Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / How Much Protein You Really Need to Build Muscle (Not What You Think) | Ep 398

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How Much Protein You Really Need to Build Muscle (Not What You Think) | Ep 398 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: How much protein do you actually need?
• 0:03
  Philip Pape: You've seen everything from the bros saying you need three grams per pound, hundreds of grams of protein, to the minimalists who say just barely over the RDA.
• 0:12
  Philip Pape: Meanwhile, some coach on Instagram is telling you you have to have exactly 30 grams of protein per meal, and anything more than that gets wasted.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: And my thought after all these years is the devils are in the details, but it's about nuance more than anything.
• 0:25
  Philip Pape: And so today we're gonna go back to the research, the meta-analyses, the data across hundreds of studies to answer the questions that actually matter.
• 0:32
  Philip Pape: How much protein per day, how much protein per meal, and does timing matters?
• 0:45
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering, and efficiency.
• 0:55
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, certified nutrition coach, Philip Pape, and today we're gonna again cut through the noise and conflicting advice on something very important that we all care about, and that is protein intake for muscle building.
• 1:07
  Philip Pape: I think this topic is overcomplicated.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: You have so many different voices from supplement companies to studies to Instagram social media influencers to science experts to bros, all telling you different things.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: And I think there's a lot of outdated myths as well about absorption and anabolic windows and all of these.
• 1:27
  Philip Pape: So we're just gonna go back to what the totality of evidence actually shows.
• 1:31
  Philip Pape: We're not gonna cherry pick anything, we're not gonna rely on bro science.
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: We're gonna take decades of what we know from everything and simplify it to the targets you want to know.
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: So let's start with why everyone is still confused about protein.
• 1:47
  Philip Pape: If you've spent any time researching this topic, and many of you have, you listen to podcasts that you hear talk about it all the time.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: Here's yet another episode from Wits and Weights, you've probably encountered five different recommendations at any one time.
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: And they all claim to be science-based and they all conflict.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: And that's as simple as it is as to why it's confusing, because you you hear me talk about a range of, say, 0.7 to 1 gram per pound.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: And I pretty much stick to that even to this day.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: We'll get into that.
• 2:15
  Philip Pape: But I've seen much higher numbers, 1.2 to 1.4 in some cases, when you hear the you know, protein modified fast community or the rapid fat loss, or the, you know, if you're an athlete, you really need a lot more.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: I've seen a lot recommended because you're a lot older or you're a woman, so you need a lot more due to inefficiency.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: I've heard round numbers like, hey, you know, big dudes that are trying to lift, you gotta get at least three or four hundred grams of protein, right?
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: And then on the other end, you have people coming out and saying, you know what, the more we see the research, the more we realize that the threshold is actually much less.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: And there's some truth to that as well.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: And then there's somewhere in between where people are arguing that you have to get down to is it about your ideal body weight, your current body weight, your lean body mass?
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: Like, how do we calculate all this?
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: And that's another point of confusion.
• 3:03
  Philip Pape: And then there's the debate about how much do you eat per meal?
• 3:06
  Philip Pape: Can you absorb more than a certain amount of protein at once?
• 3:10
  Philip Pape: You know, 30 grams, 40 grams.
• 3:12
  Philip Pape: You've heard about the 100 gram study where they looked at 100 grams, and that seemed to be fine in terms of muscle protein synthesis, and maybe it's superior.
• 3:18
  Philip Pape: And do you need protein frequently throughout the day, or can you have it just once or twice?
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: So I think a lot of this comes from every time a study comes out, we like moths to a flame, gravitate toward what it says and give it a lot of importance.
• 3:32
  Philip Pape: And then when the next study comes out, we like to use it to say, oh, look, that thing was wrong.
• 3:36
  Philip Pape: Here's the other thing, and it creates a nice hot take.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: There's also supplement companies involved here, and you know, who knows what to believe when it comes to that.
• 3:44
  Philip Pape: I'm not the type to say, well, just because it's funded by a company means the research is flawed.
• 3:50
  Philip Pape: But I also am not surprised if if you're trying to sell whey protein that you want people to eat as much whey protein as possible.
• 3:56
  Philip Pape: Now, the good news is we have a lot of information on this.
• 3:58
  Philip Pape: We have meta analyses which pool together hundreds of studies and data across different populations and trading statuses, ages.
• 4:06
  Philip Pape: And that's the other thing is training status, right?
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: Are we talking about people who lift and perform and athletes and those of us who listen to this show want to build muscle, or are we talking about the general sedentary population?
• 4:16
  Philip Pape: And sometimes it actually doesn't matter.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: Believe it or not, sometimes there is a minimum, no matter what, that you're going to need to, for example, hold on to what little muscle you might have, even if you're not building it.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: But if you're listening to wits and weights, you care about building and maintaining muscle as effectively as you can.
