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Weekend Q&A: Whey vs. Plant Protein, Essential Amino Acids, Too Much Protein Myth · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: Today we're answering a question about protein intake and supplementation.
• 0:03
  Philip Pape: We'll cover the differences between protein sources, optimal timing and what happens if you exceed your target intake.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: Stay tuned for science-based answers on today's weekend Q&A.
• 0:14
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights Podcast.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:30
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:40
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:42
  Philip Pape: Absolute best.
• 0:49
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:49
  Philip Pape: Hello and welcome to the special weekend Q&A edition of the Wits and Weights podcast, where we supercharge your Saturdays and Sundays with an answer to one burning question so you can put it into action this weekend.
• 0:59
  Philip Pape: These questions are taken from the weekly Ask Philip thread in our free Wits and Waits Facebook community.
• 1:05
  Philip Pape: If you're feeling overwhelmed by the endless amount of information and, let's be honest, misinformation online and just want a straight-up answer without the jargon, that's what this free service is for.
• 1:17
  Philip Pape: With the weekly Ask Philip thread, you can post a specific question relevant to your unique individual situation that week and have it answered live by me on Friday.
• 1:28
  Philip Pape: If you'd like to experience it yourself, I invite you to use the link in the show notes to join the Wits and Weights Facebook group.
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: It's totally free and you'll quickly find out what a positive and supportive community it is.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: With that, let's get to today's Q&A.
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: The question today is here we go Question as to protein and protein powders as a supplement to meet daily intake, and there are one, two, three, four, five specific questions in here, and so I'm going to actually ask.
• 2:00
  Philip Pape: I'm going to say the question and then I'm going to provide my answer.
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: I've got all my notes together here.
• 2:05
  Philip Pape: So the first question does every whey protein isolate contain all the essential amino acids?
• 2:11
  Philip Pape: Okay, this is a pertinent question because you've probably heard, we want to get all our amino acids for maximum muscle.
• 2:19
  Philip Pape: Protein synthesis to build muscle, preserve muscle, optimal health, protein synthesis to build muscle, preserve muscle, optimal health.
• 2:28
  Philip Pape: Whey protein is one of the most pure forms of getting all the essential amino acids.
• 2:30
  Philip Pape: It's from an animal product, from milk, and it contains them all, so it's a complete protein and it especially has a high level of leucine.
• 2:38
  Philip Pape: It has about 10% by volume of leucine, so in a 30 gram scoop you're going to get about three grams of leucine and you might've heard about the leucine.
• 2:45
  Philip Pape: So in a 30 gram scoop you're going to get about three grams of leucine and you might've heard about the leucine threshold, which is like two and a half grams.
• 2:50
  Philip Pape: I don't want to get hung up on that.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: In fact, you'll hear me cover this in some of your other questions but the answer is yes.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: So that's why I love whey protein and also casein protein and also animal sources of protein in food form and milk and dairy and all of that stuff Anything you can tolerate or that you have in your diet.
• 3:12
  Philip Pape: Right, if you don't eat any of those things, that's fine.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: You could always go to plants as well, and plants and I think you're going to ask this question a bit later but the right combination of plants and it doesn't take that much manipulation will also get you all the amino acids.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: I've definitely come around on that topic over the past few years.
• 3:33
  Philip Pape: I used to be one of those like well, plants don't have all the amino acids, so you really need to mix and match very precisely.
• 3:38
  Philip Pape: It's not that crazy.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: A lot of this stuff you're going to find has a very low practical threshold, even if it has a higher optimal threshold.
• 3:47
  Philip Pape: That makes sense, right?
• 3:49
  Philip Pape: So we always have to think of like are we even doing the practical thing for us first before we think of the optimal thing beyond that, because optimal sometimes requires trade-offs that we're not willing to make or don't even need to make.
• 4:01
  Philip Pape: So, yes, whey protein, all the amino acids, and it's high in leucine, so it's an excellent source of protein.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: Your second question is are essential amino acids?
• 4:11
  Philip Pape: So this is EAAs are essential amino acid supplements needed if one meets the daily protein intake from animal protein?
