Most Replayed Moment: The Truth About Protein Intake and The Simplest Way To Lose Fat

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/5e4c39358d7a7df1

Uh
One of the things that I'm I'm particularly intrigued by, which kind of dovetails into both of those subjects of fat and uh muscle gain.
Is
The subject of protein.
And um
Because there's been so much said about protein. You know, when I was growing up, they said you have to have protein right after you eat your meal. You have to have this much protein, you have to have it before you eat your meal. It doesn't matter when you have it.
So I want to do a bit of myth busting on the subject of protein.
What are what are the biggest myths that people currently believe about protein consumption?
The biggest myth is that they have the
Hierarchy of importance all s screwed up. Like
Everybody's worried about how much protein per meal you need to have for this or that goal. When do you need to time protein relative to the training bout or waking or sleeping or all that stuff.
The
Main thing they need to be focused on is how much protein do they need to eat.
by the end of the day. Because when you hit that goal.
You
Basically won the whole game.
the the relative placement, the distribution and the doses of the protein, the timing of it.
Oh man.

It rarely matters.
It it rarely matters.
Beyond
getting that protein in in a way that's comfortable and convenient for you and
in such a way that you can stick to.
in the long term.
Some people are more like grazers.
Some people are more like gorgers.
They're both fine, as long as you hit the total by the end of the day. So the hierarchy is
Of utmost importance.
Get your
Total daily protein.

and then of secondary importance.
would be
What is the distribution of the constituent doses of that protein total through the day?
And then a third important d down here is like
When specifically are you supposed to time that protein around the the
the training bout.
So so yeah the
W the way that I put it i is like this. The
Day the daily total for protein.
That is the cake.
The distribution.
Of the doses through the day, that's the icing on the cake and it's a very thin layer of icing.
And how do we know that?
How do we know that it doesn't really matter what time you have the protein and that the most important thing is just making sure you get the protein?
That's a great question.
The reason that we know
That
distribution doesn't matter as much as the total
is through a couple of lines of evidence that I can think of. So there's Yasuda who cl
Compared a three meal
model with a two meal model.
And the three meal model had superior effects
for um for muscle gain.
But
There is a study that was just published.
Gosh within the last month.
It was better from a methodology standpoint because
They fed the subjects.
an abundance of protein. So Yasuda and colleagues who and colleagues who tested the two versus three, he totaled everybody out at
one point three grams per kilogram of body weight per day. That's the total daily protein dose. And so we know now that that's
A suboptimal total.
if you want to push muscle growth. So for pushing muscle growth, we know you you should be at 1.6 grams
per kilogram of body weight, which translates to point seven grams per pound.
of body weight.
That's where you really wanna be if you want to maximize
muscular adaptations to resistance training, like muscle size and strength gains. So
Just latest.
Study.

Three.
Uh three protein feedings versus
five protein feedings.
And the totals
of protein intake in the day.
In both groups, we're around a gram per pound. So right around uh 2.2 ish grams per kilogram of body weight. So we have the
Optimized daily total.
And we're testing three
Versus five protein feedings.
We're doing progressive resistance training.
And this is the key. This happened in
Resistance trained subjects.
There were no significant differences in mu in muscle size and strength gain.
Between the
Three protein feedings a day.

Five protein feedings a day.
And this is the best design study to date.
on the d on the topic.
Because when I grew up
and read stuff about gaining muscle, it said you have to have like five or six meals a day. Mm-hmm.
Um I said that's what bodybuilders do.
Whenever we we talk about any kind of physical any
Any sort of fitness goal.
We have to address
Two main things. So
Who's the Who's the population?
And what goal are we talking about?
And maybe a third thing we need to address is what is at stake.
So what level are we talking about? So
Population goal.
What level? What's at stake? So
With bodybuilders.
at elite levels.
It is
Most of them.
Consume.
Five, six meals a day.
Some of them do like even seven or eight in the off season.