• 4:30
  Philip Pape: So let's go to the next section, which is the number that everyone wants to know total daily protein.
• 4:36
  Philip Pape: For most people, lifting weights and trying to build or maintain muscle, the research consistently supports a range of about 0.7 to one grams of protein per pound of body weight.
• 4:49
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: Super simple.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: Don't get hung up in, you know, is it 0.7 or 0.8?
• 4:55
  Philip Pape: Is it target body weight, ideal body weight, lean mass?
• 4:58
  Philip Pape: Just don't get hung up in that because the 0.701, first of all, it's a big range and your body weight's going to be changing.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: And secondly, it's it simplifies it so it's practical and is more than enough to get the job done.
• 5:09
  Philip Pape: By the way, in metric, that's 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram.
• 5:13
  Philip Pape: So if you weigh 150 pounds, it gives you a nice wide range of about 105 to 150 grams.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: If you weigh 175, that's 120 to 175.
• 5:21
  Philip Pape: If you're a 200-pound person, so a lot of you guys out there, my height, who are like 5'9, 5'10, are kind of in that range, you know, 180, 200, 220 in that range.
• 5:29
  Philip Pape: Then you're talking 140 to 200, right?
• 5:32
  Philip Pape: Not 300 grams of protein.
• 5:34
  Philip Pape: Now, some of you have heard that you need way more than that.
• 5:38
  Philip Pape: And somehow, and there's good hot, there's a lot of hot takes today.
• 5:41
  Philip Pape: We're like, well, I'm hearing all this stuff about lower protein ranges, but really, you know, serious lifters and athletes and guys who want to get big just need a ton, a lot more than that, right?
• 5:50
  Philip Pape: You see this with the big jacked influencers, like you need at least 250 grams.
• 5:54
  Philip Pape: You need 300 grams.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: So can you eat more protein?
• 5:57
  Philip Pape: Sure.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: Will it hurt you?
• 5:59
  Philip Pape: Probably not.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: However, if it starts to displace other important macros and nutrients and foods and makes it harder to be practical, that itself is a huge consideration when we think of adherence and the benefits of fats and carbs as well and other nutrients.
• 6:15
  Philip Pape: Will having that much more protein lead to more muscle growth?
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: No, and that's the point, is like you don't need it.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: But if you like more protein and that's a great way to eat for you, and you're getting enough of everything else, it's fine.
• 6:27
  Philip Pape: So the protein's kind of an interesting one in that there is a minimum you want to hit on average, but there's not really a maximum, but you also don't need a lot more than a certain amount.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: And there are plenty of meta-analyses on these that show a plateauing of lean mass gains starting at around that 0.7 grams per pound.
• 6:48
  Philip Pape: Now you're thinking, oh, 0.7, I thought you said 0.721.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: Well, that's the point.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: 0.71 starts to get diminishing returns, but still a worthwhile set of returns for most people if you're lifting weights.
• 7:00
  Philip Pape: And then it really starts to drop off at one.
• 7:03
  Philip Pape: Now, there are corner cases like rapid fat loss where you're not eating very much and you're trying to hold as much muscle as possible.
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: There are cases to be made for going above one gram per pound, right?
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: So, in a fat loss phase in general, we know that higher protein preserves muscle mass while in a deficit.
• 7:20
  Philip Pape: So I'm perfectly okay saying, you know what, going up to 1.2 grams per pound might be a worthwhile experiment for you.
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: It's worth trying that.
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: Now, it's going to be hard to do because your fats and carbs are limited by the calories remaining and the carbs really take a hit.
• 7:37
  Philip Pape: So for some people, they actually feel less energetic because of the fewer carbs.
• 7:42
  Philip Pape: And for others, it helps them because of, for example, satiety, and they do see higher lean mass retention.
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: If you're older, over 50, over 40, even, slightly higher protein can probably overcome some of your anabolic resistance.
• 7:54
  Philip Pape: That actually is a thing where your body has a reduced sensitivity to the muscle building signals, and you're giving yourself an extra little advantage because you're just not as efficient.
• 8:04
  Philip Pape: If you're a competitive athlete, you're training at very high volumes.
• 8:07
  Philip Pape: Again, you might benefit from the upper end.
• 8:09
  Philip Pape: These are the tails of the curve, right?
• 8:11
  Philip Pape: When we talk about a normal curve in a study, these are the tails, the extreme ends of the curve.
• 8:16
  Philip Pape: And I don't talk in extremes here on this show.
• 8:18
  Philip Pape: I try to give a decent target for most people.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: And then if you've gotten there consistently as a foundation, well, now you're ready to push into other levels.
• 8:27
  Philip Pape: Don't try to jump all the way.
• 8:28
  Philip Pape: I doubt you're a competitive athlete if you're not already getting enough of the foundational protein, right?
