Protein - Designing Your Diet

DESIGNING A DIET

This has got to be the longest running debate in the whole training and nutritional institutions ever. Just how much protein does a person need. Of course the answer lies in your training level, your type of training, your genetic make-up and the amount, if any, of chemical assistance you may be using in your athletic goals. Study after study show varying results. However one must realise that study after study uses different dietary and training principles and clean and drug using athletes and non athletes (sedentary folk). Thankfully some evidence corresponds with real life logic.

The long-standing belief is that you require about 0.75gm of protein per kilo of bodyweight, which may well be adequate for sedentary people. However, studies on people performing even moderate levels of exercise showed that this was inadequate. These studies were based on measuring nitrogen retention, positive balances showing that adequate protein is being eaten, negative balances showing that muscle protein is being broken down to meet the body's needs.

It is now commonly accepted that protein levels need to be in line with activity levels. The harder and more intense you train, demanding more muscle growth from your body, the more protein you generally require. Or whatever other stimulus may indeed be causing a required higher level of protein, such as performance enhancing drugs.

Studies on strength athletes showed that protein levels of 3-4 gm per kilo of bodyweight gave significant strength and size increases.

It must be stressed that it is training effort that determines protein needs. Eating more protein will not create more muscle, or increase strength, unless the body's demand for protein increases as a direct result of training effort.

With this in mind most sports nutritionists would recommend protein levels around a gm per pound of bodyweight daily for people training to build muscle size and strength. This should be split into six evenly sized meals. For example a 180lb man requires 180 gm's of protein, which gives him 6 meals of around 30gms of protein.

To minimise saturated fats, whilst maximising protein quality, you should select from whey, egg whites, turkey, tuna, chicken, trout, and most white fish. Beans, grains and pulses also contain high protein to fat ratios. Sports nutrition protein drinks, especially those based on whey and other milk proteins, should also play a significant part especially in the post workout period.

Don't forget, that protein quantity is not the only issue. We must consider protein quality too. There is no use in eating 180 grams of useless and poor quality vegetable proteins that are poorly digested and assimilated into muscle. That would be very different from consuming 180 grams of micellar casein and ion exchanged whey proteins. It is in fact a world of a difference. So remember, the lower the quality of your protein, the more you are going to have to eat and combine with varying proteins to obtain a reasonable amino acid score. With the increase in quantity you run the risk of experiencing problems and stress upon your system. So logically thinking, you want to improve the quality of your proteins and eat the correct amount.

Recent studies with many of the pharmaceutical assisted athletes around the globe show that when using anabolic agents both the quantity and quality of the proteins should increase and dramatically so. There have been studies showing improvements in muscle size and strength with protein increases upto 3 or even 4 grams per lb of bodyweight (preferably lean body weight - don't calculate your fat mass). The missing element here, is whether the controlling factor is the drugs, the protein or of course a combination of the two factors together.

It is also known that the human body can only efficiently digest a certain quantity of protein at any one meal. There is no use in trying to force feed 100 grams of protein down your neck in one sitting as most of this will not be digested efficiently. It is better to almost drip feed amino acids into your system by consuming smaller more regular meals throughout the day. Nobody is quite sure how much protein the human body can absorb in one sitting, however, the professional community generally agree that you are adapting all of the time, and the more protein you eat on a regular basis, the more you will digest and absorb. This is also correlates with a supply on demand basis. If your body is stimulated to require higher demands of protein it will become more efficient at absorbing your dietary proteins. However, there are likely to be some undetermined limits.

Below is a table outlining the protein quantities found in many popular whole foods:-