Yeah if you do the math it makes absolutely no sense why anyone would need that much protein. We know that at best you can gain about 2 pounds of muscle per month. Even if muscle was made out of PURE PROTEIN, which it’s not, that works out to 900 grams per month which would be about 30 grams extra protein per day. It is progressive weight training that builds muscle, not protein.
Important info. I feel like 1.6-2.2 range isn't hard to hit but I find myself having to be conscious of it to get there, where as 1.2-1.6 can be hit without trying and just having a solid protein source at every meal. What I personally do is hit 1.6-2.2 most days but when on vacation or traveling when I have less control over my diet, I am satisfied at 1.2-1.6.
I always wondered how 1g / pound of bodyweight(which is a weird measuring system) would have been sustainable without modern industrial farming. For a 150lb person and a 150g protein requirement you would need: 500g of lean chicken, which is basically half the lean mass of a whole chicken. Per day everyday, for every single member of the family. ( only measuring in chickens to show scale). That would have been a crazy demand on meat, and you couldn’t freeze the meat as well.
I know you both are quite young but I’d love to hear you address different needs and approaches for both training and nutrition for older athletes (over 40-50).
Yeah, that's what I've always asked from various online authorities. They, Mike Isreatel, and Layne Norton as I recal, avoid answering. Your best bet is going over dr Lyon, and Layman's old videos, as well as the Canadian Dr Stuart Phillips, who is alright despite being a bit of a fascist as far censoring posts. Spoiler alert, shoot for the higher end of the spectrum, get your protein at every meal, spread out every 3 or 4 hours, and at least max out protein intake at breakfast and last meal, if it doesn't affect your sleep.
@@boxerfencer Israetel not answering is basically his M.O. A gish galloping bullshitter. I heard an interview with Stu Phillips recently who was pretty vague in terms of putting actual numbers to it. I favor Menno's "Bayesian" approach. Look at all the available evidence and make the best decision you can based on probability and likelihood of being close to correct. It's probably the best we can do. 1.8G per KG of BW is where I land counting all protein sources. I eat lots of dairy and dead animals so protein quality is not a concern. I figure that covers me getting the minimum, plus a little extra to avoid wondering if I'm undershooting. I'm 59 yrs old for the record.
@@joeherrera63 yeah, Phillips has been vague as of late. I think he's gotten tired of repeating himself and recognizing having been beat by dr Layman, since his research has largely been to confirm Layman's ground breaking research. For details, look at his older interviews, or just watch Layman. I used to like Menno's approach but you have to realize he's a minimalist or at least was when I followed him and that isn't the right approach for anabolic resistance, since general guidelines don't address sarcopenia. Note, sarcopenia doesn't affect his target demographic, so his recommendations aren't for older people. Menno is quite rabidly and always been about eating the least amount of protein you can get away with, and he justified it by saying that allowed for more kcal to be spent on other things. And I hardly think your approach is minimalist nor Bayesian, but all the power to you. I personally don't count veggie protein, unless it's protein isolate, since that's not what the studies and recommendations are based on. They were done on whey protein, not veggie nor mixed intake. But if I were to consider all protein, I'd look at total leucine, or perhaps just BCAs, or even EAAs per meal. And I don't ordinarily pay attention to daily intake because protein exerts a meal per meal effect. Daily intake is just the culmination of sufficient protein in each meal. For more of my thoughts on the subject see my other post. Cheers
I really appreciate this because as someone who's ~210 lbs 1 gram per pound is an awful lot and I struggle to hit that target every day. 1-1.5 gram per kilo is a lot more manageable.
Hey there. No disrespect, but OBVIOUSLY 1-1.5 g per kilo is more manageable because it's dirt easy. It's not necessarily supposed to be effortless to maximize hypertrophy. But also at the end of the day if you're still making gains with your lower protein intake then that means you're fine
In a vacuum eating 150+ grams of protein might be easy but when you've got a family and a budget and a commute and and and it becomes a lot more complicated, especially if you're trying to eat a pretty clean whole-food based diet. It's easy in that it isn't complicated but it isn't easy in the sense that it doesn't take any work to pull off.
Every now and then I hear, it's actually 1g per lbs of lean body mass.. which pretty much correlates to around 0.9-1.1g per cm body height in most cases..
The focus on studies is definitely interesting but can't we also approach the topic from reason? E.g., how much muscle does one expect to build in a typical month? Convert that number into grams and then divide by 30 to get a daily amount. Then multiply by 0.2 to get the protein content of that muscle gain and you have a good idea of how much new protein you can realistically synthesize per day. That can at least get you started to figuring out about how much over and above your normal daily needs you would have to consume to support hypertrophy. Some people taking 150-200-250+ grams of protein and such... I just have to ask, where do people suppose all of that protein goes? Just doing the math on that, the excess clearly can not be largely directed at hypertrophy. If high-protein diets are correlated with more LBM gains, the likely cause is some kind of hormonal signaling from the protein (insulin or igf-1 maybe) rather than having more "raw material" available to build muscle.
