The Power of Protein: Essential for Muscle Growth, Metabolism, and Healthy Living
Why Prioritizing Protein in Your Diet Can Transform Your Health and Fitness Goals
Why Protein is Crucial for Health: Building Muscle and More
We often hear mixed messages about macronutrients, what's good, what's bad, and why we should or shouldn't eat them. I want to start to break that down, today we will start with protein. Protein is a powerful part of your diet that does more than just help you build muscle; it keeps your muscles strong as you age and even boosts the calories you burn simply by eating it. Having bigger and stronger muscles further increases the total amount of calories that you're burning in your day-to-day life. Whether you're looking to stay fit, manage your weight, or simply live a healthier life, understanding how much protein you need and why it matters can make a big difference. We will explore the benefits of protein, how to find the right amount for your body, and how it can help you reach your health goals.
What is Protein? Understanding the Basics and Benefits
Protein is the building block of all your muscles, hormones, hormone signaling, and so many other things. They are made up of a collection of amino acids which are just another smaller scaled collection of blocks that build up to add up to become a complete protein. This idea of a complete protein is crucially important as your body will continue to build muscle or replace essential proteins as long as the correct combination of amino acids is present for it to continue this building process. When it runs out of the correct amount of amino acids, it will halt the process until it becomes needed or to replace in which it will begin pulling from your muscle for you to have the correct amino to continue production. When you’re thinking about this from a muscle growth perspective, it is easy to see that when you’re pushing the damage onto the muscle, you’re forcing your body to recover and repair by building new proteins to help repair the damaged muscle. If one muscle is very damaged it will continue to repair it until it runs out of amino acids present in the blood stream. If it needs more to continue repairing this is when it will begin to pull from other muscles to help that repair until it is completed.
It is all about maintaining balance within your body, when we talk about protein and its importance this is the basis of where it is coming from. Protein is so crucially important as these big muscles are going to overall be very expensive and very resilient to injury. It can prevent initially incurring an injury as oftentimes the muscle will prevent them by shielding it or being strong enough to catch yourself preventing the injury altogether. However, we need to treat this muscle well as your body treats it similarly to the way that it treats fat. When your body needs aerobic-based energy, it will begin to pull from your fat stores, this is just like it was outlined above, but if you need proteins to build receptors or repair muscle, your body will pull from your muscles to get the essential blocks to make what it needs at that moment. With this thought in mind, we can begin to paint the picture as to why we should be focusing on a consistent intake of protein throughout the day. With this consistent intake, we can assure that there will be enough amino acids floating in our bloodstream to make sure that you are replacing any proteins that are needed at the time without your body dipping into the reserve that is your muscle. Whatever is left over, if there is muscle damage from say exercising, then your body will put the leftovers into the muscle to aid the growth. The takeaway is simple: eat enough protein to protect the muscle you've worked hard to build!
Key Point: Protein is the building blocks of your muscle, made up of amino acids. High levels of amino acids will ensure that you’re protecting your muscle and growing muscle where possible.
How Protein Affects Your Body: Muscle Growth, Metabolism, and Satiety
Now that we understand a bit more about what protein is, let’s dive even deeper into what protein does for us as a regular part of our diet. Protein goes past just building muscle, it also is one of the biggest influences on a piece of our metabolism called the “Thermic Effect of Food.” This piece of our metabolism makes up about 10% of our total daily expenditure of calories so it can have a pretty big effect on the number of calories that we burn in a day. If you are burning 2,000 calories in one day, then about 200 of those calories are going to be coming from just digesting food itself. Protein also happens to be one of the major food sources that has the biggest impact on this thermic effect of food. The more protein-dense something is, the more it takes to digest, the more full you feel, and the more calories that you burn.
On top of that, a high level of protein is incredibly important as you are looking at both any kind of intentional weight loss and intentional weight gain. Both of these are looking at you building up your muscle mass or maintaining the muscle mass that is already there. We want to increase the amount of protein past the normal amount to ensure that we are not only giving our body the baseline for what it needs but enough to grow and maintain what is already there despite being in a place where the body might want to be taking away from our muscles. This is particularly important in weight loss where many people tend to fall off course. When you are intentionally trying to lose weight, your body does not want to have the big calorically expensive muscles taking a lot of energy away from it as it is trying to bring its caloric expenditure down. It will look to take from your muscle first as you are naturally eating a lower amount of protein in your diet with the restricted calories. If you’re not consistently supplying your body with the free-floating amino acids that it needs then quickly it will begin pulling from your muscle. This then means that as you’re getting down in weight, you’re sacrificing significantly more muscle than you would have originally intended to making the bounce back out of the dieting period that much harder. It can also leave you feeling a desire for more. Fat loss is just a tool to see the muscle that has been grown underneath the fat.
