The Pulse - Protein Will Save you

Protein can save you…

We’ve all heard protein intake is important, but why should YOU care, how much is enough, and what can it really do for you?  

Strength or Frailty 

Getting enough protein intake is critical for not just building muscle, but keeping what you got. THAT is one of the secrets to aging well.  If you want to play with your kids in your 40’s and 50’s or later you’re going to need muscle. If you want to travel in retirement, be unafraid of stairs, and carry your groceries, you need muscle.  And whether you’re in the position where those are real issues now, or are frankly too young to give a hoot, you’re either winning this battle or losing it every single day.  Strength or frailty?  You chose a point on that spectrum today, and every day, with what you ate.

Stay Full, Lose Weight

Sufficient protein intake is also one of the more powerful weight loss tools.  Protein makes you full longer with better satiety per calories vs. fats and carbs. This means the more protein you eat, the less hungry you get. When you get hungry infrequently you eat less and your total caloric intake goes down. This is clearly a good thing if you’re trying to lose weight. My clients often complain of how much food they have to eat while on the Holistic Transformation program, and rarely of being hungry.  

Enough is Enough

I see the best results in my clients with intake between 80-100% of body weight (lbs) in grams of protein per day.  As an example, a 150 lb human should eat 120-150g of protein per day. Bigger humans require more protein. One should get a vast majority of their protein intake from lean meats.  Plant protein can work, but isn’t as effective gram for gram and can cause gut and hormonal issues.  Chicken, fish, turkey, lean beef, lean pork, game meets, and shellfish are all excellent… you have options.  While it varies, most lean meats contain about 7.5g of protein per ounce of meat.  This is a rough estimate, but works in practice.  Recommended intakes are below

Yes, that’s a lot of meat for those of us, like me, over 200lbs consuming close to two pounds daily. And yes, it’s more expensive than eating processed food (pasta, bread, cereal), or even a plant based diet. But it’s much cheaper and healthier than eating out and getting delivery. It will make you healthier, more athletic, and likely lead to you living a longer, happier life. Lastly, for those that work out,  getting this much animal sourced protein daily will cause an order of magnitude better results in the gym versus not.
 

And How! 

If you want to change just ONE thing about your nutrition, protein intake is a powerful place to start.  I like to split my intake up into four meals evenly spaced throughout the day.  My energy stays high and it never feels like too much to eat at any one meal, which can happen with just two or three meals daily. 

Get a food scale and weigh out your protein portion for each of your meals hitting the targets above. If you try it, let me know what happens! Weigh yourself, take notes, I want to hear about it. 

I am not commenting on animal ethics here, although well raised animals seem to be the way to go. And if the carbon / global warming issue bothers you, my mind was changed mostly by a book titled Sacred Cow. I found it well written and compelling.