All About Protein

BASICS

Protein should be a major staple in your diet if you are looking to build muscle, but protein has many other major benefits. Proteins actually make up every cell, tissue, and organ in your body. Protein will help your body develop the nails, skin, hair, muscles, tendons, etc. You NEED protein in your diet, regardless whether you lift weights or not. Quality protein sources contain amino acids, which are the building blocks of the proteins and when digested help replace the proteins within our body. Protein synthesis takes about 48-72 hours to complete, so in a perfect world you would only need 2-3 days to recover entirely for that muscle group. But since our bodies are faced with less than perfect stimulii, I would suggest a longer recover period. Now, let’s get into the different types of proteins!

TYPES OF PROTEIN

Red Meat: Steak, hamburgers, pork, and lamb, etc. Red meats tend to be much more fatty cuts of meat, but contain large amounts of nutrients for muscle building. First off, it’s a complete protein, meaning it contains all of the nine essential amino acids. Secondly, it naturally contains large amounts of creatine. Creatine is known for it’s strength gains, ATP replenishing, reduce recovery time, etc. Red meat also contains Iron, B12, Phosphorus, Omega-3, and Zinc. All of these are essential for heart health, recovery, and metabolism. Red meat is a slower digesting protein, perfect for a dinner or before bed meal.

White Meats: Chicken, turkey, different types of fish, shrimp, etc. White meats like chicken, turkey, and fish are a lot less fatty compared to red meats. When trying to lean out, I would suggest sticking to these basic protein sources. These are also classified as a complete protein. Chicken and turkey both contain about 20-26 grams of protein for 3.5-4 oz. Turkey is a lot dryer than chicken, but turkey is more bioavailable to our bodies, meaning we can digest it and absorb the protein and nutrients at a better rate. Depending on the type of fish you get, you’ll be getting great amounts of omega’s along with a little quicker digesting proteins. Take salmon for example, it has about 14 grams of fat for 4 oz. but don’t get this confused with other fats. These are the GOOD fats, the essentials!

Whey Protein: Whey protein is an essential when it comes to gaining muscle. There’s so much out there it is hard for people to decide on what is considered “good”. Whey isolates and hydrolyzed whey isolates are top notch in today’s studies since they are in whey’s purest form, so you definitely want them to be first on your ingredients list. After you are asleep for about 8 hours, you need to get your body’s metabolism kickin’ again. First thing you do in the morning is slam back a whey protein shake and your body will digest it within 40 minutes, breaking the overnight catabolic fast. This will kickstart your anabolism throughout the day. After your workout, your muscles are like dry sponges, begging to have some liquid poured over them. This is also a good time for whey protein; you want the quickest form of protein to digest and quickly begin the repairing process. I’ll talk about Casein protein here too; which is a slower digesting protein that takes about 6-8 hours to fully digest. Perfect for a nighttime snack, helping keep you anabolic throughout the night. When I took casein, I would wake up and actually not feel like devouring a house.

Nuts: Almonds, peanuts, cashews, etc. These are great sources for a snack or to supplement a meal to accomodate your macronutrients. I usually eat almonds, which give me around 8-10 extra grams of protein, but also a great amount of healthy fats. The profile for healthy fats in almonds is just a little bit better than peanuts, but like I said, try to switch your sources up.

How much protein should you consume?

This is commonly asked question throughout the fitness world. Let’s say you weigh 180 pounds. Some studiest suggest you eat .7 x 180. But then I have also seen studiest that you can absorb up to 1.7 x 180. For me, I just try to eat my around own bodyweight in grams of protein. If I want to gain weight, I try to eat up to 20 more grams than I weigh. So if I weigh 180 lbs, I’ll be aiming for 200 grams. Studies suggest that you body will utilize any amounts of protein that you throw down the hatch; but also take into account that you need to space your protein consumption out throughout the day. Hopefully everything that I have told you will help you know when to eat certain sources of proteins during the day. Also, to keep your body full of nutrients and to keep it guessing, you’ll want to utilize as many of these protein sources as possible. If you don’t follow me on twitter yet, please give me a follow @AdamNeth. Thanks! Any email opportunities, email me at AdamNeth@rocketmail.com. Thanks for reading.