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: Now, the way you phrased that question is an emphatic no, they're not needed if you get all your protein from now.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: You said animal protein, but I would just say from any source of protein if you get it all.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: I've definitely commented on this before on a previous Q&A and I may have commented on it in a podcast as well, but I think they're a waste of money for 99% of people.
• 4:40
  Philip Pape: If you're meeting your daily protein intake with high quality protein, they're not needed.
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: All right, because, again, you have your complete amino acids.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: Why do you need to take amino acids?
• 4:48
  Philip Pape: The only people these possibly could be slightly beneficial for are people who train fasted and want to avoid the reduction in, or want to stimulate some muscle protein synthesis that would otherwise be less optimal or even low low if you didn't have it in there.
• 5:08
  Philip Pape: But then I'd be asking you, why are you training fasted?
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: Because I don't think most people are going to perform their best training fasted, and out of the 10 reasons people give me for doing it, nine can be quickly.
• 5:21
  Philip Pape: Um, I don't want to say shot down, but eight or nine can probably be reframed, and you realize that they're not a direct reason to train fasted.
• 5:32
  Philip Pape: But maybe one or two reasons remain, having to do with how you feel and your schedule taking a medication that requires you to wait before you eat, and so you end up working out quickly after you wake up, or something like that.
• 5:47
  Philip Pape: And even then I would say there are ways around it to get some protein from food or some whey protein or whatever in your system as you're starting to work out, and you don't need EAAs.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: So that's my thought on that.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: Your next question is would plant protein have the same effect?
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: All right, let's just lay it out there.
• 6:06
  Philip Pape: Plant protein can be just as effective as animal protein for building muscle, for maintaining muscle during fat loss, especially if your diet is full of diversity, right, and I don't think it takes as I mentioned earlier, I don't think it takes a severe level of engineering to figure out the right combination of plants.
• 6:29
  Philip Pape: If you have diversity, you're going to be fine.
• 6:32
  Philip Pape: I think some plant proteins even have complete proteins, like quinoa, soy.
• 6:39
  Philip Pape: But again, you don't have to do it that way.
• 6:41
  Philip Pape: Just enjoy a bunch of different grains, a bunch of different plants, different vegetables, different fruits.
• 6:46
  Philip Pape: Well, most foods aren't going to have protein, but legumes, soy-derived products, if you enjoy those so many.
• 6:54
  Philip Pape: So the answer is yes, it can be just as effective.
• 6:57
  Philip Pape: Where I think people run into trouble is when they don't have enough protein.
• 7:02
  Philip Pape: So, a lot of vegans and some vegetarians although many vegetarians will eat eggs or they'll eat dairy and that helps offset it a bit Vegans.
• 7:11
  Philip Pape: That's a tough place to be and does take a little bit of thought and preparation.
• 7:16
  Philip Pape: But, just like anything we do, takes a little bit of thought and preparation.
• 7:22
  Philip Pape: Constructing your own routine meal plan early on as we go through that metabolic conditioning and that pre-diet maintenance phase, and figuring out what works for you.
• 7:32
  Philip Pape: How do you get enough protein, how do you get enough carbs?
• 7:34
  Philip Pape: You still have to think about it and plan for it and have a roadmap.
• 7:40
  Philip Pape: So vegans, it's just a different way to do that, and so when you look at the evidence anytime, you see that vegans underperform when it comes to muscle building.
• 7:50
  Philip Pape: It's simply because they don't get enough protein.
• 7:52
  Philip Pape: And if they do get enough protein, that difference goes away.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: So I'm all for plant-based diets if that's what you want.
• 7:59
  Philip Pape: I'm not plant-based, I'm an omnivore.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: I know some people are plant-based for omnivore.
• 8:10
  Philip Pape: I know some people are plant-based for health reasons, which I feel is more of a dubious reason than for ethical reasons.
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: Meaning, if you're doing it for ethical reasons, there's no argument against that, because that's your values, right?
• 8:20
  Philip Pape: You can't argue against that.
• 8:21
  Philip Pape: If you're doing it for quote-unquote health reasons, I'd want to understand why and I'm going off on a tangent here because I think it's important A lot of people think, oh, I don't eat meat for health.
