For both muscle building and fat loss, consuming adequate amount of protein is critical despite the age, gender and type of diet you are following.
Even for those who are not lifting weights but to maintain optimal health, consuming protein still is very important. However, a lot of times it is difficult to meet the required amount of protein and may need to rely on protein supplements, which is easier to get a hold of.
Something important to keep in mind is that we don’t really have a protein requirement. However, we do have amino acids requirement especially with 9 essential amino acids. There are 20 amino acids and 11 we can make in our body and 9 must come from food source, hence the name essential amino acids. These 9 essential amino acids are building blocks to new protein. For example, leucine and mTOR, arginine and nitric oxide, lysine and carnitine, and so on.
Protein or amino acids are important in creation of our hormone as well. For example, for our body to create insulin, it needs 51 amino acids. Myosin, which is important fiber in muscle and its motion, requires thousand amino acids.
What does this all mean? It means that we need to be mindful of why we are consuming protein and understanding of what sources has fair amount of amino acids.
1. Sources of Protein
When selecting protein source you should be mindful of its quality. Protein quality is determined by availability of 9 essential amino acids and amount of each that is in the food.
This information can be found in amino acid score chart called DIAAS and PDCAAS. The score is determined by how many different essential amino acids are in food sources and its amount. It is not a definite but good place to check the quality of the protein sources.
It is important to understand that when food source is consumed in variety per meal, it can complement each other and may able to consume what essential amino acids each may be lacking. For example, chicken breast is high in amino acid score but does lack in amino acids called tryptophan. Cooked rice is lower in amino acid score but lack in amino acids called lysine but contains tryptophan. If you can prepare chicken breast served with rice you can complete the essential amino acids requirement.
2. Protein Supplements
In a comparison study for protein supplement between whey, soy and casein proteins whey protein seems to be the ideal form of protein source in muscle and strength building. Whey protein and casein are made from milk. Whey protein comes with different form depending on how much lactose has been removed from milk. Whey protein concentrate has ratio of 7:3 between protein and lactose. When it comes to whey protein isolate this ratio will be 9:1. If you are lactose intolerance, you can use whey protein isolate or collagen peptide.
Benefit of whey protein is it has high concentration of essential amino acids, especially BCAA (branched chain amino acids) and another form of amino acid called cysteine. BCAA promotes anabolic response to muscles which helps recover and build muscle after physical activities. Whey protein also has important benefit for your immune system. Amino acid cysteine promote glutathione which is antioxidants and free-radical scavenger. Cysteine also has benefit in skin health. Whey protein also work as hunger suppressant. So when you take whey protein in the morning you can feel full until lunch time.
Those who have allergic reaction to whey or those who follow vegan diet, soy, pea, hemp, and rice protein can be an option. Especially soy protein does have high concentration of BCAA and glutamine. Soy protein has more arginine compared with whey protein, which helps dilate blood vessel and improve blood flow. However, soy protein does have trypsin inhibitor which inhibits protein breakdown. When protein enters the body, it needs to breakdown into amino acid for absorption. With trypsin inhibitor, this process can slow down. This is one of the reason people are concern about using soy products. However, trypsin inhibitor is weak against heat and fermentation so fermented soy and tofu does not have this issue though soy milk does. So, it is not a good advice to mix protein with soy milk.
Though soy protein can slow down the protein absorption, this can be beneficial. For example, for those who are on weight loss program or want to use protein before going to bed. Slow-release protein can keep the amino acid level steady for extended period. However, when body needs protein supply immediately, such as after workout, may want to use whey protein.
3. Amount of Protein
Amount of protein you will need per day can be determined by your weight, age, objective, physical activity level and your current health condition. Amount of protein you will need from supplement may determine by how much protein you are needing based off your nutrition as mentioned earlier. There was information years ago that our body cannot digest more than 30g of protein at a time. First of all, that is not true. Body can digest and absorb when necessary. Even with 10g of protein you may not see benefit in muscle growth but body can use it for liver enzyme. Second, majority of population can maintain optimal blood amino acid concentration by consuming 30-60g of protein per sitting. In fact, it seems to be ideal to be consuming at least 30g per sitting for better muscle growth.
