Protein: What You Need to Know

Protein: What You Need to Know

Producer Potts  0:15  

Everybody is talking about eating enough protein. So can you tell us? How much do we really need to eat? Does it matter if it comes from plants or animals for supplements? And how important is it to have protein with every meal, and snack?

Dr. Sarah  0:32  

So I’m going to try to keep track of all the parts of this question I will re ask if needed, I’m trusting you to make sure that we answer all parts of this question because there’s a lot 

Producer Potts  0:44  

Okay, so let’s start with how much protein we need.

Dr. Sarah  0:49  

Recommended Dietary Allowance is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram body weight with which is a really weird way for most people to think about food, like most of the time, it’s like you need this many calories, or this many grams, or this many right milligrams of calcium, right? Like, we tend to have like a number that is the number we’re shooting for. And we tend not to think of it in relation to us, we just think of it in terms of our, whatever demographic group we’re in. So we look at this set of like dietary targets, right. And that being said, there’s a lot of research supporting higher protein intake than that. So most of the science is somewhere between 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight, and 1.6 grams per kilogram body weight. So we can talk about how to calculate that for yourself what that translates to in terms of grams of protein. But that’s where most of the science is. A lot of those studies are looking at things like weight loss, maintenance of lean muscle mass through weight loss. So like keeping, keeping the things that keep your basal metabolic rate higher, and also reduce risk of cardiovascular disease. A lot of that’s looking at exercise performance and athletes. But there are some studies looking at cardiovascular disease risk and protein intake. And I think, always when we can talk about health outcomes rather than weight outcomes, which don’t measure health, I think it’s much more that’s much more compelling data. So even from a cardiovascular disease risk point, there is a really good argument to make for aiming for higher protein intake. So somewhere between 1.2 grams per kilogram body weight to 1.6. So we can think of that as like a range for us to aim for. And then there are situations where even higher protein might be beneficial. If you are an athlete, you might benefit from higher protein. And if you’re actively losing weight, you might benefit from higher than that protein just for the preservation of lean mass. So there are other situations where even higher protein compared to your size may be beneficial. But 1.2 to 1.6 is really a good range. We can pull out the handy dandy whiteboard and do some sample math to figure out exactly what that would be. Hey, producer Potts, do you have a calculator on your phone? So I do actual math in my head. So you start with your weight and pounds? weight in pounds. So what uh, what’s the let’s say our hypothetical person is let’s say 180 pounds. Okay. Okay. So, first, you’re gonna go from that to your weight in kilograms. So to do that, you need to divide by 2.2. So take 180 and divide by 2.2.

Producer Potts  3:55  

So 81.

Dr. Sarah  3:58  

So this is going to be your weight in kilograms. And I think we can just clean those round fingers at once. Okay, so that’s your weight in kilograms. Now we’re going to take 81 and we’re multiplying by 1.2.

Producer Potts  4:14  

So 97.2

Dr. Sarah  4:17  

So we’ll just call that 97. So that’s a good lower level of protein. Now we’re gonna go back and take 81 And we’re gonna multiply by 1.6 129 129.

Dr. Sarah  4:31  

I mean, really, we could call this 131 30. So I would say for a 180 pound person, that aiming between like 100 to 130 grams of protein is a really good place for supporting overall health. So that would be a good way to calculate protein. If you use a tracker like My Fitness Pal, that’s what you would put in for your range for Your target range for the day. caveat, we don’t want our protein intake to be higher than about 30% of our total calories. So there’s four, keep your calculator out four calories per gram of protein. So let’s just round this up to 130, I can actually do this math. So 130 times four, so 520 calories. So we don’t want that to be more than 30%. We do. 30 over 100

Dr. Sarah  5:37  

equals 520 over x. So that means 30x equals 520.

Dr. Sarah  5:51  

So can you do me a favor and divide 5200 by three

Producer Potts  5:56  

divided by three is 1733. 

