Protein intake optimal levels

[gr8whitetrukker]

I appreciate all the videos and explanations of what is optimal protein intake for the body. This is not the entirety of the diet situation. 1.3 g protein per lb of BW is fine if your taking in modest calories. But when your north of 6000 cals all the carbs and fats youd have to eat would be impractical for alot of ppl including myself. Since beef contains such a tremendous punch per ounce in terms of calories it is far easier to fill the diet with excessive protein to meet such high daily calorie requirements. So it really is no suprise that the biggest and strongest will take in far more than 1.3 g of protein per LB of BW. In a practical real life application. So its not exactly "what is the optimal protein intake" its "how do you eat enough calories, practically" and this is why the biggest guys have big protein intakes. They didnt need a masters degree to figure that out

 

[Docd187123]

I appreciate all the videos and explanations of what is optimal protein intake for the body. This is not the entirety of the diet situation. 1.3 g protein per lb of BW is fine if your taking in modest calories. But when your north of 6000 cals all the carbs and fats youd have to eat would be impractical for alot of ppl including myself. Since beef contains such a tremendous punch per ounce in terms of calories it is far easier to fill the diet with excessive protein to meet such high daily calorie requirements. So it really is no suprise that the biggest and strongest will take in far more than 1.3 g of protein per LB of BW. In a practical real life application. So its not exactly "what is the optimal protein intake" its "how do you eat enough calories, practically" and this is why the biggest guys have big protein intakes. They didnt need a masters degree to figure that out

That's only half the picture bc while you're right in that fatty meats pack a good amount of calories per unit mass, protein is also by far the most satiating macronutrient besides maybe fiber. This means that 8oz of meat is MUCH more filling than 8oz of rice/bread/etc and it would be easier to add in more calories by reducing an excessive protein intake in favor of more carbs and/or fat.

 

[gr8whitetrukker]

That's only half the picture bc while you're right in that fatty meats pack a good amount of calories per unit mass, protein is also by far the most satiating macronutrient besides maybe fiber. This means that 8oz of meat is MUCH more filling than 8oz of rice/bread/etc and it would be easier to add in more calories by reducing an excessive protein intake in favor of more carbs and/or fat.

I understand brother but personal preference based on our individual digestive needs is a huge factor. I play and play and play with mine. The last few months i found a solution to my issues. Carbs in mass quantities dont work for me. Too much bloat. Too much discomfort. While some one else may not have the same issues they are not really all that unique to me either. I know others have similar experiences. Meat and fats work well for me. So i overload on the protein. Digests better(for me) and makes me feel damn good.

Its real simple. I went to 2 large meals a day. Usually dinner and breakfast. About 2,000 cals each. 20-24 oz steak and 6 eggs per meal. Just protein and fats. Skillet fried in butter.
The wild card is lunch which will have some carbs 75-100g of any carb i choose. Potato, rice, corn, pasta the usual culprits. And another choice of animal protein.
Add in a shake with just whey and some simple carbs pre&post workout and i found the key to success for me.

So out of my entire big calorie diet i usually eat only about 150g of carbs a day. The rest is protein and fats. Not at all what is suggested. Again individual preference

 

[Eman]

Carbs in mass quantities dont work for me. Too much bloat. Too much discomfort

This is exactly why I have to watch carbs myself. Protein on the other hand, I can sit down and eat eat eat. I only eat as many carbs as I feel comfortable with.

 

[gr8whitetrukker]

This is exactly why I have to watch carbs myself. Protein on the other hand, I can sit down and eat eat eat. I only eat as many carbs as I feel comfortable with.

Just personal preference
So its not all about adequate protein intake
Its partly about getting the cals in
And adding carbs for energy purposes
Wont work for everyone. But certainly does for me and you

 

[ergomaniac]

Now the issue comes down to your brain can on,y use glucose for energy.

the brain can use ketones for energy. hence, ketosis.
not sure how that effects the rest of your post.

 

[Docd187123]

the brain can use ketones for energy. hence, ketosis.
not sure how that effects the rest of your post.

You're right, that was worded poorly. What I should have said was that even when the brain starts using ketones for fuel after approximately three weeks of low carb, ketones are still unable to fully supply the brain's energy needs. It still requires about 25% of it's energy substrate from glucose which is made in the liver.

 

[Murphthedon]

Bud if you want to blow smoke go have a smoke. You don't understand what ketosis does for your body. You DO use fats as your primary fuel source and in TRUE ketosis you won't have any performance issues at all. Unlike low carb diets where you do have performance issues. Your knowledge on the subject is extremely limited it seems, I could educate you and point you to some good websites to do so if you'd like?