Nice. And I agree. But there is always nuance within the nuance 😉. They surely could not have normalized for protein "quality". You got to the topic of quality at the very end.
Just a funny note here. For the sake of I want to understand this shit better I did several self-experiments with protein, muscle gains and weight loss some years ago. After monitoring myself over a very long time, I came to 2 major conclusions: 1. Loosing weight and gaining muscle together is possible! (Back then everybody told me this is not or not significant possible to do) 2. Protein intake is overestimated. I tested 1.8g, 1.5g and 1.2g. (Back then everybody told me more is better and if I go under a certain amount I would literally gain no muscles) One question is still open, which I was unable to test for obvious reasons, how big the unfluence of age really is when it comes to protein.
@@marcdaniels9079 You are right. But it is interesting to see that years after my experiments the evidence based results catches up with my anecdotals. So it was at least not a complete BS waste of time back then.
Great segment. And I bet the 1.2-1.6 range compared to the 1.6-2.2 g/kg segment will totally wash out over the long term. I would guess even lower than 1.2g/kg would wash out vs high protein if done over a year with both groups lifting
It's really hard for me personally to reach 1.6g per kg. I always found it hard to believe it could be beneficial when you consider its probably unlikely most our ancestors had that much, but it seems like I should at least try to get more. I probably only get around 60 or 70 typically and I need 113 for 1.6g per kg ;/
It's trivial to hit the 1.6g/kg protein intake target even with an extreme OMAD vegan diet: pre-workout protein shake, post-workout protein ice cream, a balanced meal.
@@SkyGodKing it depends on the definition of a meal, isn't it :). IMO eatings that's finished within a 3 hour window a single meal. e.g., 5pm pre-workout, 6:45pm post-workout and dinner finished by 8pm.
@@ThomasAbe Eric said vegan _except_ eggs, which is an easy way to describe his diet. Otherwise, it's a lot more verbose to describe his diet without mentioning vegan. BTW, a common definition (the first definition from google) of a meal: "any of the regular occasions in a day when a reasonably large amount of food is eaten, such as breakfast, lunch, or dinner". I don't think shake and ice cream alone are reasonably large amount of food. They're more commonly referred to as "snacks" instead of "meals".
Hey thank you guys! This is just so awesome and interesting. Would you give a different range for vegan lifters who pay attention to protein quality (mixing grains, legumes, nuts and protein powder)? 1.8 to 2.4? Something else? And congrats for going vegan! I just love it when systematically meticulous researchers go vegan!
@@DJG1058 Yeah I know. I was just wondering whether he would give the same "optimal range" as the one for omnivorous diet. He does not explicitly address this issue.
All the studies that compare vegan protein to whey or meat show no difference when going above 1.6 per kilo.. all recommendations above 1.6 per kilo are entirely based on weak speculations
I'm surprised that you never touch on the studies showing benefits towards lower fat accumulation from higher intakes (despite the FFM increases not scaling).
"How do I lose when I settle on 1.4 instead of 1.6?". Uh, as pointed out by other posts, that depends on demographics. There's a lot of middle aged and older people who are fighting off sarcopenia and hypodynamia due to anabolic resistance, so details matter. I myself have realized I no longer am satisfied with 25-30 gm per meal, while keeping the other macros in normal ranges and eating non refined filling foods. There's a reason I'm hungry, and considering I've been thin most of my life and now showing signs of sarcopenia it's not inconsequential, nor does it justify belittling by categorizing attention to detail as obsessive compulsive behaviour when protein is a useful tool to combat a real condition. You see, we're not all 16 year olds that'll maintain, let alone grow on measly scraps due to youthful anabolic sensitivity.
@@richardevans8908 say that to children starving in Africa. Sheesh. What you've done is simple describe a biochemical process, not explained why feels hunger when kcal go down, which isn't quite what I said anyway since I referred to protein making your comment a strawman argument, nor how the two aren't related causatively, let alone shown some other non-causative relationship. Besides that, are you suggesting the body doesn't have a regulatory kcal/hunger signaling? If so, well that's unbelievable. You think evolution, or god if you're one of those, didn't allow for a process by which nutrient and kcal intake is assessed? I've been thin most of my life and when I had my most athletic body I did it by eating intuitively by eating slowly, listening to hunger cues, and other strategies such as filling foods, no junk, etc, but mostly eating to satisfaction given the time commitments I had at the time. Take that for what it is, but it's my experience.