• 8:35
  Philip Pape: And I'll say most people who think that they're under-eating protein, they are able to get where they need to be once they start tracking, tracking accurately.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: That's really it.
• 8:45
  Philip Pape: And you can track in a number of ways.
• 8:46
  Philip Pape: You can track using a food logging app like Macrofactor or MyFitness Power, whatever.
• 8:50
  Philip Pape: You can also do it just manually.
• 8:52
  Philip Pape: You could do it by quantities and portions.
• 8:54
  Philip Pape: If you are eating, let's say four meals a day, or let's say three meals plus a snack a day, and every single one of those has a decent amount of protein.
• 9:02
  Philip Pape: You know, like a third of the plate is some sort of lean protein, animal product, dairy, like yogurt, cottage cheese.
• 9:09
  Philip Pape: If you're eating plant-based protein, you're gonna need more quantities to get that, right?
• 9:13
  Philip Pape: Like an oatmeal or a quinoa or something like that.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: Obviously, protein shakes, you know pretty much exactly what you're getting.
• 9:19
  Philip Pape: Then you, then you know where you're at and you know where you need to be.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: And that's really the first step for many of us, just to have that awareness.
• 9:25
  Philip Pape: Again, even if it's just visual quantities and portions.
• 9:29
  Philip Pape: And I think people eating a lot of protein who just love to eat a ton of meat.
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: I know ranchers who just get unlimited cow, you know, meat, and they're up in 200, 250, and they may not be aware how much they're eating.
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: Same idea.
• 9:42
  Philip Pape: It's like, hey, now we can balance it down and give us some rooms, more room for a little bit of those fats, but especially the carbs.
• 9:49
  Philip Pape: The carbs, I know this episode's about protein, but they all work together.
• 9:53
  Philip Pape: And to me, not having enough carbs can be its own major detriment for a lifter, especially in say fat loss when the calories are tight, but also even when muscle building, if you're jacking that protein up so high, and let's say you're eating 3,000 calories, guys, and yet you're only getting 120 grams of carbs, that's a huge missed opportunity to jack that up to 300 grams of carbs by just dropping some of that unnecessarily high protein.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 10:19
  Philip Pape: And that's just a fact.
• 10:20
  Philip Pape: I've seen it happen.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: I've talked to plenty of lifters, really good coaches in the space, and they all agree like you don't need that much protein.
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: So 0.7 to 1 grams per pound still stands as a really great range.
• 10:32
  Philip Pape: All right, next, let's talk about distribu distribution throughout the day, because this has evolved as well.
• 10:39
  Philip Pape: The per meal protein, I think, does matter, and it maybe it matters even more than people think, but not the way that you think it matters.
• 10:48
  Philip Pape: So there are still claims that you can only absorb so much protein at once, you know, and you'll hear numbers like 30 grams.
• 10:56
  Philip Pape: And that's complete nonsense.
• 10:58
  Philip Pape: Your body doesn't waste protein after some arbitrary threshold.
• 11:03
  Philip Pape: If you eat a hundred grams of protein in one meal, your body is still going to use it and still stimulate muscle protein synthesis over a longer period after that meal because you have so much protein.
• 11:15
  Philip Pape: So it doesn't magically disappear.
• 11:17
  Philip Pape: You don't have to worry about that.
• 11:18
  Philip Pape: But spreading protein across multiple meals has lots of other benefits that are worth exploring.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: Okay, this is where the nuance comes come in and the the details.
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: So we know that every time you eat a protein-rich meal, you do spike muscle protein synthesis, and the signal peaks a few hours after eating and then gradually come back comes back down.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: So if you eat protein frequently enough throughout the day, you're creating multiple peaks.
• 11:47
  Philip Pape: Whereas if you eat most of your protein in one or two massive meals, you get fewer peaks.
• 11:53
  Philip Pape: But the difference between those two extremes isn't as big as we used to think.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: That's that's the thing I want to say is that I still believe the evidence tells us there's a slight advantage to having multiple meals from that perspective, spreading throughout the day for muscle protein synthesis, but it is small enough that practical considerations to me are more important, like your digestion, eating balanced meals, those other things.
• 12:17
  Philip Pape: So I I wanted to mention that, yeah, there might be a slight advantage, but also there's things that offset it.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: There's trade-offs.
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: And I would say if you had to pick a range just for practicality and even distribution, for most people, that's gonna be like 25 to 45 grams of protein.
• 12:32
  Philip Pape: Like you don't want to have just five grams of protein in a meal unless you're you're just saying, look, I'm not even thinking of having protein in this meal.
• 12:40
  Philip Pape: I'm having this meal because of carbs, or it's a post-meal workout without protein, whatever, something like that.
• 12:46
  Philip Pape: But for the most part, if you're going to deliberately have protein, you know, aim to have some substantial amount, 20, 25, 30 grams in there.