Have to disagree, I ran Keto (tested with strips and all, under 30 net carbs daily) for 6 months, even after the first 2 months when I felt -adjusted- I hadn't, I had simply gotten use to feeling like complete shit. End of Keto I took 3 days off from gym and carbed up, went back to 40/40/20 and my next workout in the gym I felt like an absolute God simply because I didn't feel like shit.

I highly recommend staying away from Keto if you're trying to build muscle. Honestly I wouldn't even recommend it for cutting, just get in your 500 cal deficit through diet and cardio.

 

[Viper92]

I've always kind of looked at chicken thighs as the beef of the chicken world.

I really feel 1gr/lb of bodyweight is ideal off cycle. I think at least 1.5gr/lb is better on cycle. It seems some guys just don't need as much to grow. I've tried taking a minimalist approach to protein off cycle and the results were subpar.

Interesting to have your point of view on this.
Just one quick question though: in his video, Layne Norton says 1-1.2g/lb would be optimal for a natural athlete. However, when talking about protein sources, he says that he includes everything in his total (animal sources obviously, but also others like veggies, nuts, etc.).
When you say 1g/lb is ideal, do you do the same or only count animal sources?
Thanks!

I personally include everything and try to aim for 2.5g/kg (roughly 1.1g/lb)
PS: sorry for my bad English, I'm french...

 

[RandallNowan]

Yo

Yeah, wish I could eat it but not anymore... something is wrong, IBS I've never had but I'm having the symptoms for weeks now, especially sick stomach/diarrhea... psoriasis I've had many years but not this kind of crazy flare up...skin has been red and inflamed, getting pins and needles feeling like fibromyalgia, pain everywhere in federal, tendonitis in my Achilles on the left side, right elbow and right wrist. quit eating it a few days ago and boom. Inflammation dying out fast. Nothing but fish, a little ice cream, lots of chicken, eggs, I see to tolerate bacon just fine too

You could try cutting out wheat and/or dairy, Brother. Good luck.

 

[Njb371]

I think you're missing the point. It's not that what you're doing CANT work, it's just that it's likely not the best way to go about it.

What RippedZilla is trying to point out is that even though you're in ketosis, the primary fuel for all glycolotic activities (which include lifting) is glucose. It doesn't matter that your in ketosis and the body has shifted to using ketones for energy bc that's for anaerobic metabolism which is low intensity activity. High intensity activity still requires glucose for glycolotic metabolism.

Carbs are 100% anti-ketogenic bc they get converted to glucose. Proteins are roughly 58% anti-ketogenic bc some amino acids can be converted to glucose. Fats are about 10% anti-ketogenic bc only the glycerol portion of triglycerides can be converted to glucose and this is why they make up the abundance of your calories on a ketogenic diet.

Now the issue comes down to your brain can on,y use glucose for energy. On a carb rich diet this is no problem bc you have sufficient carbs to power the brain and your glycolotic activity. On a keto diet, bc your carbs are so low, the liver is forced to produce glucose from stored liver glycogen but your brain requires roughly 100g of glucose a day to function and the liver only holds about 100-120g of glucose so it's basically only a day's supply. Your muscle glycogen is about another 500g of glucose but this cannot be used to fuel the brain bc the enzyme required to convert glycogen, glucose-6-phosphatase, isn't found in your muscles. So the muscle glycogen gets used to perform your glycolotic activities. But again, on a ketogenic diet your so low on carbs that this is only a temporary supply.

Now imagine taking in only 0.6g/lb protein. This is below the generally recommended amount for active/competitive gym-goers, especially a powerlifter. So you're either just barely getting enough protein or not getting enough right off the bat. Now imagine all the glycolotic activities you're doing i.e. lifting, high intensity conditioning work, prowler drags, etc etc. where does all the glucose needed to fuel this activity come from? Remember, you've already depleted your liver glycogen just to power your brain (liver glycogen balance is also a critical component to catabolism) as well as your muscle glycogen. Where else can you get glucose from? Can't be carbs bc you're at less than 50g/day and that's just not enough. The only remaining sources are the glycerol from fats and stored amino acids

Fats would be favored through beta oxidation reaction and then the Kreb's Cycle but again, only about 10% of them can be converted to sugar so assume about 200g of fat and 10% of that is 20g of fats that can be used to make glucose. Still not enough.

The next source of glucose is stored amino acids (muscle/catabolism) or the amino acids from your diet (protein). Amino acids can be converted to glucose through deamination to remove the NH3 molecule to create ammonia. The liver takes the ammonia and makes urea out of it which is a keto acid. This then can be converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis. Remember now, your protein intake is already too low or barely enough to get by and that's without tapping into your stored amino acids or dietary amino acids but you've just created an environment that's going to need to do exactly that. If you use dietary amino acids your body won't have enough to rebuild damaged muscle tissue and grow more. If you tap into stored amino acids (muscle tissue) then you won't have enough dietary amino acids to replace all of hats lost bc the intake is so low.