Using myself as example, my bodyweight is at 155lb, so my protein requirement is about 155g per day. With 3 meals I’m estimating about 115-120g of protein. Because I’m typically short by 35-40 grams of protein, I supplement 40g of protein using whey protein powder after my workout.
From food source for example 1 chicken thigh (116g) is about 30g. With 0.5 cup of tofu is about 10g. So, if you can get necessary amount of protein from your diet then you won’t be needing a protein supplements.
When you are selecting your protein supplements, make sure to check the source and nutrition label. Whether you follow low-carb or low-fat diet, it is easy to manipulate when the protein supplement has least amount of carbohydrate and fat but adequate amount of protein.
If you are like me who gets bored with same flavor of protein powder, you can also use EAA or essential amino acids powder. Remember we are consuming protein to meet the requirement of amino acids? This will work too and you can find various flavors.
4. Timing for Protein
There are 4 timing that are great timing for consuming protein.
First is in the morning. This is because while we are sleeping, we are exhausting protein or amino acids, so it is great timing to replenish with protein.
Second is before working out. It is good to keep amino acid level elevated prior to the workout so the quality of the exercise would increase. If you are using protein powder 60 minutes prior to your training session and if protein is consumed with food source may need about 2 hours prior to your training.
Third is post workout. There used to be concept called Golden Time, where you need to get protein into your body immediately after workout. However, there is an issue. To absorb protein or any nutrients our body need to turn off sympathetic nervous system and turn on parasympathetic nervous system. By switching we are sending blood to the digestive system instead of muscles. Therefore, it is ideal to wait about 20-30 minutes to calm down the body before using protein.
Fourth is before bedtime or dinner. This will help maintain amino acid level while sleeping. This timing may be useful when only time you can workout is after dinner or before bedtime.
5. Protein Requirement is Not in Percentage
Nutrition requirement can vary from person to person depending on their goal and type of diet that people follow. Yet, from health, strength and weight management perspective our body does require certain amount of protein. Our body, including muscles, skin, hair, vital organs, hormones and even blueprint of our being called DNA is all made of protein or amino acids. So if you are short in protein intake, not only you get weaker but you'll also age faster and can be sick more often.
Often times when trying to fit protein into diet, people tend to calculate their macronutrients in percentage. Protein requirement should never be in percentage, but in absolute amount. When determining your macronutrients ratio, find your required protein amount first then calculate your carbohydrate and fat amount based on what diet you are following.
6. Prioritize Meal First
Although protein supplement is useful, make sure to get as much protein amount as possible from actual food source such as meat, chicken, beans, egg, fish, tofu, nuts, and so on, rather than relying only on protein supplements. Get as much protein from food, then supplement to meet the requirement.
It is understandable that the amount of protein that you will need can be challenging to meet the requirement just from food source. This goes for other supplements. If your diet is not adequate, relying on supplement to make up for the malnutrition will not help. Prioritize improving your diet before consider taking supplement.
Final Thoughts
There are opinions on social media in regards to high protein consumption leading to negative impact on health. However, there has been no studies convincing enough to show a results of this opinion. It doesn't really matter what age you are in, poor dietary habits, excess calories and poor quality food choices, will lead to health issues whether you consume high or low protein diet.
What is more important to understand is that as we age we do have challenge of putting on or even maintaining muscles (strength or mass) compared to younger age. Although it is possible for people over 50 to put on muscle mass, however, it is more efficient when you can add as much muscle mass as possible when you can. Because currently, muscle deficit of those who are over 50 is increasing.
No matter how much the medical technology is advancing to treat cancer, Alzheimer, heart disease, diabetes and so on, you will still have to work on building strength adding more muscles to fight against frailty. Only way to accomplish this is by resistance training and consuming adequate amount of protein regular basis (2-3 hours per week). Even when you take steroids or hormone replacement therapy, those 2 variables are required.
Kota Shimada
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