• 12:53
  Philip Pape: And then the upper limit doesn't really matter, right?
• 12:56
  Philip Pape: It all depends on your size and your age and how much you're trying to eat a day.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: Us a petite female trying to eat 100 grams a day, you know, has a little more flexibility on that versus a man trying to get 200 grams a day, you know.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: So if you're like a 200-pound lifter, then if you're gonna have three to five meals, you do the math, you're gonna need like 30 to 40 five grams per meal on average.
• 13:20
  Philip Pape: Keeping in mind that your dinner might have 70 grams, which lowers than the averages for the rest of the meals.
• 13:26
  Philip Pape: But if you're only like 150 pounds, then that comes down to say 25 to 30 grams per meal.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: Now, the minimum is another point of conversation here, that 25 grams.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: There's still evidence that shows us leucine, leucine is one of the essential amino acids and one of the most important ones that triggers muscle protein synthesis, that you need two and a half to three grams of leucine per meal to maximize the signal.
• 13:52
  Philip Pape: Again, it's a matter of degrees.
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: It's not like a all or nothing.
• 13:56
  Philip Pape: But again, just to be smart and practical about it and then stop thinking about it after that, it getting a minimum of, say, 25 total grams per meal includes roughly that two and a half to three grams of leucine, assuming it's mostly high-quality protein sources that have the leucine.
• 14:13
  Philip Pape: Remember, protein has essential amino acids, but they don't always have all of them.
• 14:17
  Philip Pape: Animal products do.
• 14:19
  Philip Pape: Most plant products don't.
• 14:20
  Philip Pape: They have to be combined, with some exceptions.
• 14:22
  Philip Pape: I think quinoa might have them all.
• 14:24
  Philip Pape: It's definitely not a deal breaker if you have a diverse diet.
• 14:27
  Philip Pape: If you're vegan or vegetarian, it just makes a little harder.
• 14:30
  Philip Pape: You have to be a little more intentional.
• 14:31
  Philip Pape: That's really all it is.
• 14:31
  Philip Pape: We don't want to fear monger on this stuff.
• 14:34
  Philip Pape: So, eggs, dairy, beef, poultry, of course, whey protein is probably the highest quality, which is why I'm not against using whey as a little bit of supplementation in your diet.
• 14:45
  Philip Pape: And they will give you that roughly 10% of the protein as leucine, which means at least 25 grams gets you at least two and a half grams of leucine.
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: Does that make sense?
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: So, again, plant proteins, you'd need more than that to hit the threshold.
• 15:01
  Philip Pape: And so combining plant proteins and eating more high bigger portions of those is gonna work really well.
• 15:06
  Philip Pape: And you just have to watch out for the carbs and fats that come along for the ride.
• 15:09
  Philip Pape: Right?
• 15:09
  Philip Pape: There are protein powders that are vegan, though, like pea and rice blend that will give you a similar advantage as whey.
• 15:16
  Philip Pape: So, in practice, if you're eating, let's say three meals a day, just have protein in every meal.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: I mean, that's really the solution.
• 15:23
  Philip Pape: I prefer you have just balanced, balanced meals and feedings.
• 15:28
  Philip Pape: I get that you might want to have an afternoon snack with a couple of cups of berries, let's say.
• 15:33
  Philip Pape: Okay, fine.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: I'm talking about ones that have substantive calories, make them balanced.
• 15:38
  Philip Pape: And so let's say you have to hit 180 grams a day of protein, like I do, that's 60 grams per meal if I'm eating three meals.
• 15:44
  Philip Pape: Now, I tend to eat four, if not five times a day, depending on the phase.
• 15:49
  Philip Pape: So I only need, say, 40 to 50.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: Now, if I have a really big protein shake that right there, that's 60 grams of protein, all right.
• 15:56
  Philip Pape: Well, that covers a good chunk of the protein right there.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: So just do the math.
• 16:00
  Philip Pape: Avoid a pattern where you're like 10 grams at breakfast, 10, 20 grams at lunch, and then 130 grams at dinner, because you're also gonna have issues with digestion, practicality, meal planning, whatnot.
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: But if it's a natural part of your pattern and it works for you, what matters is the total protein.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: Most of all, I just wanted to address the distribution and timing anyway.
• 16:23
  Philip Pape: Now, we're talking of optimization here.
• 16:26
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• 16:39
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• 16:41
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• 16:46
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• 16:47
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• 16:52
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• 16:59
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• 17:01
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• 17:02
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• 17:08
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• 17:13
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• 17:22
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• 17:26
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• 17:29
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• 17:30
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• 17:34
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• 17:36
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• 17:39
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• 17:45
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• 17:47
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• 17:48
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• 17:56
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• 17:59
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• 18:01
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• 18:08
  Philip Pape: All right, so let's get back to protein.
