Um ok, LEAN body mass…I am not all lean ( I WISH!!!!) so how much of my 5’6 190lb frame is LEAN??? How many lbs of FAT should I subtract from the 190 ( and OH YES I have some fat!!) to then calculate my optimal protein?!?!
After a day of flying across the country, I’m finally getting the opportunity to write this newsletter.
Straight from…what’s this place called? Ah yes, the Gibson Guitar Lounge in Orange County airport.
I was actually planning on sending this during my last flight, because, that plane was COOL and had the internet, but alas, my middle seating assignment amongst two individuals even larger than I made that an impossibility.
But here I am, making it a point to deliver on my promise to you, my loyal subscriber, even before I check in to my hotel.
Alright, enough of that…moving on to what you really want to know: How much protein do you really NEED?
Ha! Trick question, because that’s actually not the question you should be asking anyway. You see, when you ask the question about “need”, one needs to examine the context of the question.
How much protein do you need for what?
To build muscle? To improve body composition? To improve performance? To enhance recovery? To live?
In most cases, people are asking how much protein should I intake to enhance my body composition and performance related goals.
And with that question, it’s important to take a look at things not from a “need” standpoint, but from an “optimization” standpoint.
And because my very good friend and nutritional biochemist and all around bad ass Dr. John Berardi already covered this in another article, I’ll just quote him here:
“Asking ‘How much protein does an athlete need?’ is much like asking the question ‘How much does a student need to study for an exam?’ Since a student only needs to pass their exam to remain a student, the proper answer would be ‘however much it takes to score a 60%.’ However, very few students want to earn only a 60%. Therefore the best question would be ‘How much does a student need to study to get an A on their exam?’
Now, the truth is, there are MANY reasons beyond “need” to increase protein intake to boost body composition and performance related results, here are just a few:
Reason #1
Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding — While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is significantly higher than that of carbohydrates and fat. In fact, protein requires 25-30% of the energy it provides just for digestion, absorption, and assimilation while carbs only require 6-8% and fat requires 2-3%. That means that eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during hypercaloric diets.
Reason #2
Increased Glucagon — Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.
Reason #3
Increased IGF-1 — Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.
Reason #4
Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk — Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.
Reason #5
Improved Weight-Loss Profile — Research from Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management.
Reason #6
Increased Protein Turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.
Reason #7
Increased Nitrogen Status — Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.
Reason #8
Increased Provision of Auxiliary Nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. This illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements alone.
So, looking over this list of benefits, isn’t it clear that for many individuals, an increase in protein intake would be advantageous for most people’s training goals?”
Hmmmm, indeed it does, Johnny boy, indeed it does.
So rather than looking at “need”, when talking about protein intake, let’s talk optimization.
Based on my experiences (and many others), that level is around 1 g per pound of lean body mass in most cases.
In some situations, for very specific purposes (like the protein depletion day of the XFLD), higher protein intake may be warranted.
Regardless, the bottom line is this: protein is the most under-rated nutrient, or at least the nutrient that most people under-consume. If you’re looking to boost your body composition results, make sure you’re getting enough.
Comments? Post ’em below!
But, only after you hit the facebook LIKE button below to share this with your friends.
Talk to you in the comments section!
Joel
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71 comments - add yours
I have a follow up question:
Is there a way you can tell if you are consuming too much or too little protein? For example in digestive issues, cramps or pains, feelings, bathroom gymnastics on the porcelain ring? Anything that would tell you you’re getting plenty of protein? Since muscle gain and fat loss take days to track results, it may be difficult to judge your protein intake based only on that. I just wonder, if you eat too much one fine day, what happens?
Also, since we need to get protein from real food, this basically means meat to most people. Things like peanuts, beans, or soy have low or incomplete protein. So if I need 170g of protein in a day, what might that look like? Lots of chicken and a hamburger or two? I don’t know!
O.K., it looks like I am undernourished, because I am getting around 100 gms per day, but optimally I should be getting 170. What is the best way to increase my protein intake without adding a whole bunch of calories to my diet or expense to my food budget?
Joel,
Great post, appreciate all the research you put into this article… and of course hearing your own real life results is always helpful as well.
I’ve personally experimented and tested consuming various amounts of protein at certain times per day, in certain amounts, etc.. and have found that going over 20 to 30 grams per serving didn’t increase my results much more than if I took in 40 to 60 grams in a serving.
Chris
How much protein do i need if im a strength training athlete of about and hour a day, and do i need protein/carbs as a recovery post workout shake after and interval training or basketball game
sorry instead of and i ment *an
What has more protein, steak or broccoli.
Answer: 1 oz of steak = 4g protein 1 oz broccoli = 7g protein
Meat is not necessary for your protein needs, just look how big and strong a cow is.