Dr. Sarah  6:05  

So caveat, for this 180 pound person, we don’t want to go over 130 calories of protein. If our diet, our calorie goals of the day are under about 1700 calories. So that is the caveat. Now I would argue that a 180 pound person, there’s probably not a lot of situations where 1700 calories is a great calorie amount. All right, probably almost certainly want to be at least 2020 200 I would think. But that is a question for your doctor or a registered dietician or a certified nutritionist. Not a question for the whiteboard. But that is how we calculate our protein. So we just want to make sure that when we hit this high level of protein goals, again, that it’s not about that’s not higher than 30% of okay. Alright, so that is when our protein gets higher than about 30%. It’s pretty hard on our kidneys, it starts to increase risk of some health problems. That’s no longer balanced macronutrients. So that’s how we calculate how much protein that’s where we’re Sciences at. What was the next part of the question?

Producer Potts  7:16  

Okay, does it matter if it comes from plants, animals or supplements?

Dr. Sarah  7:21  

No, with the caveat of as long as it’s coming from multiple sources.

Dr. Sarah  7:29  

Almost all animal proteins are complete proteins, which means they have good amounts of all nine of the essential amino acids. The only incomplete, like animal protein that I can think of is collagen. So collagen is an incomplete protein. Bone broth probably should count as an incomplete protein, there’s, there’s a little bit more tryptophan in bone broth than there is in collagen, or gelatin. 

Producer Potts  7:59  

You’ve covered collagen in depth in another video, so I will make sure to link that here for everyone. Thanks, producer Potts.

Dr. Sarah  8:07  

So that’s the only animal protein that’s not a complete protein, but it only matters if collagen is your only protein source, right? You’re, you’re gonna get tryptophan from other things if you’re getting protein from other things. And the same with plant proteins. There’s very few complete plant proteins. And every time I try to make a list, I reveal how this doesn’t stick in my head. But it’s like hemp seeds, soy products, hemp seeds and a bunch of others. Every time I have to name the complete plant proteins and like them they don’t stick in my brain. I don’t know why, oh, my numbers stick in my brain and friggin plant proteins don’t. I guess because I’m good enough for it. And also because complete plant proteins. It really doesn’t matter. So you don’t need to be getting all nine essential amino acids from the same meal. But also as long as you’re getting protein from a diversity of sources, you’re going to be balancing out whatever proteins are missing, right? lysine and defining it in terms of plant proteins.

Producer Potts  9:15  

So do you mean like a variety of plant proteins? If someone doesn’t eat meat, that’s okay, as long as they’re getting a variety of plant protein. So that’s my latest. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Sarah  9:25  

So as long as you’re getting some grains and some legumes, basically, gotcha, you’re gonna be, you’re gonna be fine. Because they tend to complement each other. That’s why rice and beans are like the classic plant protein combo. So that means it’s the same for protein supplements, right? Whether that’s whey protein powder or pea protein powder, soy protein isolates egg white protein powder. All of them I mean, collagen to the right. So some of them are complete proteins and some of them RT depends on which one we’re talking about. But as long as it’s not your main source of protein, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it’s complete or not. There’s some cool, like, there are some studies showing that whey protein can support muscle protein synthesis, a little bit higher level than some other proteins. But it’s a very small effect, generally, you’re not going to worry about that unless you are an elite athlete. Right? There are some interesting studies showing that some collagen peptides can increase collagen production, not because of supplying the resources, but because of some signaling from like this really cool dye peptide that collagen peptides can have that’s pulling in hydroxy, pulling mixed. Again, that’s a really small effect, because you’re going to stimulate collagen production from again, exercising, having enough vitamin C, right. So all of those like little details, most of the time, most of us, we don’t need to worry about it. So just getting enough protein from a few different, at least a few different sources. And then it used to be thought that we basically only used up to 45 grams of protein in a meal for muscle protein synthesis. It has been recently shown to not be the case that the threshold is probably quite a lot higher than that, at which point we no longer really utilize that protein for muscle, but we can still still use that protein for other things. We add proteins are the molecules of life, they do all of the things that are alive. proteins that do them, like enzymes or protein. Every other thing, so there’s Protein Protein is what makes us us. So it’s not just our muscles, it’s in all of our cells. Gotcha. 

Producer Potts  11:53  

So here’s the third question. Yeah. So do we have to have protein with every single meal and snack? No.

