The skinny on protein.

Amino acids are building blocks of protein. They can be divided into 3 main groups. Non essential, conditional and essential amino acids (leucine, isoleucine, valine, lysine, threonine, tryptophan, methionine, phenylalanine and histidine). As you can guess from the name, essential amino acids are, well, essential for our bodies normal functions. They can't be created within our bodies and we need to supply them with foods.

The best source of essential amino acids are animal protein (meats, eggs and dairy) but there is a catch. Red meats tend to have high amounts of saturated fat, processed meats have tons of sodium and dairy, unless it is organic, has a lot of crap in it like hormones and antibiotics. Wild caught fish, white chicken or turkey meat, free range chicken eggs and organic skimmed dairy are the best sources of protein for everyone. Unless you are a vegetarian or vegan. Then you should get most of your protein from beans and nuts, just be sure to avoid soy completely! I will cover that subject in depth another time.

Porotein are needed by our bodies for 2 main things: growth and maintenance. Every time we eat some form of protein our body starts a process called proteinosynthesis about an hour after eating. This process creates new protein from the one we ate (ofcourse this happens after the protein we ate has been broken down to amino acids). With that said, the rest of the day we are in a stage of protein breakdown. This is why it is important to eat some form of protein with every meal we have (even if we aren’t trying to bulk-up we still need to maintain our muscle mass).

The current guidelines for protein consumption are, in my opinion, ridiculus. They state, that a sedentary man aged 19 – 70 should eat 0.8g of protein per kilo of body weight. For an average person that amounts to abou 55g or maybe a chicken breast. But since you, my dear readers, are active people, this number doesn’t apply to you. You can eat up to 2g of protein per kg, without the risk of illness. In my experience, 1.4 – 1.8g of protein per kg of body weight is optimal for weight loss and for bulking up.

Just like carbohydrates, protein also has a bit of a bad reputation especially with women, who think that eating protein will bulk them up. Sure, that can happen, but only if you eat a lot of protein (like 200g per day), have a huge calorie surplus (around 3000 or more a day) and you lift a huge amount of weight in the gym. Then you will get big and muscular. But if you stick to eating reasonable amount of protein, you will get lean and thus, you will burn more calories in the long run.

Untill next time, stay strong and be kind!