Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1072: What You Need to Know About Protein for Muscle Building & Fat Loss

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin go into depth about protein, what it is, what it does, how to use it and the potential negatives of eating too much. The ‘magical’ macronutrient that is protein: What it is, what is it doing for our bodies, the controversies surrounding it & MORE. (3:00) The BEST sources of protein. (15:55) How to rate the QUALITY of the protein you are consuming. (22:07) What is the OPTIMAL amount of protein for muscle building and performance? (26:55) The myths around protein: Why you may be gaining excess fat, whey vs. Casein, maximizing protein synthesis, anabolic window & MORE. (40:20) People Mentioned Andy Galpin (@drandygalpin)  Instagram Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson)  Instagram Dr. Michael Ruscio (@drruscio)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned July Promotion: MAPS Anywhere ½ off!! **Code “ANYWHERE50” at checkout** Protein – Which is Best? - NCBI The Myth of Optimal Protein Intake How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution US adults do not consume enough protein, study warns How Protein Works - Part 6: How Much Protein Do I Need? Mind Pump Ep. 775: Dr. Michael Ruscio- Healthy Gut, Healthy You Branched-Chain Amino Acids as New Biomarkers of Major Depression - A Novel Neurobiology of Mood Disorder Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. This has to be one of my favorite episodes I've done with you guys. Well, typically this would happen, right? When we, I remember when we were talking about even doing this episode, we were like, whatever, you know, but everybody's heard about protein. Yeah, that's the thing is you think,

we kind of take for granted, we think, oh, protein, we don't need to do, talk too much about it aside from dispelling myths, but the reality is, we sat down, and we started to dive deep into the macronutrient of protein, what some would consider one of the more important macronutrients, although that's a little bit false, there's two essential macronutrients of protein, what some would consider one of the more important macronutrients, although that's a little bit false,

there's two essential macronutrients, fats and proteins. But when it comes to muscle building and fat loss and satiety, protein tends to shine. But the other thing that sticks out or stands out is that there's a lot of misinformation surrounding protein, a lot of beliefs that don't seem to be, or that definitely are not accurate, or sometimes outright, the opposite of the truth.

So in this episode, we break it all down. We start out by talking about what a protein is, and talk about how it's one of the building blocks of your body's tissue. We talk about how your body breaks it down and absorbs proteins. We talk about how your body breaks it down and absorbs proteins. We talk about amino acids which make up protein, including branching amino acids,

which a lot of your supplements will contain, and essential amino acids, which are also contained or thrown in a lot of supplements. We talk about how it improves satiety or fills you up more than other sources of other types of macronutrients. Talk about the best sources, how vegans should find protein. I mean, we break it all down.

We even tell you the right amount of protein to consume based off of studies to maximize muscle building and fat burning. So if you want to learn all about protein and know how much to take, when you should eat it, how much you should eat it at post workout, pre workout, before you go to bed, all that stuff, and the myths, you're going to love this episode. Now before it gets started, I do want to tell everybody that maps anywhere, our program that is phenomenally successful and effective that requires no equipment. In other words, just your body and maybe some bands, very effective workout you can do anywhere at home on the

road. You can do it at work. That program is 50% off. So we cut the price in half. Here's what you do if you want to get that program. Go to maps. Y dot com. That's MAPS, WHITE.com, and use the code anywhere 50. That's ANYWH, ERE, 50, no space for the discount. And without any further ado, here we are talking all about your favorite macronutrient protein. Dude, I want to talk about the most popular subject in our space. What subject do you constantly get questions on and people wanna ask about? The magical macronutrient. You good job, protein.

It's always about protein, protein protein. So I thought we should do an episode all about protein and then to kind of cut through all the crap because it's the most popular supplements out there are geared around protein or amino acids for athletes or for people trying to build muscle or burn body fat. Well, I'm excited about this one because there's one there's a little bit of debate on how much.

And then also we've kind of gone back and forth ourselves on like what we've seen the most as far as clients. And so this will be a good topic, I think, for people and an area that I think everyone is gonna be different, so I think there's gonna be some people out there that are completely clueless. I think there's gonna be some people that think they're doing the right thing,

that may not be doing the right thing. And then there's some people that may be hidden out of the park and right where they need to be for whatever their goals may be. We should start out by kind of talking about protein, just basic information about protein. It is. Well, it is one of the three macro nutrients that you find in food.

So the three are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. And proteins are essential. In other words, if you don't consume protein in your diet, you at some point will die. Your body will fail to thrive. It'll consume itself and then you'll be dead. So that's why it's considered essential. Your body cannot produce its own complete proteins,

like it can with, like for example, carbohydrates are not essential. You could go the rest of your life and never have a carbohydrate. And aside from maybe not eating good foods or maybe some issues may pop up, but you're going to be fine. You're going to be fine. In some cases, in fact, there are some cultures that historically consume almost no proteins for very, very long periods of time.

I'm excuse me, no carbohydrates for long periods of time. But proteins essential, you have to have it. Now proteins are made up of amino acids. These are polymer chains brought together or held together by peptide bonds, so it's getting a little technical. But essentially, it's a bunch of amino acids. Nine of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins are considered essential. So what that means is some of the other amino acids your body can produce itself, but nine of them it can't.

You have to eat these, otherwise you will not live. Now why do we have to eat them? What exactly is protein doing for our body that forces us to have to consume it to survive and live? Well, I'm not sure why we have to consume it. Probably because protein, humans evolve as hunter-gatherers, and we always were able to survive by hunting, killing an animal and eating it. That's the greatest sources of protein.

Although there are lots of plant sources of protein, the most rich sources of protein are animal. And so the reason why humans evolved without needing carbohydrates is probably because there were long periods of time where they just were not available. Maybe during the ice age, for example, or when we're out in the wilderness and there were no consumable plants or sources of carbohydrates, but we always were able to find an animal and kill it and get our sustenance. So for whatever reason, they are essential, but our body needs amino acids as building blocks

for our tissues, everything, skin, hair, nails, everything, especially muscle, right? It's a muscle is comprised of amino acids and proteins and you need them in order to recover, repair muscle and build muscle. And this may be why protein is probably the most, I'd say it's the easiest, most pushed supplement ever in the fitness muscle building fat loss world.

