can someone give me some good research on why we need to eat REALLY high amounts of protein to gain muscle, when muscles are made up of 70% water and 30% glucose and amino acids, shouldnt we be getting most of our foods from carbs and healthy fats and like around 15% of cals from protein
I take it you’re pretty new to the site. Although according to your profile, it says you’ve been registered for since October.
That said, you have a lot to learn about proper nutrition. If you hvaen’t already done so, look up Dr. Peter Lemon (although I think he’s a little on the conservative side), Dr. John Berardi, and Dr. Lonnie Lowery. Their writings (you can find the last two authors on a search of this site) detail pretty much every reason you need to get more protein. Read everything they wrote on this site to get a base level of knowledge.
There’s pretty much a laundry list of reasons. I won’t go through them all, but here a just a few.
From Science of Sports Training (Kurz 2001)
Consequences of not eating enough protein (Gumowska 1990; Sears 1995):
Feeling weak (not having enough iron reduces endurance and makes a person feel weak all the time)
Flabby muscles
Muscle soreness for a long time
Slow recovery after a workout
Inability to lose body fat
Constipation and loss of calcium
Hair loss and dandruff
Eating enough protein may fix all these problems
Eating protein increases insulin sensitivity.
Eating too much carbohydrate in the diet can lead to (from Maffetone 1997):
Sleepiness after a meal (due to unnecessary insulin spikes)
Bloating after a meal
Getting angry or depressed (overstress of the adrenal glands trying to stabilize the drop of blood sugar from excess insulin/bad insulin sensitivity. Can lead to cycles of anger and depression)
Neck tension and pains (lowered tonus of latissimus dorsi from insulin means raised tonus of neck muscles, which is not good)
Knee pains (exhaustion of the darenal glands, lowered tonus of the sartorius muscle, a knee stabilizer)
Fatigue (exhausts the adrenal glands)
Needless to say, constantly using stimulants also stresses the adrenals and leads to some of these conditions.
Hopefully that helps you out with an overview. Now, I think you need to go get some reading done!
Do any of the the newbies try to search the archives before asking basic questions like this?
Start w/ this article: “Protein Prejudice,” by John Berardi.