• 8:31
  Philip Pape: I want to understand where you're going with that, because if it's because of studies that say red meat's bad for you, we have to look at, okay, is that actually processed red meats that are found in people who have unhealthy lifestyles in general and they're confounded with that variable right or the different sources of oils, or the different dairies or the saturated fats.
• 8:53
  Philip Pape: There's so many things we can tease out.
• 8:54
  Philip Pape: I think a plant-based diet or an omnivorous diet can be healthy, and if it's for moral or value reasons, that actually makes the most sense to me.
• 9:06
  Philip Pape: But if, hey, if you want to argue the point that a plant-based diet is quote unquote healthier just on its face, I'd love to have that discussion.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: And I'm not saying that I won't definitely see reason in that if the evidence supports some of it, okay.
• 9:21
  Philip Pape: The next one is would it matter or would it be better if I take most of my protein in my breakfast and dinner and not so much at lunch?
• 9:31
  Philip Pape: Okay?
• 9:33
  Philip Pape: So this is a great question, veronica, because here's what I'm going to ask you to do.
• 9:38
  Philip Pape: Anytime you have a question like this, the first question I want you to ask yourself back is what's the most practical thing for me, like what fits within my lifestyle, the best that I'm not forcing?
• 9:51
  Philip Pape: Then I want you to ask is that approach good enough to meet my goals?
• 9:56
  Philip Pape: And the reason I did it that way is because when you ask me a question, it's better to take it in breakfast and dinner and not so high at lunch.
• 10:02
  Philip Pape: Are you eating a lot at lunch and worried that that is hurting your gains Because, let's say, it's all concentrated at lunch and dinner and not so much at breakfast.
• 10:12
  Philip Pape: And now you're like, oh, but maybe I should spread it out more and you're worried that that's going to be more difficult or whatever.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: So I want to tease apart those things.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: These lifestyle and practical factors are actually important and relevant in my opinion, and they're the foundation of everything I believe in here when I work with clients, because the journey I went through required a lot of cognitive dissonance, meaning things in my brain didn't compute and I would go on a diet and say this doesn't feel right, but I'm doing it because I think I have to do it.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: So same thing If you don't feel right about something, do you need to do it?
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: Do you need to make that trade-off Now?
• 10:50
  Philip Pape: Sometimes we do.
• 10:51
  Philip Pape: If you just tell me I almost eat no protein right now and you're telling me I have to eat a lot of protein oh, that's so hard Then I'm going to say you know what?
• 10:59
  Philip Pape: Suck it up.
• 11:00
  Philip Pape: My wife would say suck it up, buttercup.
• 11:02
  Philip Pape: I don't mean that in a disparaging way, I mean it in a sometimes there's hard things we have to do, and sometimes, if we have a goal, we have to make choices that support the goal.
• 11:11
  Philip Pape: If we don't want to make those choices, we're not going to get that goal.
• 11:14
  Philip Pape: That's it, just to be a very objective about it.
• 11:16
  Philip Pape: So you don't have to do anything in life, right?
• 11:19
  Philip Pape: But you need to do certain things to cause an outcome Fair enough.
• 11:24
  Philip Pape: Okay, to cause an outcome Fair enough, okay.
• 11:28
  Philip Pape: Anyway, again another tangent, I'm going on.
• 11:29
  Philip Pape: For some reason I'm fired up today.
• 11:30
  Philip Pape: It's probably because I'm on my second cup of coffee and I had a pre workout with caffeine today, probably hitting that limit of milligrams of caffeine, but I make no apologies for it.
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: So your question here's the thing when it comes to protein distribution number one are you getting total daily intake?
• 11:43
  Philip Pape: That is the most the thing.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: When it comes to protein distribution number one, are you getting total daily intake?
• 11:48
  Philip Pape: That is the most crucial thing.
• 11:50
  Philip Pape: So if you're getting that, veronica, I'm happy to answer your question.
• 11:53
  Philip Pape: If you're not getting it, I'm not going to answer your question Now.
• 11:57
  Philip Pape: I'm going to answer it for everyone now, but you get what I'm saying.
• 12:01
  Philip Pape: So if you get your total protein I don't care if it's in one meal get to that total protein in some practical way that works for you.
