How Are Y'all Getting Enough Protein?

Diet and Nutrition
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@FlatsFarmer is pretty dead on. Thanks for tagging me mate!

The studies these numbers have been extrapolated from are either clinical studies of burn patients/diseased patients/otherwise impaired (fed intravenously)…or they are studies based on what maximizes muscle protein synthesis (otherwise called MPS) after a workout.

The rub is, MPS depends on the experience level of the athlete, the difficulty and volume of workout, the frequency of training, and other factors.

Of course, when measuring MPS after a workout you are not actually measuring what is absorbed by digestion vs pooped out. You are measuring training response. Not the same thing as what is digested or “used”.

It is very common to get contradictory results from different experimental protocols, and the laboratory definition of “experienced trainee” is generally what we on T-Nation would call a noob in terms of worthwhile experience or strength. There are some exceptions in the literature of course.

Being a noob, practically anything works. For example, there was a much touted review in the past couple years on “nutrient timing” that concluded that it didn’t matter. Problem was, out of the 22 or so studies they reviewed something like 18 of the studies used untrained or minimally trained subjects…and the studies that used athletes or REAL experienced trainees showed that nutrient timing DID have an impact (pretty much like we meatheads thought it would).

Similar things go with protein only vs carb only vs protein/carb shakes post workout, and a bunch of other areas.

The other problem is that when one measures MPS, that DOESN’T MEAN THAT ALL OF THE SYNTHESIZED PROTEIN BUILDS NEW MUSCLE.

In fact, all it means on its own is that the cell is busy making enzymes and such. MPS is an umbrella term for ALL proteins synthesized in a muscle cell–which includes enzymes, immune antibodies, DNA replication machinery, ribosomes, heat shock proteins, protein folding chaperones, etc etc etc. In other words, things that are vastly different from actual muscle fiber protein.

Also, @IronAndMetal gave some absolutely killer real world breakdowns of diet and budget.

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Also, here’s another tidbit:

Many studies only test muscle protein synthesis for 1-4 hours after the training session. Leaving aside the question of whether the training session was actually designed well or was sufficient (many researchers suck ass at that), there’s also 1 magor problem with this…

It usually takes between 12-24 hours to ratchet up new gene activation and expression (transcription/translation), depending. So acute MPS measurements actually DON’T tell you what is being called upon to “wake up and get busy” in many cases. What you are looking at in many of these short 1-5 hour measurements is NOT new gene activation. It is the “gene hangover”–expressed mRNA that was already hanging around in the cell at the time of training. That is only part of the story

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Thanks for the great explanation/interpretation.

I saw lots of articles that mentioned the 2009 study and the 30g, but nobody really explained what that had to do with how much protein they said to eat.

It seemed like they were trying to sound smart/BS a little.

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No problem!

Truthfully, the studies hold some water in their specific areas (again, not all research or all PhDs are created equal, that’s one of the problems with using only 1 study as “proof” of anything), but the bigger problem is people not reading or reading and not understanding the studies.

These people will quote the conclusions of the study from the abstract without actually understanding the study or the limitations. Sometimes to sound smart or BS, sometimes because they just don’t know any better or don’t understand the specifics of language used in the study. This last one is a biggie because there are often quite specific or quite narrow technical definitions of things in research. Sort of a private language that seems common enough but doesn’t mean what you think it means :stuck_out_tongue:.

Note though that careful reading by a dedicated layperson can usually come up with the general conclusions accurately. Problem is that many people don’t read carefully haha.

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Any tips on getting more protein if i am in college and on a budget?

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The amount of protein isn’t so much of a concern, you’ll find. I’d recommend a gram per pound of bodyweight, as that’s worked for me.

I recommend eating lean beef a few times a week, along with simple staple cheap foods like tuna, eggs, whole chickens, natty nut butters/nuts, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, etc.

A slow cooker is a nice investment, as you can run that shit all day and come home and eat some decent food, as well as a hot plate or something. For me, I’d eat spoonfuls of peanut butter throughout hectic busy days, and eat cold canned chicken with lemon juice and white rice. Nasty…but it got the job done.

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Thanks. I have had a hard time thinking of ideas but I guess they were right in front of me the whole time. Thanks for the reply