building blocks of muscle in the ideal ratio um that is a little bit worse in uh in vegan diets in addition plant protein usually is a little bit less digestible so it's one thing what's the amino acid profile of a protein but if you're not fully digesting it some of that protein get lost but again that doesn't have to be a
• 11:30 - 12:00 problem it's just you might have to eat more to compensate for the lower uh quality that's y trolin one of the world's top scientists on protein for muscle growth the second population that benefits from higher protein is plant-based lifters in contrast to animal-based protein sources like meat whey and dairy most plant-based sources of protein are a bit less anabolic their amino acid profile is suboptimal and the digestibility of plant-based prot proteins is lower than their animal
• 12:00 - 12:30 counterparts so if you're an older lifter or you're plant-based increasing protein intake by up to 20% is a good idea but how should you distribute this across the day how many meals should you have what's my recommendation for athletes I would still say I would aim for four meals a day because that's extremely simple that is like the most socially desired meal uh meal pattern then take an extra meal prior to sleep that is like if you add an extra meal
• 12:30 - 13:00 which point of the day will best increase your distribution it will be prior to sleep do I think all of that will make much difference no but it's so easy just do it and you don't have to worry about it anymore so four meals a day is a great starting place I like to aim for around 0.3 g of protein per pound of body weight per meal since I weigh 220 lb that comes out to 65 g of protein per meal four times a day for a total of around 2 260 g of protein per
• 13:00 - 13:30 day discovering this study was definitely a lesson in being willing to change your stance based on new research for me it was also a lesson in set up some Google Scholar alerts you Pencil Neck nerd and make sure you read actual research versus staying stuck in the evidence-based Echo chamber let me impart a final message upon you shop for gym clothing at Rascal apparel.com I'm proudly sponsored by them they have a variety of designs from pop culture references to homages to Greek mythology
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