• 12:08
  Philip Pape: Then you can say okay, can I optimize it further?
• 12:10
  Philip Pape: Sure, we think that eating two or three times a day instead of one is a decent bump in optimality when it comes to muscle protein synthesis, because you are spiking it more often, you're passing that loosening threshold more often and maybe that means that as your body turns energy amino acids into muscle tissue, it's going to take more of that and put it into muscle instead of fat storage.
• 12:34
  Philip Pape: You know, assuming you're not in a diet right now, that's what we're talking about and you might, over time over like a six month building phase maybe you'll have a 1.1 to 0.9 ratio of muscle to fat instead of just a one-to-one ratio of muscle to fat.
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: That's the kind of difference it makes.
• 12:55
  Philip Pape: That's why we call it optimal and why it's not the thing you should be focusing on.
• 12:58
  Philip Pape: Until you've covered the practical, okay, so, number one, get your total daily intake.
• 13:01
  Philip Pape: Number two sure, spread it out to at least two or three meals.
• 13:05
  Philip Pape: I used to say four or five.
• 13:06
  Philip Pape: You don't have to do that.
• 13:08
  Philip Pape: That gives you a point of diminishing returns above the three.
• 13:11
  Philip Pape: But that's a practical thing.
• 13:14
  Philip Pape: And what do I mean by that?
• 13:16
  Philip Pape: If you're at maintenance or you're building, you probably want to eat four or five times a day anyway, just so you're not stuffed in any given meal, so that you don't feel hungry between long stretches, so that you have a decent amount of energy throughout the day, and just practically it tends to work out that way for most people's schedules.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: Excuse me, I feel like I'm about to sneeze here.
• 13:35
  Philip Pape: So, but whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever, it almost doesn't matter.
• 13:39
  Philip Pape: If you're going to have protein two or three times, I mean, it kind of just practically makes sense that they're going to be a few hours apart, cause I doubt you know, when we say two times, we don't mean I'm going to eat lunch at 12 and I'm going to have a big snack at 1230.
• 13:52
  Philip Pape: It doesn't work that way, right?
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: So I think I answered your question in that it doesn't matter.
• 13:57
  Philip Pape: It doesn't matter.
• 13:59
  Philip Pape: Um, if you eat protein in most snacks or meals, you should be fine, and it helps with things like satiety and the practical nature of it all.
• 14:06
  Philip Pape: So there you go.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: Last question what happens in the body if I go above the target protein intake?
• 14:13
  Philip Pape: Ah, this is another great question and, by the way.
• 14:15
  Philip Pape: Yes, I get these questions all the time.
• 14:17
  Philip Pape: Yes, I've probably answered them five times on the podcast and, yes, keep asking them because, for some reason, people no, not for some reason, not everybody has received the information.
• 14:28
  Philip Pape: They've received lots of misinformation, and I'm happy that you asked these questions and it also lets me see and observe that those answers aren't so clear still and we need to keep doing a better job communicating them.
• 14:41
  Philip Pape: So I'm happy that you answered them, because that gives more opportunities for people to hear them, hear their answers.
• 14:45
  Philip Pape: Okay, let me know if I'm rambling too much, guys, but I think I'm covering some good stuff, some helpful stuff here that has helped me as well and my clients.
• 14:53
  Philip Pape: Okay, so what happens if I go above the target protein intake?
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: Will my body use it or store it?
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: Can glycogen be converted to glucose?
• 15:02
  Philip Pape: Okay, these are really good, and there's a lot of discussion lately online and with influencers, with YouTubers and podcasts, about what happens when you go above protein.
• 15:15
  Philip Pape: So there's a few different things that come to mind.
• 15:18
  Philip Pape: First of all, there's no upper limit to protein that's considered negative to your health.
• 15:23
  Philip Pape: I just want to get that out of the way.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: I think that myth has been put to bed.
• 15:26
  Philip Pape: Already.
• 15:26
  Philip Pape: People talk about kidney failure and all this.
• 15:29
  Philip Pape: There's no upper limit.
• 15:31
  Philip Pape: I mean you could eat hundreds of grams of protein and probably be okay.