Wouldn't you guys agree? Yeah, but I also think that's rightfully so. In my experience, I remember when I first started tracking clients, food logs, or going over their food logs, and when I would look at the average client, now mind you, the average client that I would have when I first started as a trainer, would be a middle-aged mother trying to lose 30 or so pounds. And, you know, she doesn't exactly know exactly what she's eating.

She's coming to me for that advice. And I would have her track her current food so I could kind of see where her diet is before I actually would recommend anything. And what I found typically in that client, they under- under consumed protein. So my theory is that this is why it became, I think why it became like the fitness and bodybuilding mantra. You've got to increase protein, pump the protein more.

So I really believe that it originally started at a good. Like I really believe that, you know, it was overall for the majority of people that were trying to learn about fitness and trying to build muscle and get in shape. I think the overall message was really pure and good. Now, there's a lot of controversy around that though, right? Cause Americans consume more protein than most developed nations, if not all. I believe we're

one, we're either number one or number two. And when you look at the old supplement companies, I've been, now the problem, I have a problem with that stat though. To say something like that, we're, we're also 80% of the nation is overweight and over consumed. Oh yeah, I'm not saying it's an exercise. No, I'm not saying it's- I don't exercise. No, I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. Like, the people that exercise that are trying to get in shape lose body fat, I would argue under-consume protein. So as a whole, as a country, we grossly over-con...

But we grossly over-consume everything. We grossly over-consume sugar and carbohydrates and fat and everything because we're all fat. Yeah, we have the highest consumption of protein because we just have the highest consumption. Yes, exactly. But when I look back, First place, you as a...

Yeah, we win. When I look back to my career of training and the majority of clients I train, and I've definitely had both in. So I wanna make that clear that I've also trained people where I looked at them and went, holy shit, why are you eating this much protein? And I think that's due to the message

that you're alluding to, Sal, which is in the fitness and bodybuilding community, we've been pushing protein, protein. And now I think because it's turned into money, because if we tell you you need to eat one, two, grams of protein per pound of body weight, most people start finding out how difficult that is to do that through whole food.

Yeah, like you said, I think it started in a good place, but then it just got exaggerated with athletes, with bodybuilders, and it was this mad rush to be able to consume as much protein as possible because that was completely, it equated to muscle gain specifically how much protein you were consuming. So now everybody's drinking a shake in between every single meal, and it just got out of hand, where the source of it, too, it was all from protein powder.

Yeah, well, we've known this actually for a long time, that consuming higher amounts of meat in particular, and then protein, not so specific, in combination with training or whatever results in better results. We've known this for actually for a long time. If you look at texts from the Greeks or the Romans with the gladiators, for example, you hear about diets that were higher in animal proteins

and animal meat consumption. Old-time strong man and bodybuilders, way before supplements even existed, would talk about the best diets to become strong. And there would talk about eating lots of animal meats, proteins, milk, dairy, Paul Anderson, one of the most decorated Olympic lifters of all time, American lifters of all time. American lifters of all time,

extremely strong. I mean, you look at some of his lifts, even today are shocking how powerful this guy was, and he would literally go out to his barn, and he would get gallons of whole milk, and he would squat and drink milk in between each of his sets. So we've known about this for a long time,

and then when the supplement industry kind of developed, like we knew, like protein is a building block for muscle. If you eat more of it, when you're working out, up to a certain point, you're gonna build more muscle, this is an easy thing that we can turn into a supplement. Not only that, but for a long time, getting good sources of protein was expensive. Maybe not so much now, like today, Americans consume meat pretty regularly, but you know,

you go back 70 years, 80 years ago, it was very expensive to have steak. It was like a big deal for families to be able to have like a piece of steak for dinner. And so protein powder companies were like, oh, we could take dairy, turn it into this protein that's convenient. And so the supplement industry was kind of born on that. Those are some of the first supplements, some of the first supplements that Arnold Schwarzenegger supported were these dry milk type protein powder type supplements.

Now protein calories per gram is relatively low when you compare it to the other, it's actually very low when you compare it to the other essential macronutrient, which is fat. You know, one gram of fat has more than twice as many calories as one gram of protein. This is probably why cutting fat out of your diet was for a long time considered an easy way to lose weight, because it was a very easy way to lose to cut calories, right? You cut, you know, 10 grams of fat at your diet, that's 90 calories, 10 grams of protein is only 40.

Right. Protein also, we now know, is the most satiating of macronutrients, meaning if you eat a high protein diet, you tend to not want to eat that much more food. This is one of the reasons why people have so much success with diets like the ketogenic diet, the Ackons diet, the Paleo diet. Just high protein fat loss. Yeah, because they're higher in protein. I know keto is typically a moderate protein high fat, but for the most part, the diets that are protein rich and

lower in the carbohydrates, it's part of that is because just, and that was one of the things I experienced. I remember when I first started eating a high protein diet was I noticed that I was satiated all time. Oh yeah. One of the one of the worst parts about having carbohydrates. Yes, it's great for energy and for athletic performance and you know most carbohydrate foods taste really good. But part of the problem with carbohydrates is when you eat it, it seems like another half hour hour later, I want more. It spikes up that blood sugar, spikes up that appetite, it makes me want to eat consume more of them

where that's not that way when you eat a high protein diet. In fact, when I was a kid, like you Adam, I was skinny, right? So I wanted to put on muscle and weight, and I considered myself a hard gainer. And early on, I understood that protein was something that was important for muscle growth. And so I would try to eat a lot of it, but as a kid with it, very fast metabolism, and someone who had a tough time gaining weight. So hard.

It was very difficult. And so I didn't, so I would just eat lots of, I'll try to eat lots of meat. I would take protein powders, I would drink milk, but I'd get so satiated and I wouldn't be able to get enough calories. And I figured out later on, oh, if I eat carbohydrates, I'll be able to get more calories in my diet because it's making me want to eat more. And it took me a long time to figure that out.

