Building muscle for size and for strength is important to our health and our daily performance. Other than esthetic it has strong impact on strength, balance, and metabolism. To build muscle for size or strength you will need two things. Load and building block. Load is any type of physical activity that would put load or stress to the muscles. Then the building block or protein will help the body rebuild any stressed or damaged tissues, including muscles, ligament, bone, skin. Everyday our body go through breaking down and re-synthesize by load and protein.
Protein is consisting of 9 essential amino acids, which your body cannot make, and 11 non-essential amino acids, which your body can create. Both essential and non-essential amino acids are important and need to be replenished on day-to-day basis. How these amino acids are built into protein is something that body will figure out according to what our body needs. So, when we consume any food sources that has protein in it, it will first breakdown into amino acids and then body will figure out what combination of amino acids to recreate protein for body’s use.
Minimal and Optimal
According to RDA (recommended daily allowance) we are suggested to consume about 0.8 g of protein by kilograms of lean bodyweight (total bodyweight - body fat) or .36 g per lb. of lean bodyweight. According to any study on how much protein you should be consuming for optimal performance, this is low. Even a sedentary individual, protein requirement should be around .8 g per lb. of lean bodyweight. If you are active individual and wanting to maintain muscle mass, you should be consuming 1 g of protein per lb. of your lean bodyweight.
RDA suggests an amount for protein (or many of other nutrients) to keep you from being sick. Therefore, .36 g of protein per lb. of lean bodyweight is bare minimum to keep you from being unhealthy. But who would like to live at such a level? To stay active, lose weight, maximizing metabolic functions, we all should be striving for optimal and not minimal.
One of the issues we will face as we age with eating minimal protein amount is condition called sarcopenia or death of muscles.
Remember how muscles are built? Load and protein, right?
Imagine you are loading or exercising but not getting enough protein. This is same as while you are laying one brick to repair the wall, someone else is removing two bricks. For muscles, it will eventually not able to handle the load you are putting in. Because the muscle mass and strength decrease, the daily physical activity level decreases as well. This will gradually lower the load to the muscles which is required for muscle growth. That is why as we get older; we feel that we cannot be as active as we would like to be. Of course, there will be age related muscle atrophy, however with exercise and proper protein intake, we can delay the onset.
How Much Protein Do We Need?
So how much protein should we consume? According to studies, 0.7g to 1.1g of protein per lb. of lean bodyweight is the most sufficient range. Lets say that you weigh 150lb with body fat percentage of 15%. Your lean bodyweight will be 127.5lb. Therefore, you should be consuming about 90g-140g. This number seems to be effective for those who are wanting to lose fat and gain muscles despite the age.
If you have not been consuming that much of protein, you may want to start from lower end (.7g/lb.) and work your way up if necessary. You can observe any physical changes (weight, fat%, muscle growth, energy level, etc.) to find what works better for you.
Problem with Restricted Diet or Weigh Loss Programs
One of the issues I see in some of the popular diets is insufficient protein intake. When looking at people who are focusing just on weight loss, they restrict themselves so much that majority of weight is coming off by losing muscle mass instead of body fat mass. This phenomenon can be seen in a popular weight loss TV programs where they put someone who is obese and have them lose huge amount of weight in short period of time. With strict diet and exercises, participants do lose weight. However, several months later they gain their weight back or even gain more weight than before. One of the reasons is instead of just losing fat, participants lost huge amount of muscle mass as well for protein was restricted in their diet.
When the muscle is lost, the metabolism will be lowered as well. Therefore, when going through weight loss, it is vital to monitor what weight you are losing. If you are start losing more muscles than you should, it is important to check your protein intake and physical activity. If you are suggested a dietary program by experts to reduce your protein intake, take extra cautious and strictly monitor what weight you are losing.
Exercise choice is also important too. If you ever had a broken bone or have seen someone wearing a cast in their leg for few weeks, you will see the atrophy because the stress in that body parts were not there. Consequence is because the load was not there, protein demand decreased as well. When going through weight loss program, you cannot avoid resistant training. Yes, you can load your body with cardio exercises too, however, within 6 weeks the body will adapt to the load and may not provide sufficient stress to the muscles to promote protein and muscle synthesis.
It does take effort to build muscle, so it is best not to lose what you currently have providing adequate amount of protein.
What Are Good Protein Sources?
All-natural food sources, meat, fish, beans, vegetables, contain proteins. Here is list of several food sources with amount of protein that they contain.
1 medium size potato (200g): 4g
8 oz. steak: 62g
100g salmon: 20g
1 cup of milk: 9g
1 egg: 6g
1 cup cooked spinach: 5g
1 cup kidney beans: 43g
1 cup chopped chicken: 38g
1 medium cucumber: 3g
1 cup quinoa: 8g
1 cup pea: 8g
When you look at the list above, you can see that animal protein does have higher protein content and I can see why people would prefer to consume protein from animal source. However, even with vegan diet, it is also possible to meet the daily protein requirement. It is also important to eat in variation rather than stick with one source. This way, the body will have different building blocks of amino acids for our body to use to rebuild muscles.
What to Do?
Know how much protein you are consuming now and how much protein you are needing. Start with .7g of protein per lb. of lean bodyweight for your protein requirement. If you are on target, great! If you are short, see what you can add to your diet.
If you are having difficulty meeting the protein requirement from food, use a protein supplement (bar or powder) as an option. It is ideal to get protein from real natural food sources, however, protein supplement can also be a quick fix.
Once you find your protein requirement and options you have to meet the requirement, make sure to stay physically active to promote protein synthesis so that the muscle can grow. It is ideal to be consume protein source after your workout or physical activity for better muscle growth and recovery. Even during your non workout days you will need to be consuming required protein amount to promote the protein synthesis for recovery and growth.
Kota Shimada
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