🥩 Powerful Protein!

Hiya, friends! Was that the longest January ever, or is it just me? My friends think it flew by so idk, but...

Welcome to February and the fourth edition of Move to Improve!

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In today’s edition of Move to Improve, we’re finally going to talk about nutrition. If you’re reading this, there’s a chance that this is one change that could make a drastic positive difference in your body composition and overall health. What’s that?

Eat mor chik3n protein.

Odds are, you could be consuming more protein for optimal health and muscle building.

Last week’s newsletter was all about putting on muscle. But we can’t do that unless we give our body the building blocks it needs to make them. No Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon without every last little obnoxious piece.

Adding more protein to your diet will be one of the biggest bangs for your buck that you can possibly get in the realm of nutrition. Why? It boils down to a couple main reasons:

• More stimulus for muscle protein synthesis (the body turns on the “let’s build muscle” process)

• Feeling fuller, longer (which means fewer cravings, snacks, and binges later. Speaking from personal experience.)

Let me give the most protein-related advice I can, condensed into the next four minutes of your reading. I’ll cover three points:

1. The overall amount of daily protein you consume

2. Eating protein in the right amounts at the right times and frequencies

3. The sources from which you get your protein

First, overall amount. The current “Recommended Dietary Allowance” for protein is 0.8 grams (g) per kilogram (kg) of bodyweight, which equals ~0.36 grams per pound of body weight (I’ll convert to pounds since most readers are American and more familiar with pounds).

An example? If you weigh 200 pounds, multiply that by 0.36 to get 72 grams of protein for your RDA.

On nutrition labels on foods, next to the amount of protein in a serving, they will give the amount and sometimes a percentage. However, that percentage, if given, is calculated based on someone whose RDA is only 50g of protein. The person they’re calculating for would only weigh 137.5 pounds. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen that number on the scale since I was learning to write in cursive.

Source: verywellfit.com

There’s just one problem with these calculations: RDA is the recommended amount of something to prevent disease. As in, if you fall below this level, your health will decline and you will suffer. A “bare minimum.” And it’s based on some pretty inherently flawed studies conducted many decades ago.

Ahh, federal guidelines, and the speed with which they update based upon research. 🙃

Here at Move to Improve, we don’t want to just do the bare minimum. We want to strive for what’s optimal, or at least somewhere in that direction. What amount of protein will help us improve and live a long, healthy life?

There are studies for that. While suggestions vary and the range depends on activity level and goals, a more ideal range would be somewhere from 1.2g/kg of your bodyweight (0.55grams per pound) to 2.0+g/kg (0.91g per lb.). Many in the fitness community vouch for the simple yet ambitious target of 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight for optimal results. The benefits do seem to start to plateau much beyond this level.

So for our 200lb example person, that’s anywhere from 110 to 182 grams of protein per day, or 200g to max it out. That’s a far cry from the 72g we calculated earlier, and further still from the 50g that nutrition labels sometimes calculate their percentage from.

Athletes require more protein. Anyone seeking to build muscle rather than maintain it requires more protein. Older people—that’s right, people in their 50s-60s and beyond—require more protein. As we age, our bodies become less efficient at converting protein to muscle, so we actually need a bigger stimulus than we did when we were young and could get away with anything. Maintaining our muscle as we age is key to living a long, healthy life. So if you fall into any of these categories, aim for the higher end of the range above.

One of the next most important points is when we consume how much protein. The scientific term for this is a (gross-sounding) “protein bolus.” Basically just means a good lump of protein hits your digestive tract at once, like over the course of a half-hour meal.

Why does this matter? Sparing you the more specific details, our bodies basically don’t “turn on” the muscle-building mechanisms and processes unless we reach a threshold of an amount of protein consumed. It really boils down to one primary amino acid that’s most commonly found in animal proteins, leucine.

So what’s the amount you need? Suggestions vary, of course, but it seems to be somewhere between 20–30+g of protein at a time is key to hit that threshold.

That’s the magic amount that lets our body know “Oh great! We just got a whole new set of Legos! Let’s build.”

What does that look like practically? A few examples would be 4–6 ounces of beef, 3–6 ounces of chicken, a cup of greek yogurt, 3–5 eggs with cheese, a 3–5 ounce pouch of tuna/salmon, 20–30 ounces of milk (or 12–16 ounces of my fave, Fairlife milk [please sponsor me]). Or… a whole can of black beans or 3–4+ cups of quinoa. Yeah, protein is just much more concentrated in animal products.