Did you guys ever wake yourself up in the middle of the night to drink a protein shake? Oh, yeah, just a tracking weight. Did we all do that? The first mini fridge I ever bought was for that exact purpose. I bought a mini fridge. It bought was for that exact purpose. I bought a mini fridge It was right next to my bed alarm clock was on top of it set an alarm at like two three in the morning Yep, and right there

I had all these back then it was a mileplex ready to drink protein drinks and alarm would go off Middle the night. I would slam it and then go right back to bed. I did the exact same thing I had a I had a shaker cup and my my jug of mass, 5,000, whatever the number was at that time. And I'd wake up in the middle of the night and shake my cup real quietly, so my mom didn't freak out. Because I was young, I was like 16, 15 years old and I was doing this.

So, but a lot of this was based off of myths, which I think we'll get into later in the episode. Because protein is essential, because it's important, because a higher protein diet does contribute to better muscle gain, it does satiate you better, so it's better for fat loss and that respect. Because of all these wonderful things, protein has been turned into this magical macronutrient

where you just can't consume too much type of deal. Which is- Which is- Which is- Yeah, and then lots of myths around it, like, you know, how often you eat eat it and how much you can eat it is serving at a particular sitting. A lot of myths that surround it that I think eventually we should go into.

But before we do, and this may sound basic, and here's the thing that surprised me each time we do one of these episodes, is there's a lot of things I think sometimes we take for granted that we forget because we've been in this space for so long that we think, oh, everybody knows this information because it's basic. And then oftentimes, I'll get DMs with people asking me this question,

like, I should have covered that. And so I think as basic as this may sound, I think it's important we cover the best sources of protein. Absolutely. You know, like, for me, the animal sources are by far the best sources of protein. Absolutely. For me, the animal sources are by far the best in the sense that they're the richest source and the easiest way to consume high quality, complete sources of protein.

And a lot of that is because of all the other micro nutrients that you also get, that accompany meat, right? There's that, but it's also just dense, it's dense in protein, like to get 30 grams of protein from a vegetable source, you have to consume a lot or a cedar and nut. Yeah, exactly.

To consume 30 grams of protein from an animal source requires how many ounces of chicken would that be at them? Right, for 37 grams. Yeah, six ounces. Six ounces of small piece of chicken. 30 grams of rice, of protein from rice or protein from wheat, or from nuts, would be a very, very large serving.

So your easiest source and your richest source of proteins come from animal sources. So this is chicken, fish, eggs, or my favorite. Eggs, in fact, are rated as one of the highest quality sources of protein till this day. And we'll get into that in just a second. Dairy, another very good quality source of protein. Now let's talk about the vegan sources of protein.

What are, like, cause there are some vegans that, you know, don't eat meat for seeds. Nuts. Seeds, nuts, legumes, or good. Yeah, so there are certain grains that are fire in protein. for seeds, nuts, seeds, nuts, legumes, or good. Yeah, so there are certain grains that are fire and protein. I, you know, protein supplementation for someone who eats meat and has a balanced diet, usually not necessary.

Protein supplementation for vegan, very beneficial. I, my experience when I've coached and worked with vegans, they benefit the most from supplementing with protein, just because again, because it's harder to get, you know, that protein without getting a bunch of other, you know, carbohydrates and calories type of deal. Well, I would say that within, I mean, going back again to the my client, the typical client that I would have,

I don't know for you guys, but for me, even the female client that wants to lose 30 pounds when she would start tracking her calories and her food was still only eating like 1,500 to maybe 1,800 calories and still struggling to lose weight, which is just a so low amount of calories that if you were getting your protein requirements every day, you'd have to be getting it from a very lean source of meat and eating a lot of majority of just that, which that wasn't the reality. That's tough.

Right, it's tough to do. So I would say that a lot of the clients that they first came on, they were not getting enough protein for their diet. So I mean, that's, and this was something that, I don't know I want to say it was of debate I just think that we we have a little bit more or a little bit different experience with the majority of clients that we had Because one of the fastest ways that I could help a client out was to you know, introduce weight training and Bump protein, you know, 30 to 50 grams depending on who I was talking to because for the most part the clients that I took on were grossly under-consuming. Their diets were probably just super high in carbohydrates. And what's most so when I talk about when I looked at a diet when I looked at the most common things

that I saw were over-consumption carbohydrates, primarily sugar, and the under-consumption of protein, the under consumption of fiber. And those were normally the main things that I would have to adjust. What's funny to you about that is, it's probably because their diets were high in process foods, just heavily processed foods, historically low in protein, low in fiber. And the funny thing is, if you want to get yourself to feel more satiated, one of the two things you can increase in your diet that'll make you fat protein.

Fiber, protein, and of course fat too, but fiber and protein, those two things will make you feel like you don't need to eat too much. Right, so just back to the vegan side of things. One of the also more benefits to eating animal-based protein, I mean, creatine. Oh, well, yeah, animal products also contain other nutrients, you know, other nutrients that are inside that, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you get the, yeah, if you're vegan, supplement with creatine, and oftentimes, the protein, and that'll just blow your mind in terms of how much better it benefits all kinds of things. Yeah, in terms of that. Exactly. You know, it's a great source of protein that I don't hear a lot of people talking about anymore.

That was relatively popular when I first became a trainer. If you can tolerate dairy and you want an inexpensive lean source of protein, cottage cheese. Cottage cheese was just, that was a staple. Back in the day. Yeah, you see bodybuilders do all the time in their bowls. Yeah, and cottage cheese is pretty, it's relatively palatable. It's not like a gross tasting anything.

Right. You can throw a little bit of fruit in that and you've got yourself a very easy source of 25, 30 grams. You've got it too, yeah. Yeah, I don't think, is cottage cheese fermented? I don't think it is. I think you can't you get it fermented? I believe you can.