@@richardevans8908 you mention I talk about strawmaning as if that discredits me when it was your strawman I pointed out in the first place. Yes, I used an extreme example. It's a legitimate line of argument because it points out how idiotic an argument is, given if it held water it wouldn't look silly when taken to ad absurdum, which is the name of what I did there. Who's crying? Seems to me you're the one who's butt hurt over your lack luster rhetoric skills being pointed out. Ah, so after suggesting there's no kcal/hunger regulatory system, you now move the goal post to one of it not being accurate, which again is a strawman and simultaneously a red herring. You're good at stringing these fallacies together, aren't you? You want to argue a red herring? Ok, I'll bite. You're arguing for hunger being solely or mainly a physical full stomach effect? I think it's obviously multifactorial, and done enough of experimenting to see for myself, but speak to anybody builder or athlete who has had to cut to make weight, which I've had to do, and despite eating physically filling foods will feel hungry, despite having all the fiber, water, clean food hunger tricks in their toolbox. No ifs, ands, nor buts about it. So no, filling isn't the prime factor in hunger, unless you want to conveniently discard these examples carte blanche as extreme as you did with my starving children example. Oh wait, you already identified starving children as uniquely useless towards my argument, which by your own definition absolves other examples. Better luck with this one. As I recall, stomach size will adapt to the SIZE of food regularly ingested. There goes your fullness of food effect. And as alluded to there are other issues such as speed of gastric emptying, ease of digestion for lack of a better word in addition to it being unifactoral, as you suggest. As for the kcal premise, I personally have documented feeling hungry when my fats per meal drop below 20 gm when eating 3 gm of carbs per kg of bodyweight, but when eating less carbs, say equal carbs to protein, I'll feel hungry when eating less than 30 gm of fat per meal. What's the common denominator? Kcal, obviously. And I go out of my way to eat the most unprocessed food I can even making my own homemade fiber rich whole grain bread and cereal for instance, and have my grains and fruits food selection rated on a how much fiber (and at times water) each item offers, using my own custom database I got from my cousin who wrote it for her thesis in clinical nutrition. I make sure to get at least 30 grams of fiber daily, often 40 and on occasion have even gotten 50 thanks to my homemade bread, and cereal. So that variable of how physically filling foods is accounted for. And after having done so, have noticed kcal being a major or the major factor contributing to my feeling levels of hunger. Having done that, despite my activity level plummeting during draconian epidemic measures, and while approaching older age, just a tad more protein hits the spot and happens to coincide with the research, so as not to argue purely from anecdotal evidence, and ultimately strongly argues for an autoregulatory system. I'm a bit of a nutrition geek, probably an understatement, who used to teach language, lit, and debate.
@@richardevans8908What does life expectancy of obese people have to do with hunger? Obviously, hunger is triggered when homeostatic balance is threatened. That happens to everyone, regardless of their bodyweight, obesity, or life expectancy while fasting. so how do your claims have anything to do with my 1st comment? I'm addressing protein to prevent sarcopenia and youre speaking to obese people surviving for months on nothing but water?! Accept what? I've never claimed hunger is related to how much fat storage one carries. If you think otherwise, please show me where I wrote that. What you've attempted to do is high jack my thread towards your own agenda with red herrings, while proving nothing, convincing me of nothing, all of which I've easily falsified, one after the other. I see you're hedging you bets on claiming all you've ever said relates to accurate autoregulation, as if if that's a hill I decided to die on, which is another strawman. You should really read up on the protein leverage hypothesis. Obviously, any inaccurateness comes via the environment where kcal abundance is normative and excessive food processing which makes for caloricaly dense food. I've never denied their existence, and if you'd taken the time to read my comments you'd have noticed that I accounted for that when I specifically made a point of mentioning I eat as little processed and filling food as possible, and go as far as making my own fiber rich whole grain bread and cereal, but you didn't care to read that, now did you? Gosh, it's like arguing with a toddler or a narcissist.
@@ThomasAbe Yeah, I don't think they would agree either, but it's just a label. It doesn't affect anyone right. He's not insulting any groups and it sounds like a fair (IMO) exception, since they're ethically sourced
@7:50 I don't know jack shit about statistical analysis, so can someone explain to me how 1,3-1,4kg of lean mass gained as opposed to 0,8kg isn't an enormous effect?
I feel their views/likes would go from meh to good if they answered more questions. Just some constructive insight. That's how this whole thing works really.
My protein source from shakes are all plant based but from food it is chicken and fish, is there any truth that vegan protein needs to be increased to match animals sourced??
@@boxerfencer Plant protein its From pea and rice"vegan whey" they don't have a concentrate vs isolate like Soy or Whey. But when drinking real Whey its isolate but dont do much whey anymore because of stomach. And like I said 80 percent of my protein is from food source. Thanks!
There is science done on protein absorbtion. Look it up. Pea protein isn't optimal according to the science, but hey if it works for you than why bother, but if your not seeing progress than you should consider ingesting either more pea protein or changing protein sources.
what they've explained is that there isn't a specific exact figure that everyone must meet for their protein intake, the results between individuals are variable, so basically as long as you get a reasonable amount then just go with the amount you are happy with - fwiw there's going to be almost no discernible difference between 1.5 and 1.6.....
You know, I really don't think you can categorize certain human beings as omnivores based on their diets. Forcing a cow to eat meat does not make it a carnivore or an omnivore. It is an herbivore not because of its diet choice but because of its anatomy. Irrespective of the diet choices any human being makes, the body remains that of an omnivore.