• 18:10
  Philip Pape: And we talked about total protein, we talked about distribution.
• 18:13
  Philip Pape: Now let's talk about timing because I see a lot of anxiety from people who are asking me questions about protein.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: And some of it has to do with like, do I need to have protein right after my workout?
• 18:23
  Philip Pape: When do I have protein, etc.?
• 18:25
  Philip Pape: So the anabolic window, this is something that used to be talked about a lot more.
• 18:31
  Philip Pape: I hear less and less of it.
• 18:32
  Philip Pape: It is a theoretical window, like 15, 30 minutes after training, where you must consume protein or you're gonna lose all your gains.
• 18:40
  Philip Pape: I want to be clear.
• 18:42
  Philip Pape: It's almost nonsense.
• 18:44
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna say it that way.
• 18:45
  Philip Pape: It's an exaggeration, a significant exaggeration.
• 18:48
  Philip Pape: Because yes, there is a period after training where your muscles are primed to respond to protein, but it's several hours, sometimes even longer than that, depending on when you ate before training.
• 19:00
  Philip Pape: And total daily protein intake is what still matters absolutely the most, more than the distribution or the timing.
• 19:09
  Philip Pape: But all of these things are part of your experiment.
• 19:12
  Philip Pape: They're part of, hey, if you're not doing this, try it and see if it makes a difference for you.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: So if you train early in the morning, let's say 6 a.m.
• 19:20
  Philip Pape: and you train fasted, but you eat at seven or eight, that's fine.
• 19:24
  Philip Pape: I mean, you you'll get used to training fasted.
• 19:27
  Philip Pape: For most people, I find they actually do better when they eat before they train, but not everybody.
• 19:32
  Philip Pape: Some people are cool with this.
• 19:33
  Philip Pape: If you train at noon and you eat lunch at one or two, again, that's fine.
• 19:38
  Philip Pape: If you train in the evening and then you eat dinner within a couple hours, it's fine.
• 19:41
  Philip Pape: Like that's it.
• 19:42
  Philip Pape: Don't overthink it.
• 19:43
  Philip Pape: The only scenario where I think post-workout timing becomes really important is that scenario I just mentioned where you train, you train fasted and you haven't had protein in like many, many, many hours.
• 19:54
  Philip Pape: You actually will probably feel better if you have some protein a little bit sooner, but it doesn't have to be 30 minutes.
• 20:00
  Philip Pape: I mean, within an hour or two, I'm just saying don't wait hours and hours and hours and hours because that could give you a suboptimal result in terms of your gym time, which is we're trying to maximize that.
• 20:10
  Philip Pape: I think what matters more than post-workout timing is consistent protein intake throughout the day.
• 20:16
  Philip Pape: Oh, sound familiar.
• 20:17
  Philip Pape: It's the last thing we talked about.
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: And there's research that compares like front loading your protein versus evenly distributing.
• 20:25
  Philip Pape: And again, the even distribution shows slightly better protein synthesis, but it shouldn't override the practicality of it that we've already discussed.
• 20:36
  Philip Pape: So that's really all I have to say is just if you train fasted, eat within a couple hours.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: If you've eaten protein before your workout, like I most I recommend to a lot of people a banana and a whey protein, you know, whey protein at least half an hour before you work out as a minimum.
• 20:51
  Philip Pape: Because that way you get some fast digesting, easy on your stomach protein and carbs.
• 20:56
  Philip Pape: And the banana is pretty low fiber and it has electrolytes.
• 21:00
  Philip Pape: That's just one thought.
• 21:01
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 21:01
  Philip Pape: Try that out.
• 21:02
  Philip Pape: Then when you work out, yeah, you've got many hours before you have to eat after that.
• 21:06
  Philip Pape: Most of us are gonna feel great, though, having some protein and carbs within an hour or two, anyway, to kind of refill that glycogen.
• 21:12
  Philip Pape: But it's not like you're gonna immediately train again.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: So it's cool.
• 21:15
  Philip Pape: It's cool, guys.
• 21:16
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 21:17
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 21:18
  Philip Pape: Now let's move to where your protein comes from and protein quality, because this is yet another area that is highly fear-mongered on social media.
• 21:28
  Philip Pape: Protein quality.
• 21:30
  Philip Pape: And usually it's people trying to sell you something that is, in their mind, in opinion, higher quality.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: And this could be a supplement company that says, oh, we have clean ingredients.
• 21:39
  Philip Pape: And I get it.
• 21:40
  Philip Pape: Look, if you if you formulated something that you're really proud of, people find it delicious and it makes their body feel good.
• 21:48
  Philip Pape: And they had trouble with other products that had things like additives, dyes, artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, blah, blah, blah.
• 21:55
  Philip Pape: And that's a selling point for you.