Yeah. And get some of those beneficial bacteria Cloud of cheese is a great source canned tuna. These are cheap sources of high quality protein I used to eat them like crazy Greek yogurt Greek yogurt another great source and you can even get it non fat So if you're looking for Low calorie with protein You know non-fat Greek yogurt the what's that brand? Fajé. Yeah, that's how you pronounce it. I'm a F a J a F a G E is that what it is? I think so. I don't know What's that brand? Fajé? Yeah, that's how you pronounce it. F-A-J-A. F-A-G-E.

Is that what it is? I don't know how to spell. I don't know. You're asking a wrong guy. Sounds right. Doug's making the face like, oh, Jay. Faja.

Faja. He has Faié. Faié? That's how you say it? Oh, we're way out. I think so. Doug's so cultured. You know, cultured is good.

I'm cultured like the yogurt. Yeah, we need one of us at least. Yeah, yeah. You least. As far as protein quality, there's a few rating systems that they've used to rate the quality of protein. There's BV, which is biological value, and then there's something PER, I forgot what that stands for, the protein, something value. There's these different rating systems. And BV is the one that I typically will look at. And the technical definition of this is,

it's measuring the proportion of absorbed protein from a food, which becomes incorporated into the proteins of the organism's body. Okay, so what does this mean? Well, this means that less protein of a higher value is gonna give you the same benefit as a higher amount of protein from something from a lower value. Now, an example of this would be comparing grain fed beef to grass fed beef, correct?

I don't know if that changes the BV value of the protein. I know that that changes the fatty acid profile. But here's a, this one's a clear example. If you got your proteins from legumes, for example, it's gonna be a lower value than eggs. Eggs are the highest biological value. So it's the amino acid composition. So is the biological value then in relation to all the other micronutrients

that you're getting with it? Is that why? That may be, I think it has more to do with the amino acid profile, because proteins have different amino acid profiles. For example, if you have collagen protein, which, here's something interesting about collagen protein. For all intents and purposes,

collagen protein is not a great protein. If you were to compare it on a gram per gram basis, it's not, if you just had to consume one type of protein your whole life, you probably wouldn't want to pick collagen because its biological value isn't very high. The irony of that is we've seen an explosion of that in the last couple of years. Yeah, because there's been a deficiency,

and that's actually eating organ meats. That's what it is. We don't eat the cartilage and the sinew of animals and we do get a lot of animal proteins people who do eat protein We just don't get a lot of collagen protein So so that's the other thing that you know biological value It's you know you can look at it But also when they do these studies they don't do them in context of like a big diet It's like just this protein and just this animal in the in the context of like a big diet. It's like just this protein and just this animal

in the context of the study. But if you're eating a wide variety of proteins, like if you have a lot of, you know, if you have meat and chicken and you have eggs in your diet, then collagen protein can be very beneficial because collagen protein is higher in like proline for example, which is an amino acid that's not super high in other types of proteins.

Way protein for example, the gold standard for bodybuilders, the irony of that was it, they used to throw away protein away back in the day when they would make milk products, they would scoop it off, skim it off the top of the milk and throw it away. But way protein is very high in the branch chain amino acids, which are the amino acids

that have been connected to better recovery, better athletic performance. It's just a high quality, athletic performance type of protein. Collagen is not very high in the branch of amino acids. But that's why it's important to kind of, you look at these things, but then look at them in context. Like, if all you do is eat the same protein all the time, you're going to benefit from having different kinds of protein.

Yeah. So, variety is very important because proteins have different amino acid profiles and it seems to work better. Well, wouldn't you say the same thing goes for that with getting it in whole foods too, like comparing when we compare fish, chicken, turkey, beef. You know, they don't just come, okay, that's a good source of protein, but making sure, so what I always try and do in a week is kind of look at my week, like a snapshot of it,

go like, okay, am I getting some fish in there, am I getting some white meat in there, am I getting some red meat in there? That's such a good point because what a lot of people do, a lot of fitness enthusiasts do. Make the same shit. Yes, is they find their protein source, and then that's all they consume.

All they consume for protein is that that protein source So when you ask them hey, what do you eat for where do you get your protein from chicken? Right or or or to maybe chicken and dairy or toopia? Yeah, or to that and you're totally right the other thing too is Consuming the same amount the same food all the time if you have any gut if there are any you know gut inflammation that's present it could Create an environment that produces a food intolerance. Because if you have gut inflammation, that food can be recognized as a foreign invader. That's all you're eating.

All of a sudden, you go from someone who I used to be able to have dairy all the time to, I can't have dairy anymore. It causes problems. I've noticed that from not eating enough fish and the amegas and everything else that I was deficient in testing that and then trying to incorporate it, making a point of seeking that out was important to me. Yeah. Now, the whole, the side effect or the drawback of the protein is the essential protein is needed for recovery.

It's satiating like all those good news, is that like anything, people take it way too far. And studies are very clear on what an optimal amount of protein is for muscle building athletic performance. There's an optimal amount of protein for longevity, which is different, by the way. The optimal amount of protein for longevity is lower than the number I'm about to give you, which is the optimal number for performance. And we've talked about this another on podcast before

and performance includes building muscle for people that are listening, Jon. Yes, and we've talked about this before, like maximum performance is not the same as maximum longevity. Like if I work out to build the most strength and most muscle, that's not the best workout for just longevity. Like if I work out to build the most strength and most muscle, that's not the best workout for just longevity. Now, I don't want people to freak out and think,

oh, I'm taking years off my life. It's just something to be aware of and to mix them up a little bit. Like if you max your performance all the time constantly, then yeah, you may cause yourself some problems. And the same thing with protein intake, this is probably why fasting, one of the reasons why fasting protein intake, this is probably why fasting, one of the reasons why fasting has got so many benefits, and why I recommend people every once in a while throw in some low protein days. But nonetheless, the science is almost 100% clear

that the optimal amount of protein for performance, muscle building, recovery, strength, all that stuff is about 0.6 to maybe one gram of protein per pound of body weight. And to be clear, it's more like 0.8, 0.9 grams, but we'll round it off to one. So about 0.6 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight, but get this in relatively lean people. So if you're somebody that needs to lose 50 pounds of body fat, don't use your body weight. That'll be too much protein. It'll be way too much. Use your lean body masses where I would say.

