Protein: how much should you really be eating?
Issue #77: How much protein should you eat?
Read Time: 7 minutes Good morning, 66.1ers. A new approach to this Saturday's newsletter. Housekeeping: This is the fourth of 4 issues coming your way over the next month that will go deep on one topic.
You might be asking, "Why paid?" Thanks for your trust while we navigate the evolution of this new publication. As with previous weeks, the brief, skim-able format I've been writing will be in your inbox again on Wednesday. A quick refresher for anyone who's new to the newsletter: 66.1 is the average health span (years lived without a serious disease) in the US. We're here to extend that. In this week's issue of 66.1: A deep dive into how much protein you should be consuming every day to build muscle and maximize your health span. A quick refresher for anyone who's new to the newsletter: 66.1 is the average health span (years lived without a serious disease) in the US. We're here to extend that. BackgroundThe US Food and Drug Administration recommends you eat 50g of protein per day. This number starts to sound low pretty quickly when you consider the healthcare providers who are recommending a significantly higher amount of protein in your diet. Dr. Peter Attia, for example, recommends you eat 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (roughly 1 gram per pound). For someone like myself, weighing in at 195 pounds, this is a difference of 145 grams of protein (more than 2 ribeye steaks) per day. Even if you're half my size, these are 2 dramatically juxtaposed recommendations. Confusing, to say the least.
Why protein?Where did the obsession with protein come from? As far as I can tell, it all ties back to the reason many of you are here: a desire to maximize your healthspan. Protein is the key building block for lean muscle mass. Eat it and you can get stronger. Don’t eat it and, well, your body literally doesn’t have what’s required to build muscle. And if you’re not building muscle, you’re losing it. Research has shown that sarcopenia (muscle loss) occurs at a rate of 3%-8% of lean body mass per year following age 30. Allow that negative compounding to snowball and pretty soon you're at risk for falls as you continue to age. Fortunately, you can slow this trend with some hard work and targeted nutrition. And if you’re not worried about falling and breaking a hip, let me remind you of your increased capability as a result of building muscle mass. You’ll be more resilient and better able to recover from injury. You’ll be able to move heavy things with ease. The list is long when it comes to reasons why building muscle is a good idea. Cutting through the noise (and following the science)So far, we have two diametrically opposed recommendations about protein intake. And Peter Attia is not the only longevity-focused healthcare practitioner who recommends eating significantly more protein than the FDA suggests. Dr. Gabrielle Lyon is another physician building a longevity practice on muscles and protein. Researchers at the University of Oxford set out to answer exactly the question we need to examine right now: how much protein do we actually need to eat to maximize the benefits we receive from it? Their review of dozens of studies found that the “magic number” is 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. Below this number and you’re missing out on an opportunity to build lean body mass. They also found that when you exceed the 1.3 g/kg recommendation, the additional benefit you glean declines dramatically. Now, there are a few things to be mindful of before you go and optimize your protein intake for 1.3 g/kg body weight per day. First is that everyone is going to respond differently to this level of protein consumption. Some people’s bodies do better with more protein, some do better with less. Best to spend a week or so around 1.3 g/kg, reflect on how you feel, and adjust from there. Second is your current protein intake. If you’re currently at 0.5 g/kg, for example, bumping it to 1.3 g/kg (nearly triple your current levels) is a dramatic shift. I’d encourage you to consider an incremental increase to start (i.e. increase to 0.8 g/kg), bump it up a couple more times over the course of the next month, then adjust according to how your body responds. One final point these researchers made is that the benefits of protein consumption are increased with strength training. Only eating protein will help increase your muscle mass, as will only doing strength training on a regular basis without increasing your protein consumption. But the major benefit comes when you pair the two.
Applying it to your lifeOverwhelmed yet? Step 2: Resistance training And you’ll notice that as you bump up your resistance training, your appetite for protein will increase as well. Your body knows what’s required to keep moving heavy things and it will send a request for more (in the form of protein cravings) to your brain. Real life examplesI had no point of reference when I first started paying attention to my protein intake a couple years ago. At 195 pounds (88 kg), 1.3 g/kg lands me at 114 grams of protein per day. At first, I wasn’t sure if I’d overshot, undershot, or landed exactly where I needed to be. Here’s a real-life example of how I ate yesterday to get you started: Breakfast: 3 slices bacon + 3 eggs = 9 grams from bacon (3/slice) + 18 from eggs (6/egg) = 27 grams Lunch: Salad with chicken breast: 1 cup chopped/diced chicken breast = 43 grams protein Dinner: Venison stir fry: 6 oz venison = 52 g protein Over the course of a day, eating these 3 meals lands me at roughly 122 g of protein. Some days I eat a lot more than this, some days a little less. It all depends on my activity level and how my body feels. I made these calculations through a couple simple Google searches. That’s all for this Saturday. See you on Wednesday with our classic newsletter format. Have fun out there. Marcus Why 66.1? |