This whole issue can be swept aside simply by increasing protein intake to the minimum requirements of the body.

Sorry for the novel but I love topics like these

This is exactly why I started eating less proteins and more carbs about 6 months ago. I was coming off a cut that I was in a large deficit, eating maybe 100g of carbs a day of which maybe 30g of fiber. I started bulking around 3200 cals per day eating roughly 425g of carbs and 160-180g protein. I was 190ish lbs at 6'4" and after really bumping up my carbs my performance and strength in the gym went up like crazy. I think there is too much hype around protein consumption and that you don't need to eat as much as people say to build/maintain muscle.

 

[johntt44]

How much do you think being "deeper in ketosis" is going to help an active person who participates in a glycolytic activity like, say, lifting?

Fat isn't the main fuel source utilized.
Your not getting enough carbs.
Your not consuming an optimal protein intake to make up for the lack of carbs.
So where do you think your body is going to go hunting to find some fuel?

Hopefully you can see the major flaw in thinking that being in ketosis is more muscle sparing than having an optimal protein intake. It isn't.

I've done keto before and it works just fine for cutting. In absence of carbs, fat is the next fuel source used. As long as you keep your fat intake high it works just fine. I can lift the same on keto as on high carbs and my cardio actually gets easier! Without glycogen your muscles do look a little flatter but once you carb up they fill right back out.

 

[MrRippedZilla]

I've done keto before and it works just fine for cutting. In absence of carbs, fat is the next fuel source used. As long as you keep your fat intake high it works just fine. I can lift the same on keto as on high carbs and my cardio actually gets easier! Without glycogen your muscles do look a little flatter but once you carb up they fill right back out.

I don't have an issue with keto - I have an issue with low protein keto commonly prescribed for epileptics and that some seem to think works well for bodyrecomp (it doesn't).

Protein spares muscle better than carbs, which spares it better than fats - this is nutrition 101 and not difficult to understand. Plus I have no desire to go deep into it since I doubt most will listen anyway

 

[Perrin Aybara]

I aim for 1g/pound minimum and I'm usually in the 250-300g range most of the time.

 

[MrRippedZilla]

Ok I'll expand on my previous post a little bit...

Firstly, we need to understand that there is NO solid scientific evidence examining muscle mass preservation between low vs high protein, calorically restricted, ketogenic diets in active, healthy, individuals.
When I say "solid scientific evidence" I'm referring to an RCT with ALL nutrition being provided by the lab itself, body comp measurements done accurately (NOT skin calipers, BIA, etc) and a suitable duration of time to allow adaptation to the ketogenic diet to occur (as opposed to looking at the period of adaptation itself).
When I say "active, healthy individuals" I mean people involved in a controlled resistance training programme (not endurance sports, aerobics, etc) that are NOT newbies.

Therefore, due this lac of solid scientific evidence, we need to examine exactly what happens within the body during caloric restriction, caloric restriction with a ketogenic diet and caloric restriction with a ketogenic diet and suboptimal protein intake.

Caloric restriction (CR) results in a decrease in practically all anabolic signalling and this includes but isn't limited to testosterone, insulin, igf-1, mTOR, satellite cell proliferation, etc. This is accompanied by an increase in potentially anti-anabolic signals like AMPK, cortisol, SHBG, etc.
A ketogenic CR further inhibits insulin and increases AMPK through LKB1. AMPK directly inhibits mTOR, which is bad for protein synthesis. Of course this is also accompanied by an increase in FFA oxidation, limited glycolysis and so on.
Now by adding protein restriction to the ketogenic CR we are further inhibiting IGF-1 and mTOR through a new pathway that ends up further inhibiting IGF1-R>PI3K>Akt>mTOR.
That adds up to a lot of inhibition.

Now to see what all this means in reality, let's take 3 case reports focused on natural, competitive, bodybuilders dieting down for a show:
Natural bodybuilding competition preparation and recovery: a 12-month case study. - PubMed - NCBI
Case study: Natural bodybuilding contest preparation. - PubMed - NCBI
A nutrition and conditioning intervention for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: case study

These cases show pretty dramatic results when it comes to muscle preservation despite the fact that they all met the 2.3-3.1g/kg protein recommendation set out by Helms & co in this excellent review paper: Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation: nutrition and supplementation. - PubMed - NCBI

Specifically, the Robinson case report showed a total of 25.7lbs lost, 11lbs of which came from LBM - that is a fucking awful result. One of the key influencing factors here was the lack of carb intake.
The Rossow & Kistler case reports maintained fat intake at around 15-30% while Robinson had it in at 37%, which meant that carb intake was limited to 100g/day on average with no refeeds (another big difference between Rossow & Kistler vs Robinson). As far as I'm concerned, that is all the evidence you should need to show that carbs are more protein sparing than fats.
I will concede that none of these case reports involved a direct ketogenic diet (because its a fucking stupid idea and no sensible bodybuilder does it during prep) but my speculation is that the loss of LBM would only be further exacerbated in that condition.