The last big thing that I want to highlight in regards to protein is the effect that protein has on feeling full and limiting your cravings. All too often when we are eating simple sugars, refined carbs, things that aren’t very filling it can leave us wanting more and more making it that much easier to overeat and overconsume driving your caloric intake up through the roof. Protein takes a lot of time to digest, takes up a good amount of stomach space, and interacts with one of your hunger-signaling hormones to decrease the overall feeling of hunger for prolonged periods. This means that eating protein will inherently make you consume less food overall as you are feeling more satiated for longer. This will reduce the thoughts of finding food which can then manifest into the cravings that you normally want. Extending further into nighttime cravings which can often be the easiest to give in to. If we are eating a good protein-rich dinner, that can oftentimes carry us into the nighttime and into the morning, all the while giving our body the resources that it needs to recover and grow!
Key Point: Protein makes you feel more full, grow more muscle, burn more calories, and help you fight against cravings.
How to Find the Right Protein Intake: Simple Tips for Your Diet
Now that we know what protein is and why it is important, what are the current recommendations and how can you know if you are getting enough protein? This is a good question as the “Dietary Guidelines for Healthy Americans” puts it out as around 0.8-1g per kilogram of body weight. Normally I see a lot of the guidelines they put out as very helpful general knowledge but this is the one that I push back on the most. This is just far too low of a number for most people to be getting all of the benefits of having a protein-rich diet, paired with any regular activity we are going to want to be cranking that number up even higher toward around 1.8-2.2g per kilogram of body weight or near a gram per pound of bodyweight. This low number I believe has led us into the situation that we are in where cravings are rampant, and muscle on many people is down significantly. People have downregulated their metabolism unintentionally as a result of eating significantly lower protein amounts than they should have been. By simply upping this number we will have better appetite regulation, better portion size regulation, and an easier time filling in the rest of our calories with carbs and fats since we are much less likely to overeat.
If we just simply start planning our total caloric intake by finding the total daily expenditure, adding in the correct amount of protein that we should be taking in, and then filling in the rest of the calories with some nutrient-dense fats and a variety of carbs, it is going to be incredibly difficult to find yourself in a situation that you’re not set up for success in. You will be retaining most if not all of your muscle, likely giving your body what it desires for growth and satiety, have fewer issues with your hunger overall, and likely more adherence to a dietary plan whether it is for growth or weight loss.
The last way to calculate your protein intake is if you are overweight since eating 250+ grams of protein in a single day is rather unrealistic. We are going to go with a different metric, that comes from using your height in centimeters. Taking your height in centimeters will be the number of grams of protein that you should be taking. This will give you a much more accurate and personalized approach that isn’t telling you to take your entire diet and make it purely protein. Using those numbers will ensure that you are getting the proper amount of protein in your diet. Hitting that goal is going to be completely up to how you want to get there. Finding meats that you enjoy or working with non-meat pairings to get complete protein will all work as long as you are getting the full amount of protein that is required for your body.
Key Point: Current recommendations are too low, increasing your intake to about a gram per pound of body weight or a gram per centimeter of height for overweight people will give an accurate amount of protein that is needed. This protein can come from a variety of sources.
Conclusion: The Importance of Protein for Muscle and Overall Health
In conclusion, protein is far more than just a muscle-builder, it's a key factor in keeping your muscles strong, supporting your metabolism, and helping you feel full and satisfied. By understanding what amino acids are, you can appreciate how important it is to maintain a steady intake of protein throughout the day. Whether you're aiming to build muscle, lose weight, or simply maintain your current health, ensuring you get enough protein is essential. The standard recommendations might be too low for many people, especially those who are active, so consider increasing your intake to see all of these benefits firsthand. By prioritizing protein in your diet, you'll not only protect the muscle you’ve worked hard to build but also support your overall health and well-being. Remember, it's not just about eating enough, it's about giving your body the fuel that it needs to get the adaptations that you desire.
Get Involved:
Follow me on Instagram @Sidney_Bartlett as I build my social media presence.
Share this post with friends who might find it valuable.
Have questions or need personalized guidance? Email me at sidneyabartlett@gmail.com.
By connecting and supporting each other, we can achieve our fitness goals and inspire others to do the same. Let’s grow stronger together!
Sidney Bartlett, CSCS