• 21:57
  Philip Pape: I understand that.
• 21:58
  Philip Pape: This is capitalism, as long as you're not lying, right?
• 22:01
  Philip Pape: As long as you, you know, I get it.
• 22:03
  Philip Pape: But oftentimes they stretch the truth a bit by suggesting that the other product is so far inferior because it doesn't have the same level of quality and therefore it can't help you with building muscle.
• 22:15
  Philip Pape: Look, pretty much protein is protein, and I say it that way in the sense that the same source of protein.
• 22:20
  Philip Pape: Like if two protein bars have whey protein, it's still whey protein, despite all the other ingredients around it, right?
• 22:26
  Philip Pape: They're two different issues we're talking about.
• 22:28
  Philip Pape: And I would say what makes something high quality in this context is just two things.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: Does it have the complete amino acid profile?
• 22:36
  Philip Pape: So that would be an animal-based protein or a combination of plant-based proteins like pea and rice.
• 22:41
  Philip Pape: And does it have reasonable leucine content, which is solved by what we just said?
• 22:45
  Philip Pape: So they go hand in hand, right?
• 22:47
  Philip Pape: Animal proteins, eggs, dairy, beef, poultry, fish, whey, they check the boxes easily.
• 22:51
  Philip Pape: And plant proteins can totally build muscle, but many individual sources are a little bit lower in one or more of these essential amino acids.
• 22:59
  Philip Pape: But it's a simple solution, just combine them throughout the day.
• 23:02
  Philip Pape: And if you're if you are a vegetarian or vegan, I would hope that you have a thus have a very diverse diet.
• 23:08
  Philip Pape: Now, I've known what I call dessert vegetarians who don't even eat vegetables and eat a lot of like processed foods.
• 23:15
  Philip Pape: I'm not talking to those people.
• 23:16
  Philip Pape: That that's a problem for omnivores and vegans and vegetarians, right?
• 23:22
  Philip Pape: So I'm talking about if you eat whole foods, you have a diverse diet, you have enough foods in there to cover all your bases.
• 23:27
  Philip Pape: For people who don't eat meat or animal products, that's rice and beans, soy and grains, peas and hemp, more total protein from plant sources to compensate, things like that.
• 23:37
  Philip Pape: It's not a big deal.
• 23:38
  Philip Pape: I would so if you're vegan or vegetarian, in other words, I would go back to my first topic today and shoot more for the higher grams per pound just to cover your bases.
• 23:48
  Philip Pape: And also if you're over 40, when it comes to protein quality, again, is it more important?
• 23:53
  Philip Pape: It's only important from a sense of are you able to absorb enough of what you need?
• 23:57
  Philip Pape: And so I always like pushing it a little bit higher, just a little bit, you know, more on that 1.0 rather than the 0.7.
• 24:03
  Philip Pape: If you want to push to 1.1, 1.2, perfectly fine.
• 24:06
  Philip Pape: Perfectly fine.
• 24:07
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 24:08
  Philip Pape: This is more optimization, not make or break.
• 24:10
  Philip Pape: If you're in that range, you're good.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: Okay, the next topic is when does more protein become counterproductive?
• 24:17
  Philip Pape: I alluded to this already, but I had a special topic on this because the idea is, okay, well, if protein is good, more protein is better, and even more is even better.
• 24:26
  Philip Pape: Up to a point that's true.
• 24:28
  Philip Pape: Past that point, you're gonna make your diet just less balanced and you're gonna make it less practical.
• 24:35
  Philip Pape: And maybe it's gonna be more expensive too, because usually it costs more to have more protein in your diet.
• 24:40
  Philip Pape: And so now you're displacing other nutrients, other macros, potentially wasting your money.
• 24:45
  Philip Pape: And we mentioned how muscle protein synthesis plateaus around it starts plateauing at 0.7 grams per pound, and then going beyond one offers minimal additional benefit.
• 24:55
  Philip Pape: So the point of revisiting this topic is simply if you want enough carbs for energy to keep your stress low, to help with your hormones, to help build muscle, to help preserve muscle, if you want enough fat for hormone support, for taste, you know, for having a delicious diet, then that's gonna be the offset to having so much protein in your diet.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: And I've definitely had clients who are big protein eaters and it was almost, you know, challenging their philosophy of existence to ask them to drop their protein a bit.
• 25:27
  Philip Pape: But if you're listening and you're in that camp, the way I suggest doing it is actually a fairly, how do I put this?
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: A fairly meaningful switch as an experiment.
• 25:38
  Philip Pape: Meaning if you eat 250 grams of protein, drop it by like 40 grams a day, you know, to like 210 or even 200, and give all of that to carbs.
• 25:49
  Philip Pape: Because remember, protein and carbs are the same energy density, whereas fat has higher energy density.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: So you can basically swap one for the other.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: So if you drop 50 grams of protein, you can increase 50 grams of carbs.