Don’t let these numbers intimidate you. Just check out serving sizes on the nutrition label! Got a pound of ground meat? That’s four 4-oz. servings. The palm of your hand should equal the size of about 1 serving of protein that’s adequate enough to reach this threshold.

This means that just sipping on a 25g protein shake for 3+ hours isn’t a very effective stimulus. That’s more like a slow IV drip than a “bolus,” so your body might never meet the threshold to trigger the muscle-building process.

This also means that any meal or snack you have that’s got less than 20g of protein gives you very little benefit for building muscle. Proteins are found all throughout our bodies, not just in muscle. Our genes literally just make proteins, which then do vital jobs around our bodies. Those jobs get priority, and it’s not until our body is sure we’re getting a good dose of protein that it will dedicate some of those Legos to building those biceps.

Aim for 20, if not 30, or more grams of protein per meal/snack. Do this 3–4 times a day, and you’ve got a very healthy muscle building stimulus that keeps going all day. If you’re exercising, which I hope you are, this is all the more important. Your body wants to be strong and resilient, but you have to give it stimulus, then fuel it.

The third point around protein I want to make today is the source.

As I alluded to, it’s much easier to get adequate protein from animal sources. This is not debatable; it’s fact. A few ounces of meat or fish has far more protein than a few ounces of any fruit, grain, or veggie could ever provide (soy can come close). Amino acids are the building blocks of the building blocks (Think, the millions of plastic pieces that comprise one Lego piece). Animal proteins are known as “complete proteins,” which mean they typically contain all (20) necessary amino acids for muscle growth, standing alone as an individual food. Plant sources of protein, however, are “incomplete proteins,” meaning they don’t have all 20 amino acids and need to be paired with other foods that have the ones they lack.

The Nuance: In no way is this a moral judgment toward people who choose to eat vegan/vegetarian. That’s a personal choice that I, or anyone else, am in no place to judge. Probably 99% of us should be eating more fruits & veggies. That said, it is objectively harder to reach your ideal daily protein amounts on these diets. It takes planning, discipline, and intentional variety to consume a full amino acid profile that will actually induce muscle growth. Beans + corn or beans + wheat, for example, offer different amino acid makeups that, when combined, can give your body all the amino acids you need. So if you’re vegan, this is especially hard and will take meticulous professional planning. If you’re vegetarian/pescatarian, thankfully you’ve got eggs, dairy products, and possibly fish to help bolster your protein.

Whole foods are always your best bet. Protein supplements can be great, but center your diet around real foods. If the food is the ingredient (i.e. beef, yogurt, almonds), that’s typically far preferable to a food with a huge list of ingredients you can’t pronounce that has protein in it. 

A last note on timing: Starting your day with lots of carbs, sugar, and empty Calories can leave you starving at the end of the day, craving whatever sweet, salty, or savory thing you can binge. Many commercial American breakfasts hinge on lots of simple carbohydrates. Protein helps you feel full and prevents those uncontrollable cravings later in the day. Speaking from experience, every day I begin with lots of protein, I end feeling satisfied. But if I don’t get much protein during the day, I’m a Cookie Monster scrounging for late-night snacks to fill the void!

There’s much deeper we could dive, but that’ll do for now. If you’re under-eating protein, I guarantee you that following these guidelines can make a drastic difference in your body composition and health.

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: Make sure you’re getting at least 20, if not 30 or more, grams of protein every meal. Again, this is one of the biggest bang-for-your-buck nutrition tips out there.

Level 2: Try to consume at least half your bodyweight (in pounds) in grams of protein every day if you’re not already. Start slowly increasing from there and see how you feel!

Level 3: Want to absolutely optimize for muscle growth? Get at least 30 grams of protein 4–5 times per day to achieve at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Be sure to pair this with regular resistance training at a solid intensity. You’ll be stacking on the muscle like never before!

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• How Protein Reduces Cravings, Supports Muscle, and Promotes Health This episode of "The Doctor's Farmacy" podcast with Dr. Mark Hyman is a great short listen with a few experts who cover basically exactly the topics we discussed today!

• The ISSN Position Stand on Protein and Exercise if you want to dive deep into the weeds. I love the International Society of Sports Nutrition's position stands as they're basically a well-vetted summary of the vast catalogue of modern research out there on a subject.

• Lastly, I'm starting something new by recommending other newsletters that I like and support! I will only recommend newsletters I can personally vouch for. I'll start off by recommending BarBend—sign up below!

Thanks for tuning in today! Please share with a friend if you know who would enjoy this newsletter. Here's to living long and staying strong 💪

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).