So I weigh right now about 195 pounds. My body fat, I'm relatively lean. So I'll just say my body weight is about 100. I'll take five pounds off, about 190. So I'm aiming for anywhere between 150 to 190 grams of protein a day for maximum benefits. And the studies show that more than that doesn't give you any more benefits.

Not that it's gonna harm you necessarily, although can you talk about M-Tor at all in terms of the extreme of that and like what they're worried about? Yeah, well M-Tor is something that, so in the context of an unhealthy diet and lots of inflammation, high protein can be bad. It actually can be bad. So if you took, and this is in the context of a bad, so it's like you're a smoker, you eat a bunch of shit, sugar, crap, but then you also go lift weights

and you take steroids and like, I want to get big. And so you're eating a shit ton of protein. That's probably doing you more damage than anything. In the context of cancer, if you took a cancer patient, in many cases, lots of protein will actually feed the cancer just like sugar well. But yeah, there's no benefit to eating more than that 0.6 to 1 gram of protein for lean individuals. It just doesn't do much more for it.

Now, if you want to eat more than that because you like it, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're otherwise healthy and you have a good diet, you're probably okay. But we need to clear that up because a lot of protein powder companies and supplement companies will have you believe that, I mean, the hardcore ones especially, two grams of protein.

You can't do enough. Oh yeah, two grams of protein per pound of body weight. I've had females, you know, clients show me what their food logs look like. And I'm talking about women who are 140 pound average sized women not overweight. And they're, I'm like, why are you consuming 250 grams of protein or 300 grams of protein?

Oh, because my last coach told me that that I need to eat that much protein because it's going to make me leaner and build more muscle. I'm like, okay, I think I know why you have digestive issues. Like I think I know why you're feeling inflamed in your joints. And I think I know why your sleep is off. You're eating way too much damn protein and probably not enough of the other, you know, macronutrient. I find this common in your competitor. So, and I also have this theory, and I think we've talked a little bit about in the show

that I actually greatly benefit from, being a person who came from first the camp of thinking that I needed eat just ungodly amounts of protein and doing that for years consistently in order to build muscle, to now realizing that, wow, when I have these days where I actually protein fast or have a really low protein day,

and then I go back to eating protein, I feel like my body responds to that. Yes, yes, yes. And to me, it just makes sense with anything else, whether it be drugs or food or anything else that we do, that you oversaturate the body. And the body can only really utilize it for what you're trying to intake it for, for so much of it.

And then the rest of it doesn't really matter. So one of the best things, and I always use this analogy of, I envision like your muscles being like a sponge that are wanting to suck up all these nutrients. And if you're constantly running water under the faucet over the sponge and running, and running, it's so much of it just kind of goes through and you don't really get anymore. And then to every once in a while, bring the sponge all the way out and then stick it back under the water.

And it seems it just uptake all of it. I feel like that's how my muscles work with protein. Yeah. You're anecdote. There's evidence to support that. It's not super clear evidence, but there is evidence that shows that frequent high feedings or frequent feedings of high protein diet

causes your body to become, for lack of a better term, desensitized to the protein, to where your body doesn't respond in the same ways it would, and more of the protein is used for energy, and less of it is used for muscle building and recovery. Wouldn't you say that's like a similar mechanism as taking caffeine in.

The first time you take caffeine in, you get this incredible stimulant from it, and it works amazing, you take it in the next day, the next day, the next day, and then it just, you and it starts to desensitize, right? The body's an adaptation machine. It does this to anything. Anything you do a lot of, your body starts to adapt and readjust to, and it loses its initial punch. This is true for, I can't think of anything this is not true for. It's almost true for anything, right? Like, you go in a sauna,

and you'll find that you'll only be able to be in there for 15 minutes. Use it every day and watch what happens. Your body gets better at it. It's true for almost anything. And I think you're right when it comes to protein. And again, the evidence suggests that that's true. I've noticed that. I've noticed that if I go high protein all the time, and then I have a day where I used to do vegan days.

Now I just fast, but I used to do vegan days where my protein intake would go from 150 to 190 all the way down to as low as like 40, 30 or 40. And then I go back to my normal protein intake. And it was like, first of all, I didn't notice muscle loss from the lower protein day because my calories are still, you know, decent. Then I went in a high protein again the next day. And you're right, I feel like, holy cow, I'm getting better results from this. So I think, and this is now for the average person, holy cow, I'm getting better results from this. So I think, and this is, now for the average person who's listening,

who eats a low protein diet, probably not gonna benefit. Well, the opposite is true. The person who is eating a low protein and the client, like he's explaining the client that I was talking about, has been flying low for so long that also you throw in an extra 20 or 30 grams of protein

every day and they're lifting weights and they notice a huge difference from that. Now take that same person, they've been training with me for two, three years now and we've been dialed and consuming plenty of plenty of protein. They would greatly benefit from me saying, okay, now let's take a day of fasting or let's restrict for a couple of days on low protein and then go back to that again. What's the highest protein intake you guys have ever done on a consistent basis? Oh, personally?

Yeah. Probably two and a half. Really? Yeah. Really? Should I do? Should I do? No joke.

I was like, oh, I was like dedicated, right? I'm going to build muscle and, okay, protein. And I remember I read this stupid article in and I don't remember what magazine it was, maybe Iron Man magazine a long time ago. And this guy's like, you know, oh, I think it was Nasser L. Somebody. Do you guys remember Nasser? Yeah.

He was this massive bodybuilder in the 90s. He passed away, I believe. And he talked about, they asked him, because he went from one year to another year, his look totally changed. Like like he all of a sudden gained all this crazy muscle. And they asked him in the magazine, what was it? And he goes, I just doubled my protein intake.

And when I thought I was eating too much, I just made sure to eat more. And he was consuming, I wanna say 600 grams of protein or something like that a day. Now of course, what he didn't tell you in the article, which I was a kid, so I was ignorant to this. He didn't tell you that. He had the genetics of a silverback gorilla and was on more steroids than I'd ever seen in my entire life, right? Right. Now that does change things, right? So when you are taking, and I think we should address

this because I know we have listeners that take antibiotics and are competing. When you do take steroids, the number does go up a little bit. I would assume so. I don't know how much though. So I thought I saw who was it. I can't. Because I don't think there's any studies that have been done. I thought I did see.