• 26:00
  Philip Pape: See what that does for your biofeedback, for your hunger, your digestion, your energy and sleep, how you perform in the gym, all of those things and see, because you might be surprised.
• 26:11
  Philip Pape: You might be like, whoa, I was actually missing carbs all this time.
• 26:16
  Philip Pape: And I'm reassured that I don't even need that much protein.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: So this is my new balance.
• 26:20
  Philip Pape: Pretty cool.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: So just a quick recap: take your body weight, multiply by 0.7, that's your minimum, and that's in pounds, guys, right?
• 26:29
  Philip Pape: Or 1.6 if you're doing kilograms, and that's your minimum.
• 26:33
  Philip Pape: And then you can kind of go up from there based on preference and balance.
• 26:37
  Philip Pape: And push toward the higher end if you're a little bit older, push toward the higher end if you're definitely into performance and athleticism and lifting.
• 26:44
  Philip Pape: Push a little higher if you're in fat loss.
• 26:46
  Philip Pape: Definitely push higher if you're in a very aggressive fat loss phase.
• 26:49
  Philip Pape: Stop stressing about the window, just eat within a couple hours after working out.
• 26:54
  Philip Pape: Spread throughout the day because it's pretty much pretty practical and you will maximize muscle protein synthesis, but you don't have to have it at every meal.
• 27:01
  Philip Pape: You don't have to spread it out.
• 27:02
  Philip Pape: It just tends to be more practical.
• 27:04
  Philip Pape: Focus on quality, and quality is simply diversity of your foods and enough of it.
• 27:09
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: Pretty simple.
• 27:10
  Philip Pape: So before we wrap up, I do have a few, I'll say myths or mistakes people make that I wanted to address based on your questions and comments to me over the past few years.
• 27:20
  Philip Pape: So the first one is saving all your protein for dinner.
• 27:23
  Philip Pape: If you're eating low-protein breakfast and lunch and trying to have all this at dinner, I'm not saying it's bad to do that.
• 27:29
  Philip Pape: What I'm saying is you end up getting stressed because this is where I hear somebody say, I haven't hit my protein, but I'm almost at my calories.
• 27:36
  Philip Pape: What do I do?
• 27:37
  Philip Pape: Should I try to hit my protein and go over my calories?
• 27:39
  Philip Pape: Or should I stay here and hit my calories?
• 27:41
  Philip Pape: And I'm like, okay, the problem here isn't the answer to that question.
• 27:45
  Philip Pape: The problem is that you got there in the first place.
• 27:47
  Philip Pape: I don't really care about the answer to that question.
• 27:49
  Philip Pape: I mean, usually I'll say, just hit your calories and be done with the day and take the loss and the next day preload your protein better.
• 27:56
  Philip Pape: That's all.
• 27:56
  Philip Pape: You know, spread it out.
• 27:57
  Philip Pape: That's that's why you do that, because we don't want to try to get 100 grams at dinner.
• 28:02
  Philip Pape: The next thing is that, you know, people dismiss plant proteins or it's really an afterthought.
• 28:09
  Philip Pape: And we're finding more and more potential benefits to just having more plants in your diet in general.
• 28:14
  Philip Pape: So, you know, not just fiber, but you know, polyphenols and compounds, vitamins, nutrients, so many reasons to have plants in your diet, you might as well bias that toward protein-containing plants.
• 28:26
  Philip Pape: And so it behooves you to learn a little bit about which foods contain more protein than other foods.
• 28:32
  Philip Pape: Like oats and quinoa come to mind as having more, you know, various uh grains, uh pasta products, cereal grains, are crazy high in protein as well, right?
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: Like just bread.
• 28:43
  Philip Pape: People are surprised how much protein is in bread if you have a sandwich.
• 28:46
  Philip Pape: Obviously, you get the carbs along for the ride.
• 28:47
  Philip Pape: People are like, well, that's processed foods.
• 28:49
  Philip Pape: Look, it's a matter of degrees, okay?
• 28:51
  Philip Pape: We talked about the anabolic window, so I'm not gonna hammer that home again.
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: We talked about thinking more is always better.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: Okay, the next one I have is you know, ignoring overall calories, right?
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: It's not just about protein.
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: Yes, I think if you're not paying attention to anything right now and you start adding in protein to every meal because you're under-eating, that's a great first step.
• 29:11
  Philip Pape: Then I would add protein in every meal as well.
• 29:14
  Philip Pape: I mean, uh fiber in every meal.
• 29:15
  Philip Pape: So once you got protein and fiber added to each meal, take this additive approach.
• 29:19
  Philip Pape: You start to get in these really good foods for you on your plate.
• 29:23
  Philip Pape: It starts to displace other things.
• 29:24
  Philip Pape: But then at that point, you still might be overconsuming.