Dr. Sarah  12:02  

So I, because you can utilize a lot more. So like, let’s, let’s take this 180 pound person example from the handy dandy whiteboard. And let’s just round to like 100 grams of protein as a goal, you can, you can definitely use, like, if you had two meals a day, you can definitely use 50 grams of protein from a meal for sure. So if you want to just have two meals a day, if you do this, this 180 pound person wants to intermittent fast, we know I have complicated feelings about intermittent fasting, but like let’s say that’s another video. Let’s say this person loves it, that’s great for this person, happy for them, go forth, and we’ll eat protein. So, if this person was just eating two meals a day, and they wanted 50 grams of protein at each of those meals, or 40 grams at one meal and 60 grams at the other, that would be totally fine. That would not make a difference in terms of the benefits and utilization of that protein. I can’t eat 50 grams of protein at a meal, like that’s not compatible with doing whatever works for you to spread it out.

Dr. Sarah  13:11  

I really need three meals a day to eat to get my protein, the guy that I really need. It’s a lot. I also infer that 400 grams a day, it’s a lot easier for me to get 30 to 35 grams at a meal. This for me to get 5050s 50 is a lot like that’s like eight ounces of meat. That’s yeah, that’s eight or nine or 10 depending on like, that’s a lot for me. And then plant proteins, it’s even because that’s packaged with fiber, I feel like that can be even more filling depending on what we’re talking about. So yes, so it doesn’t really it doesn’t really matter, and you don’t need to get it at every meal. So fascinating that you asked me this question because I actually filmed a video in the woods this morning where I talked about this, and we did not know that we were going to have this conversation. But you know, for all nutrients, protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients. We don’t need to say averaging over the week is fine. Maybe three days, we don’t need to have every meal be a balanced meal, we don’t need every day to be a balanced day, we just need to average it over a fairly short period of time. So like, depending on the new day we’re talking about, we want to either average at like the three day ish day level. So something like a water soluble nutrient like vitamin C by B vitamins, we want to be hitting the daily value on average, over a fairly short period of time. Same for something like protein or fiber where we really are like you like that fiber is feeding those gut bacteria. We want to be averaging it over a fairly short period of time. And then other things where we can store a fair amount. All like vitamin A vitamin D, then we can average that over a longer period of time. So say like a week. So as long as we’re hitting the daily value, on average over the week, then we’re fine. So we really don’t need to be like every meal needs to be perfectly balanced. If you want to have one meal, that’s just fruit, like that’s fine. As long as the overall diet again, average over a few days, is a, you know, balanced nutrient replete diet, right, a diet that’s going to supply all of the nutrients that our body’s needs. So that absolutely it goes not just for protein that goes for all of our nutrients that have it all at one meal, there are some potential metabolic benefits to having protein at breakfast. So having more protein at breakfast can help to improve blood sugar regulation. So that could be important for some people. And there are some benefits to our appetite from having protein at each meal and having protein with our snacks. So it can help to regulate our appetites, we’re not hungrier than make sense for our body, right? Like our hunger is more proportional to what we actually need. When we have basically protein, fiber and fat at every meal. That’s kind of like the optimal situation for regulating metabolism and hunger. So there is some benefit to having protein, if you’re going to have a snack with your snack and add each meal. 

Producer Potts  16:39  

But it’s by no means a necessity, right? That’s making things like my more difficult than they need to be.

Dr. Sarah  16:40  

Yeah, so like, if you if you there’s lots of there’s lots of it’s not, it’s not just skipping breakfast, or having a low protein breakfast, that can make it harder to control what we eat later, right, like, also how long it is until we eat again, how much sleep we got, how active we are, there’s a lot of things that are impacting hunger and blood sugar regulation and cravings. But it can help all of those things to have protein, a little bit of protein every time we eat. But it is by no means a necessity. And we still benefit from getting enough protein even if our protein is kind of not, it’s a little bit more chaotic throughout the day. So if someone really wants to nerd out about all the different amino acids and really dive in and learn more about protein, is there a place they can do that, I would say start at Nutrivore.com, go to the nutrients icon, and then go to proteins and amino acids, then you can learn about how much protein we need all this jazz about complete proteins. And then you can start learning about amino acids. I have detailed articles on all of the essential amino acids, you can learn about what they do in the body, how they’re utilized differently, and actually how much we need of the different essential amino acids because they’re the only ones that have a mount like ranges set all of the non essential ones don’t. So I would say that is a great place to start learning about protein and amino acids. And it’s also one of the nutrients that I cover in my book, YouTube or if you don’t want to get too nitty gritty into all of the different utilizations of different amino acids. I would rather just do big picture stuff on how to get enough protein and how much protein different foods have.