I want to say it was Dr. Andy Galpin or Lane or somebody, some incredible source had shared a study that was showing that up to like 1.5. I would I would think that's probably right. I don't think it would go up to like two or three years. No, it definitely wasn't that. It was like one and it was 1.5 of lean body mass. Yeah, not not total body weight. Yeah, not total body weight. It was 1.5. So that's subtracting your body fat percentage. Right. I would I would agree with that and you're right because people tend to think, Oh, you know, now I have I percentage. Right. I would agree with that. And you're right because people tend to think, oh, now I have I'm on steroids,

I need to double or triple my protein. Probably way too much. Your ability to build more muscle and anabolic doesn't double. You know what I mean? You might increase it by 10, 15% doesn't double in speed. It's just like when women are pregnant with a baby and they're like, oh, you gotta eat twice as much.

No, no, no, no, that's more. It's like another 200, 300 calories, they're not the most. So no, I think that's a good point. If you're on anabolic, you probably would benefit from a little bit more protein, not a ton more. But I remember I read that article,

and I'm like, I'm gonna eat 300 grams of protein a day. At the time, I weighed, I don't know, 170 pounds. So I was aiming for close to, you know, to double my body weight and protein. And all it did was fuck up my digestion. It was just, but I kept with it. I pushed it, you know, terrible smelling farts and just bad gas and all that stuff. But it would, it didn't add any more muscle. And I remember being extremely frustrated because of, you know, because that stupid article, there may be people listening who've tried that, you know, I know stupid article. There may be people listening who've tried that, you know. I know people who've done it and said they've built more muscle

to which my answer to them is always try keeping your calories at the same and then switching that protein out for carbs and fats and then see how you feel. Because I think the reason why they're building more is just they bump their calories. Yeah, I really feel like there's, when I look at it, I think of all the clients I've trained, I really think of three major avatars

in relation to protein consumption. Either the client A, grossly under-consuming, just not getting enough calories, not getting enough good protein source, that's one. And then the best way to figure this out is to take the numbers and what we're talking about, track it for a week or two and determine who you are. So that's client 1, client 2, that was really common would be somebody who was grossly overconsuming. And then my most common offenders were like my competitors, somebody who had been or

someone like us fitness trainers who had been told or been into fitness for a long time and sold on the magic, you know, protein intake are grossly overconsuming. These people would benefit by reducing or having fasting days in there. And then the third common offender would actually be somebody who doesn't get enough variety of protein. Maybe they're hitting good targets and they've found consistency in their diet.

That's all the same. But it's, yeah, they're always eating chicken breast or they're always eating the same source and they're not getting enough fish or they're not getting enough beef or they're not getting white meat and they're not getting enough rotate or they're not getting enough beef, or they're not getting enough white meat, or they're not getting enough roti, or getting seeds and nuts and things that have

other things that contain protein, and other, I think, important micronutrients. So, when I think of the three major avatars, that's so, it's perfect. I would agree. 100%. Those are the three I could probably put almost all my clients that I've ever trained.

And one of those categories. And one of those categories. And the best thing for you to do if you're listening right now is to, diligently track your food for the next week to two weeks minimum and be good about it. And don't try and do it to impress yourself or fool yourself into thinking you're doing better when you track exactly how you eat.

So you get a good idea of what you're consuming and you're, what you're consuming and how much or how little or how can the same thing over. And this too is how I like to teach people how to supplement. I know we shit on supplements a lot. But if I have somebody who doesn't do organ meat or do things like that, there's, there's these are great people to use bone broth or collagen protein protein and to incorporate that into their diet, or if there's somebody who absolutely doesn't do any dairy. So pay attention to the sources of protein,

how much or how little, and then make your adjustments accordingly. Now I know there's a lot of people out there still that think the main way that you get fat is because of carbohydrates and sugar. And that's like the main way that you get fat is because of carbohydrates and sugar. And that's like the main source, like people don't realize you can also get fat with a high protein diet as well. Absolutely.

That's such a good point, Justin. Excess calories make you calories. So people who are like, well, my carbs were low or my fat was low. Why wasn't I getting leaner or why was I gaining body fat? It's like, well, your calories were too high and does protein have calories? Yes, it does. Like I said earlier in this episode,

one gram of protein has four calories per gram, just like a carbohydrate. Now, if we were down there, splitting hairs, protein's more thermogenic, you're less likely to gain body fat from protein because it burns more calories to utilize a protein than carbohydrates, but we're splitting hairs here. But if you eat too much protein and your calories

are too high, you're gonna get fatter. Even if your diet is almost entirely comprised of chicken breasts and white rice and vegetables or whatever, you're still gonna get fatter. There's other myths that we need to cover too, like the whole fast-digesting versus slow-digesting protein. Like during the day, I have seen versus weight. Oh, I kill you, we forgot about that.

Great debate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's still popular right now. It is. I still see the competitors. Great marketing. Right, I see them taking their regular protein in the day and then at night 10, they're taking their slow-digesting protein. It is true that some certain types of protein

will reach your body faster than other types of protein. Like, way protein, especially isolate, will hit your body faster than casing, for example, will. Yes, that's true. Does that mean that they're, you know, eating the way protein post workout, because you want fast amino acids, they need in casing before you go to bed,

to give you that slow drip of amino acids, is gonna make a difference? Nope, it's not gonna make a difference. If all things being equal, the protein timing in terms of like, which one's fast, which one's slow, whatever, not gonna make a difference. If you get better results from way protein over casing,

it's not because the way is faster digesting, it's because way may be higher in, Brent, she amino acids, for example, or has a better amino acid profile for your body or whatever. Well, this is classic fitness industry right here where we take a little bit of science and then we build something around it