So yes, keto CR with suboptimal protein intake sucks for muscle preservation and body recomp in general

 

[jessmac]

No one eats enough vegetable protein. At least none of my friends anyway. I eat tonnes of lentils and brocolli and I do a nice fried chili tofu.

 

[Murphthedon]

No one eats enough vegetable protein. At least none of my friends anyway. I eat tonnes of lentils and brocolli and I do a nice fried chili tofu.

Fag lol

 

[Mc15]

No one eats enough vegetable protein. At least none of my friends anyway. I eat tonnes of lentils and brocolli and I do a nice fried chili tofu.

Why should someone focus on eating veggies for protein if they aren't vegetarian/vegan? It's not like your body can differentiate between the meat protein vs the vegetable protein.

 

[RodgerThat]

No one eats enough vegetable protein. At least none of my friends anyway. I eat tonnes of lentils and brocolli and I do a nice fried chili tofu.

Man this hits close to home! I use to absolutely hate vegitables when I was young literally would fight not to eat them but now that I'm older and do all my meal prep it's not a problem to me at all.



Cause I just don't add any, I ain't a rabbit so why should I eat bunny food

 

[Ozzy619]

I think you're missing the point. It's not that what you're doing CANT work, it's just that it's likely not the best way to go about it.

What RippedZilla is trying to point out is that even though you're in ketosis, the primary fuel for all glycolotic activities (which include lifting) is glucose. It doesn't matter that your in ketosis and the body has shifted to using ketones for energy bc that's for anaerobic metabolism which is low intensity activity. High intensity activity still requires glucose for glycolotic metabolism.

Carbs are 100% anti-ketogenic bc they get converted to glucose. Proteins are roughly 58% anti-ketogenic bc some amino acids can be converted to glucose. Fats are about 10% anti-ketogenic bc only the glycerol portion of triglycerides can be converted to glucose and this is why they make up the abundance of your calories on a ketogenic diet.

Now the issue comes down to your brain can on,y use glucose for energy. On a carb rich diet this is no problem bc you have sufficient carbs to power the brain and your glycolotic activity. On a keto diet, bc your carbs are so low, the liver is forced to produce glucose from stored liver glycogen but your brain requires roughly 100g of glucose a day to function and the liver only holds about 100-120g of glucose so it's basically only a day's supply. Your muscle glycogen is about another 500g of glucose but this cannot be used to fuel the brain bc the enzyme required to convert glycogen, glucose-6-phosphatase, isn't found in your muscles. So the muscle glycogen gets used to perform your glycolotic activities. But again, on a ketogenic diet your so low on carbs that this is only a temporary supply.

Now imagine taking in only 0.6g/lb protein. This is below the generally recommended amount for active/competitive gym-goers, especially a powerlifter. So you're either just barely getting enough protein or not getting enough right off the bat. Now imagine all the glycolotic activities you're doing i.e. lifting, high intensity conditioning work, prowler drags, etc etc. where does all the glucose needed to fuel this activity come from? Remember, you've already depleted your liver glycogen just to power your brain (liver glycogen balance is also a critical component to catabolism) as well as your muscle glycogen. Where else can you get glucose from? Can't be carbs bc you're at less than 50g/day and that's just not enough. The only remaining sources are the glycerol from fats and stored amino acids

Fats would be favored through beta oxidation reaction and then the Kreb's Cycle but again, only about 10% of them can be converted to sugar so assume about 200g of fat and 10% of that is 20g of fats that can be used to make glucose. Still not enough.

The next source of glucose is stored amino acids (muscle/catabolism) or the amino acids from your diet (protein). Amino acids can be converted to glucose through deamination to remove the NH3 molecule to create ammonia. The liver takes the ammonia and makes urea out of it which is a keto acid. This then can be converted to glucose via gluconeogenesis. Remember now, your protein intake is already too low or barely enough to get by and that's without tapping into your stored amino acids or dietary amino acids but you've just created an environment that's going to need to do exactly that. If you use dietary amino acids your body won't have enough to rebuild damaged muscle tissue and grow more. If you tap into stored amino acids (muscle tissue) then you won't have enough dietary amino acids to replace all of hats lost bc the intake is so low.

This whole issue can be swept aside simply by increasing protein intake to the minimum requirements of the body.

Sorry for the novel but I love topics like these

This was actually extremely thorough and explained everything in an understandable way. You should actually make it a post, I just bookmarked it for future reference lol