• 15:34
  Philip Pape: Practically you're probably not going to want to do that because it doesn't leave enough room for fats and carbs, especially carbs.
• 15:40
  Philip Pape: Okay, and again we're talking about being at maintenance or in a gaining phase.
• 15:43
  Philip Pape: When you are in a fat loss phase, you actually do want a lot of protein and probably even more protein, but you're not going to have a lot of room for fats and carbs.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: So, anyway, what happens if you go above your target protein intake?
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: Nothing, all right, other than it takes away from fats and carbs.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: If you have a calorie surplus, some of that's going to go to muscle, some of it's going to go to fat.
• 16:04
  Philip Pape: So let's say your macros are 180 grams of protein I'm just saying that because that's what mine are typically and I'm in a gaining phase I'm eating like 3,000 something calories.
• 16:16
  Philip Pape: Again, this is for me as a male.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: Yours might be 1,000 calories less, it doesn't matter, it's the principle that matters.
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: And my target is 180 grams of protein, leaving me say I don't know, 100 grams of fat and, let's say, 300 grams of carbs.
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: Just to use round numbers, if I eat 400 grams of protein, I will simply have less fat and less carbs.
• 16:40
  Philip Pape: If I want to stay the same calories, however, my body all it's going to do, it's going to hit its maximum point of muscle protein synthesis to create muscle, which I was easily already meeting with that amount of protein and overall calories.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: And so what happens to the extra protein?
• 16:55
  Philip Pape: Well, it depends on, like your cycles of muscle protein synthesis and breakdown during the day.
• 17:00
  Philip Pape: But some of it may go to muscle, some of it may go to fat storage.
• 17:02
  Philip Pape: No matter what the net calorie surplus, think of it as getting distributed a little to muscle, a little to fat.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: And for most people, if you're at the optimal rate of around 0.2, 0.3% of your body weight a week, it's around 50-50.
• 17:17
  Philip Pape: So, again, as long as the surplus is where you intend, the protein, fats and carbs almost don't matter, unless you don't get enough protein.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: That's a different story.
• 17:27
  Philip Pape: We want enough protein because if you don't get enough protein, well, there's just not enough resources for the muscle synthesis side of the equation and then you get kind of the breakdown wins out, but the other direction doesn't matter as much.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: Okay, now your question about glycogen being converted to glucose, or really, what I think you might be asking is whether protein is converted to glucose.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: That's gluconeogenesis, and the body can convert amino acids into gluconeogenesis and this is a totally normal thing.
• 17:56
  Philip Pape: The body's really good at saying, okay, what am I short of, I'm going to pull it from here, I'm going to pull it from here, and this again, doesn't matter during a surplus, because you have plenty of energy coming in from either protein or carbs, it doesn't matter.
• 18:11
  Philip Pape: Now, with the caveat that if you were eating like 500 grams of protein and like zero carbs, then I think, yeah, your body would convert some of that protein into carbs.
• 18:22
  Philip Pape: And we know carbs are anti-catabolic, they're muscle sparing, and we also know that you will build significantly less muscle if your carbs are low during the muscle sparing, and we also know that you will build significantly less muscle if your carbs are low during the muscle building phase.
• 18:31
  Philip Pape: And so in that case I think, yeah, you're hurting yourself, but the gluconeogenesis process is normal.
• 18:38
  Philip Pape: So we kind of let the body do its thing.
• 18:39
  Philip Pape: Now, in fat loss, or if you're fasting or you're low carb diet right, I just mentioned the low carb, but especially during fat loss, there could be some conversion going on as well.
• 18:50
  Philip Pape: Anyway, it doesn't matter, is my point, and don't worry about it Make sure you have enough protein for the muscle protein synthesis, enough carbs for sparing, especially during fat loss, and enough for your energy and how you feel, and you should be good.
• 19:01
  Philip Pape: That's it for today's weekend Q&A bonus episode.
• 19:05
  Philip Pape: Remember this is just a small part of the weekly Ask Philip live Q&A in the Wits and Weights Facebook group, which you can join totally free using the link in the show notes.
• 19:15
  Philip Pape: I invite you to join us as we improve our health and physique together.
• 19:19
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights.
• 19:26
  Philip Pape: If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 19:40
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.