and a case for it to do it so we can mark it and sell the shit out of it. Well, imagine being the brilliant, because the guy who came, the guy or girl who came up with that, I mean, Kudos to you, brilliant marketing. Imagine they're sitting in this boardroom and they're like, okay, we've got way protein,

but we wanna be able to sell more protein. We've already told people to take a post workout, like what can we do? And then some scientists is like, well, K-Sine, you know, it takes about, you know, twice as long for the body to do? And then some scientists is like, well, K-Sine, you know, it takes about, you know, twice as long for the body to utilize it. And then some guy raises his hand,

what if we told people to buy K-Sine so they could take it at night before bed? So they have constant protein all night so they don't lose muscle while they're sleeping. Johnson, you get a raise. Yeah, brilliant. You know, they came up with a strategy. So now you're getting three, you know,

two different kinds of protein from the same company. I got to buy my wafer, I got to get the K-Sine. It reminds me a lot of like the cereal three, you know, two different kinds of protein from the same company. I got to buy my wafer, I gotta get the case you do. It reminds me a lot of like the cereal hustle, you know, like they just had to get rid of wheat and corn. Like, how can we do this? It's part of your balanced breakfast. What does balanced mean? Yeah, exactly.

Here's the other one. You can only absorb whatever, the number ranges I've heard. 30 to 50 grams of protein at a sitting. That one's my favorite. You can only, if you eat more than that, your body will waste it. So you can only 30 to 50 grams of protein. That is the silliest thing I've ever heard of my entire life. I mean, if we go down that road, that would mean that you could sit down and gorge on

150 grams of protein, and that worry about getting you in weight because I only absorb 40 grams of it. The rest of it doesn't get a sweet. It's so silly, the digestive process is slow, and no, you're gonna digest and absorb all of it. Do you wanna know how much protein is too much at one sitting?

I think your body will tell you, you'll probably be able to tell us too much. I can't absorb all that going to work out. Speaking of that, what are some signs that your body tries to give you when you're over consuming protein? Oh, rumbly tummy. Yeah. Digestive issues are typically the bad breath. Bad breath. Horrible parts. Bad breath is another one like too much protein, not enough carbohydrates or fats. You could start to have your body's using too much of that protein and turning it into, through gluconeogenesis and that causes some byproducts that come out

in your breath. So you'll have that bodybuilder type breath. What about this one? You need to be feeding yourself protein throughout the day so that you keep amino acids levels high and your body, otherwise your body will start consuming its muscle. You know, lose your muscles. Totally false. What do you guys say to somebody who does this?

This is another thing that I would see that track their protein, they know that, and they have chosen to use one to two shakes almost every day to supplement for their protein intake. What problems do you see that occur with that, and or is that okay? I think it's okay, but a better option would be to get it from food.

Food has always got to be your number one option because here's the thing with protein powders. Even the healthiest, most organic protein powders are- Process. Ultra-process. Yeah. It doesn't get, it's almost one of the most processed foods

that's out there. Think about it. You are taking a powder, so this is not even like, where nature does powder food exist? That doesn't. You're taking a powder that has been engineered to have mostly protein, because protein powder is trying to have just protein, so they've taken all the other stuff out.

Then it's added, there's color in added to it. It's got a crazy long shelf life and it tastes like... Super low. Yeah, and it tastes like chocolate or vanilla or whatever. Burnt cake. Here's, I've seen, there's beef protein. You can buy powdered beef protein and it tastes like strawberry. Like, you can't tell me there's not some scientific wizard week.

I've never had a steak that is magical. So I think going with, with whole natural foods is your best bet. But back to the frequent protein feedings, when we're splitting hairs, if you want to maximize protein synthesis, you have protein every four to six hours. And that's splitting hairs. What I mean by that, you're not even going to notice a difference. This eating every other hour thing totally falls. You don't need to have protein every two hours.

In fact, some studies show that that desensitizes the body to protein. You can actually use less of it than you think. Now, what about is are there pros or cons of pairing the protein with carbohydrates or fat? Yeah, no. No, actually protein by itself spikes insulin, like carbohydrates do sometimes. You guys know that?

If you did a way protein, the people who are afraid of spiking insulin, a way protein shake will cause a spike of insulin like if you ate some candy or something like that. Right, so actually pairing it with a fat or carbohydrate is always more ideal. In that respect, yeah, if you're trying to be careful for your insulin level spiking or whatever, blood sugar levels, yeah, if you're trying to be careful for your insulin level,

spiking or whatever, blood sugar levels, then yeah, you would want to pair it with something. But yeah, there's no detriment to consuming it with other things. I think, you know, Adam, you make the comp, you make, you say the statement, there's no such thing as snacks, there's only complete or incomplete meals. I find just protein by itself to be a bit of an incomplete meal. Like tell me in nature where just protein exists, it's pretty rare, you know what I mean? It's usually comes with fat, if anything. Yeah, it's definitely paired with fat.

Like even if you talk about what's the inuits, the eat sources from like seal and all these other like you know readily available food, but it's always like paired with fat. Yeah, absolutely. Here's a good tip for people who have or high stress and have issues with cortisol. I actually heard this from Jordan Peterson, who's a psychologist, and he said for his anxious for patients who are very anxious, he tries

to stabilize their cortisol levels by having them eat a high fat, high protein breakfast because it balances out their blood sugar and keeps cortisol kind of stable. And I found this to be true with people that I've coached, people who I talked to who have anxiety issues, I'll tell them to start their day with a high protein breakfast that's low in carbohydrates and has some fats. And this is anecdotes, I don't know if there's any science that supports this, but the reports I'm getting are positive.

People are like, oh yeah, I feel better. I know I do in the morning when I have a protein breakfast versus a carbohydrate type of, you know, basic breakfast. Yeah, that's interesting. And to like, do we talk about the anabolic window and like how? That's another one. The hysteria towards after your workout,

like having to, you know, shuttle your body and get, you know, protein in, you know, combine with carbohydrates for the glycogen. The irony of that, that's another example of this little bit of science that the industry is twisted, right? The irony of the people that are most consistent

with doing that are the people that absolutely don't need it. The ones that are on anabolic steroids. You're at the peak of your performance. Yeah, your shit's already through the roof 24, 7 around the clock. It's already primed ready to build muscle, whether you eat it at two o'clock, five minutes after your workout or four hours after your workout.