Great article, Joel. Not exactly a protein question, but here goes: as I’ve been reading the ingredient labels on my food lately, I’ve noticed that many of the bread products say they’re made with “enriched wheat flour” or “enriched flour”, but they look just like white bread. What am I missing?
@ Flo:
I’m sorry Flo, but that’s a silly statement and ignorant of the fact that cows have much less myostantin than humans. Myostantin effectively limits the growth of muscle.
Google “myostatin deficiency” and you’ll see what happens when your body doesn’t inhibit its natural growth potential.
Do you REALLY believe that humans can get bigger by eating only veggies and grass?
Great post…so many benefits to protein! I agree with what he said about getting protein from a variety of food sources instead of just supplementation…I love whey protein shakes, but having real food is that much better.
Joel what are some good vegetarian sources for protein other then cottage cheese?
Also how much protein is too much…. In terms of potentially causing renal damage?
Good article Joel thanks a lot for putting it together.
So I weigh 150, approx. 25% bodyfat. This would mean I have about 112 lbs. lean muscle, right? So I should be shooting for around 112 gr protein. How about if I feel best at 130-150 grms???? I can tell I am very sensitive to carbs and feel tired if I eat too many and I feel hungry. I’ve taken some Metabolic type tests and come out as one who is more of a protein type. How high could I safely go with my protein consumption? … cause I just feel so much more satisfied and good with more than 112 grms of protein.
Yeah, saying you need 160g of protein a day is all well and good but there’s simply no way to get that with a 2000 calorie diet unless you down a loaf of whole grain wheat bread a day or suppliment your diet with very expensive protein bars or shakes. That is the main issue to me. I can buy your book, which lasts forever, or invest in exercise equipment, that lasts 10-20 years. I cannot piss away 50-100 bucks or more a month buying tubs of protein powder. That’s no way to lose weight.
Ok, I understand protein sources. Plenty of info available on that. and if I understand correctly you are saying that taking in 1gr of protein per lb of lean body mass is optimal amount to build muscle. i.e. : my lean body mass is 66% or 131.34 lbs.. so I should take in approximately 131 gr of protein per day.
also I have seen recommendations of using soy as protein source.. but I have also read that soy intake for men can make their estrogen levels too high. So should I skip the soy???
You said it, man. People don’t take enough protein. Save for those hung up on “protein guilt” aka trying to increase their protein intake because they feel they didn’t get enough, resulting in them gaining fat because they also increase their caloric intake, people just consume too many carbs and not enough protein or animal fat… We need to get better education out there for matters like these…
Don’t you people worry too much about counting calories, it’s tedious. I’m more of a protein type metabolism too so I try and keep it clean as possible. The trick is not to mix your carbs with the protein. Try to eat your carbs in the morning and second breakfast, don’t eat any for lunch only veggies allowed as carbs here.
I decided to eliminate all kinds of bread, and what I got left in the morning is 1 all grain cracker, oatmeal musli with dry fruit bits. I can’t eat eggs so I have to satisfy myself with oats. I also have fresh cottage cheese and delightful turkey breast ham.
If you can spread protein intake into most of your meals of the day then you are golden. Try and keep your food as clean as possible, meaning don’t use dressings unless you made it yourself with healthy on your mind.
Don’t eat carbs during evening time, keep yourself light and lean there consume only protein like chicken, tuna, fish in general (NOT FRIED), cottage cheese. If you need a sweetener and you don’t have stevia then use a little bit of natural honey (organic please, no corn syrup BS), use berries, antioxidants are the best to keep you regular and make you feel good in the morning.
I used to be over 120kg one year ago, now I’m at 86kg and around 10% or a bit below of body fat. I never counted calories, I was never hungry (except on xfld fast days :)), and I did most of my fat cutting in less then a year AT HOME. What I want to tell you all is that YOU CAN DO IT, just workout more then your intake. Listen to your body, listen to your metabolism, be fair in your workouts don’t procrastinate and everything will be peachy.
Interval Training ROCKS! Cardio SUCKS! and Joels program ROCKS also!
hello joel how are you? i want to ask you about the classes of the gym. is it useful to our body
Great information – Thanks, Joel!
What is the figure of 1 gram of protein per pound of lean mass based on?
For me personally, this would mean, I would never reach my daily calorie needs for cutting, let alone maintenance or even muscle growth!
I am 170lbs at around 7% body fat. This means I should consume around 155-160 grams of protein per day. This is between 620 and 640 calories. Following a diet of 40% protein, 30% carb and 30% fat (cutting). This would mean I am only getting at maximum 1900 calories per day!
I am currently eating around 290 grams of protein per day split into 7 meals. Is this too much or is this a case of the ‘individuality’ of bodybuilding?
@ Joel Marion:
A cow isn’t human and has different gentics?
Ive never seen a cow eat broccoli?
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Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...