• 29:27
  Philip Pape: Now, maybe you're underconsuming too, different issue.
• 29:30
  Philip Pape: The point is there is an aspect of energy intake that has to be, you have to pay attention to.
• 29:35
  Philip Pape: The good thing about protein is it's the most filling macro.
• 29:38
  Philip Pape: It also burns the most calories being digested.
• 29:40
  Philip Pape: So a lot of people when they add protein in, especially when they double or triple because they were far under consuming, they find that their hunger signals regulate better and they eat less, they eat fewer calories after all, even though they're eating more calories from protein, if that makes sense.
• 29:55
  Philip Pape: So, just all together, if you start your day with protein.
• 29:59
  Philip Pape: Your breakfast in a meaningful amount.
• 30:02
  Philip Pape: That's where a lot of people don't even have that.
• 30:04
  Philip Pape: That's your action for today is look at your breakfast.
• 30:06
  Philip Pape: If you don't have at least 25 grams of protein, how can you change that?
• 30:09
  Philip Pape: And that's kind of the momentum builder or the catalyst to get you going.
• 30:12
  Philip Pape: So the last thing I'm going to close with here is really about meal planning in general, because hitting your protein targets consistently is about structuring day to day what you should eat.
• 30:25
  Philip Pape: And that's all it is.
• 30:26
  Philip Pape: So I have something called the Meal Planning Advisor GPT.
• 30:30
  Philip Pape: It's a chat GPT, GPT that I created and I've trained it.
• 30:33
  Philip Pape: It's inside Physique University.
• 30:35
  Philip Pape: So anybody who's in there gets access to it.
• 30:37
  Philip Pape: If you're not in Physique University, what are you waiting for?
• 30:39
  Philip Pape: Join us, witsandwaits.com/slash physique.
• 30:42
  Philip Pape: Use my special code for podcast listeners.
• 30:44
  Philip Pape: It's FreePlan.
• 30:45
  Philip Pape: And you can get the custom the free custom nutrition plan as well.
• 30:48
  Philip Pape: But once you're in there, this is one of the many tools we give you.
• 30:50
  Philip Pape: And what I love about this tool is I've trained it with our philosophy of flexible eating, with lots of stuff from my brain and from what the science has taught me that's super flexible and practical.
• 31:03
  Philip Pape: So it's essentially a conversational way to say, okay, where do I start?
• 31:07
  Philip Pape: I know I need to get more protein.
• 31:09
  Philip Pape: Here are my macros, or here's what I'm trying to do, here's what I like and don't like, and it will prompt you for things like that.
• 31:15
  Philip Pape: And here's your meal plan.
• 31:16
  Philip Pape: Like here's what you here's a potential meal plan.
• 31:19
  Philip Pape: And then you tell it what you like to eat, how much time you have, what your goals are, and it generates that for you, whether it's a single meal, the a daily meal plan, the weekly meal plan.
• 31:29
  Philip Pape: It could give you a grocery list, all that fun stuff.
• 31:31
  Philip Pape: This is one of the aspects of AI that I really love because it's information.
• 31:36
  Philip Pape: I think information should be free.
• 31:38
  Philip Pape: Now I'm telling you to join a paid program to get access to this.
• 31:41
  Philip Pape: This is a GPT that I spent time and effort training, and I want to give that value to our clients and members.
• 31:48
  Philip Pape: That's one of the reasons they join us.
• 31:50
  Philip Pape: Obviously, you can go to AI and do this stuff yourself, but the Meal Planning Advisor GPT curates it all for you ahead of time.
• 31:56
  Philip Pape: It's trained ahead of time, so it'll give you what I'll call the right answer instead of you having to chase down and play around with it.
• 32:02
  Philip Pape: And of course, in physique university, you get all the tools, support, training templates, community support needed, and courses to help you lose fat and build muscle and get to your goal in a much more efficient way.
• 32:15
  Philip Pape: Go to wittowace.com slash physique.
• 32:17
  Philip Pape: Use my code FREEPLAN to get that custom nutrition plan.
• 32:20
  Philip Pape: And I hope that answered all your questions about the big things in protein.
• 32:24
  Philip Pape: If I didn't add answer a question you have about protein, it's probably because it doesn't matter.
• 32:28
  Philip Pape: And I don't mean that to be a jerk.
• 32:29
  Philip Pape: I mean that to take it off your mind, take it off your chest, and not even not even worry about it.
• 32:34
  Philip Pape: But if you do have questions, you know how to reach me.
• 32:37
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 32:40
  Philip Pape: And remember that your body is capable of incredible things, but it needs the right fuel, the right type of fuel, the right stimulus over time.
• 32:48
  Philip Pape: One of those is protein.
• 32:50
  Philip Pape: This is Philip Pape, and I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights podcast.