Your body is already primed for it to build muscle because you're taking something. Yeah, the studies show that if you consume something right after workout that you'll replenish glycogen, which is the energy that's stored in your liver and your muscles, you'll replenish it faster. Now, that is true, but what they don't tell you is if you consume food two, three hours later, you'll still replenish it the same. So really, really the only benefit is for people who are going to exercise again.

So like, for example, if you're doing our maps, PED program, which is two day a week, excuse me, two time a day workouts, it would make sense to eat right after your workout, because you're gonna have another workout a few hours later. But for the average person working out once a day, it doesn't make a difference.

I find it very, I don't find it, I don't find it or advantage to it at all because when I, especially when I was, even when I was competing, I would actually like to stretch out before my next meal for an hour or two because I wanted to get the benefits of actually continuing burning fat. Yep, I'm with you. Because first of all, and this is of course,

these are arbitrary numbers by me saying this, but they've shown that about 80 to 85% of your glycogen stores gets depleted when you work out, especially if you work out intensely. So my theory is, okay, I've completely depleted all my glucose. Now my body wants to tap into another source of fuel, which ideally it goes over to fat. And so here I've got a great training session. That's awesome.

Now I'm completely depleted. Now my body's in a tap into fat. So you know why I go home and I shower and I get ready and change and then head back over to work and then maybe get a pick up a meal on the way. That time that I'm waiting to consume, even though I'm not exercising, my body is utilizing fat as its primary source of fuel now. Well, too, it'll be in an inflammatory state too, and then really pounding down a protein shake.

Wasn't there, well, who was that? It was about, yeah, it was about, it inflames, if you have any sort of gut problem to begin with, it's gonna aggravate it. Who was it that we interviewed when we first any sort of gut problem to begin with it's going to aggravate it Who was it that we interview when we first talked about? I believe Was it Ruscio? It might have been Ruscio. I'm not sure but it makes perfect sense if you have gut issues You you I'll tell you what I already noticed this because I battle with gut issues on and off and when I'm in a state where my I'm not feeling so good with my gut

If I eat a big meal right after a really hard workout, terrible, terrible every time. And so when I, I don't remember who it was that explained this and they said, look, you have this, when you work out, you create lots of inflammation in the body. Not a bad thing. It's the inflammation. Part of the process. Yeah, it's part of the signaling process. So you have this higher level of systemic inflammation, including inflammation

in the gut because it's systemic. That's not the good, that's not a good time to then eat as much food as you possibly can or, you know, pound a easily digestible fast absorbing protein shake because the odds that you're that you're going to, it's going to leak through like with leaky gut syndrome into your system and then your body starts to develop antibodies to that food or higher. And what you'll find, and here's a funny thing, we've talked about this on podcast before, I get messages from people who tell me,

wow, the foods that I've become intolerant to are the foods that I always ate post workout. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? I've noticed the same thing. I mean, because of the way protein now, if I reintroduce that, it does have a different effect on me now later in life. Yeah, so post workout nutrition, not that big of a deal.

The timing is not that big of a deal. And if you have gut issues, probably the wrong time to eat, I would wait at least a couple hours and wait for the inflammation to kind of subside. Now, what about amino acid supplements? We should probably touch on this. I know we talked about this in a recent episode, but this episode wouldn't be complete without us talking about it.

Yeah, because they're real popular. I mean, you see all kinds of different flavors and people sipping on them all day long. Yeah, no. If you're eating adequate protein, it's a complete waste of money. You're not going to benefit from taking branching amino acids or essential amino acid supplements.

You're getting more than enough from your food. I mean, one egg is gonna have more branching amino acids than your branching amino acids. And even if you are, not consuming enough protein, it's still almost a waste of money. You would need to be, and all the studies that point towards it being beneficial are all geared around like your endurance athlete, somebody who is pushing the body beyond an hour,

two hours of exercise, and also being under, not getting enough protein intake. That person, there has been some muscle-saving benefits to doing that. But if you're somebody who just doesn't get enough protein for the day and you exercise, the body doesn't want to tap into your muscle as a source of the last place. It's the last place. It is not a place it wants to go.

It would much rather utilize fat. And your stored glycogen. Right. So it's gonna go to those places first. So this whole idea of consuming branch chain amino acids to make sure you save your muscle because you're training so hard or you may not have got enough protein

or your competitor who's competing and you're on a low calorie diet for six weeks. Dude, you're eating so much protein as a competitor. You do not need to fucking worry about branch chain amino acids. And eating too many of individual amino acids will impair your body's ability to utilize all the other amino acids for essential functions.

For example, consuming way too many branch chain amino acids could impair your body's ability to synthesize serotonin. And too much branching amino acid supplementation has been implicated in certain forms of depression. So for people listening who are like super hardcore to muscle building and they're consuming a lot of protein

and they're sipping on tons of branching and acid throughout the day, if you notice that you're starting to feel kind of down, it might be the branching to acid supplement. Again, that's a waste of money unless you're not eating enough protein. And you know, vegans, vegans again, those are the people that I'll typically

recommend these things to, but I'll tell you what, I'd much rather see a vegan just have a protein powder. You've got all the amino acids and higher concentrations in there. It just makes, you know, much more sense. So, I don't know if there's any, I don't think we got it all coming. No, that's just another classic example

of the industry taking a little bit of science and making something out of it It is so protein not the magical macronutrient But if you take the optimum amount and you're healthy it will amplify or speed up the muscle building recovery process and Enhance your performance. It's right track and find out figure out which one you are That's it go to mine pump free.com and find out. Figure out which one you are. That's it. Go to MindPumpFree.com and download our guides. We have quite a few on there that are absolutely free. You can also find us all on Instagram. You can find Cowboy Justin at MindPump Justin. Yeah!

You can find me at MindPump Sound. You can find Adam at MindPump Atom. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance. Check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at MindPumpMedia.com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

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