And these are individuals who are
Enhanced?
And so they're sealing.
for for muscle growth and their rates of muscle muscle growth are significantly higher than people who are
In quotes natural.
Yeah.
And the amount of food
That these
individuals can process and use productively.
is significantly more.
And so with that population.
I can see it being
Pretty standard for them to be consuming
At least five, six
Meals a day.
since they tend to have t since they tend to be eating double the amount of of the average person. And so but the interesting thing that happens is that
the guidelines from this very sort of fringe elite population
That's what trickles down into the general public and then they're stuck thinking, Okay, maybe I

two point five hours or s or some such.
But yeah, with the with the general population and even um
recreational athletes and people who are hobbyists and and and stuff.
You really
the impact of actual protein distribution
Is
Mm.
Inconsequential.
Compared to the total.
So how much protein should I be eating a day?'Cause you I think you disagree with the recommended daily
sort of allowance that they suggest we
As um
I think I'm ninety kilograms.
Mm-hmm.
How much protein should I be eating to gain muscle?
Lean muscle mass.
Okay.
So
We're gonna
Apply you to the population.
And the goal and the stakes.
Questions. So what would you say your training status?
Is you're obviously not a beginner.
Um
So you're somewhere between intermediate
An advanced?
Mm-hmm.
Right. Yeah.
So
What
is your goal.
Just to release that again.
Muscle.
Okay. Familiar story, I'm sure.
Okay.
The way that I do it is
I go
One point six to two point two grams per kilogram of
Target body weight or goal body weight.
So that's the range that you would be looking at.
Now
With you in particular.
I would go more towards the upper end.
Because you mentioned that you
Part of your goal is
To decrease
Body fat to it.
But you're still you're
pushing the envelope'cause you're already lean.
Mm-hmm.
So
There's an interesting thing about high balling protein that
Facilitates
That uh
Reduction in body fat.
If I have a lot of protein.
It helps to reduce body fat. Yeah.

Yeah, it does. The way that we know this is because
There have been
Several studies now.
Four
Trials one.
Case study.
Um by Joey Antonio and colleagues.
And they
Examine the effect of very high protein intakes. Uh anywhere from about three point three all the way to
four point four grams.
per kilogram.
of body weight.
Roughly gosh.
Gram and a half to two grams per pound.
Is that because you're eating less carbohydrates, you're sort of substituting it for something else, essentially, in terms of you you feeling hungry.
So if I'm having three point three grams of protein, I'm
probably not going to be having something else which is
More fatty.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. So this particular line of research
was done on
People who are resistance training.
And it was done in free living conditions.
And they just gave them the assignment.
to essentially
increase their their protein intake by
Fifty.
And
Literally add.
eighty to a hundred grams of protein on top.
Of their
Existing habitual
Dietary intakes. So what would you say to me then? You'd say push even higher.
In terms of grams per kilogram of body weight.
What is your goal body weight?
I don't actually have a goal body weight to be honest. I I just have more of a
A goal in terms of like strength.
Were you ever in the shape that you
are wanting to be in.
And what what was your body weight at that time? I was around ninety. I think I was just a little bit below ninety kilograms. So I think I was about eighty eight.
Okay.
So you know what? Let let's take ninety.
Yeah.
and multiply that by two point two.
Ninety times two point two.
There's your
Protein target.
Hundred ninety eight.
Grams of protein a day. So if my if a protein shake gives me twenty grams of protein, I I need to have basically ten gram ten protein shakes a day. That's uh seems like a lot of protein.
That is a lot of protein.
Uh I I would
Give a little caveat here.
You can probably achieve your your goal.
Yeah.
With
One point six.
grams per kilogram of body weight. So that would be the
Lower end.
So
Multiply.
Ninety by one point six.
Okay.
And that's where you can start.
So if if that one ninety eight number seems
Kind of far fetched.
Or even a little bit like Hmm, how how would I even achieve that? Then start off at the lower end.
Do women have a different prescription in this regard? Is there a different
Approach if you're a woman.
Yeah, if you're a woman you would
Almost always
Start at the low end.
Because women have a higher proportion of body fat and and by default they have a lower proportion of lean mass.
So with women it would
Almost always be alright, let's
Start at one point six grams per kilogram of target body weight.
And see how you do with that.
Ratcheted up.
If needed.
Is there any such harm in eating too much protein?

It's rare.
Uh, you would have to have a pre existing
Chronic kidney disease.
And then it's
Generally not a good thing to be highballing the protein.
Um, but even people with
chronic kidney disease have to realize the trade off.
that they're incurring with a low protein diet and
Older age, sarcopenia and stuff. How are they gonna mitigate that?
But for the general healthy population
there have been many studies that have rolled out looking at effects on kidney function
Liver function.
Bone health.
And there is
virtually zero threat.
to those organ systems that that you would think might be threatened by
a high protein intake. So the human organism
Perfectly well equipped to metabolize and handle.
High protein.
And not all protein is equal, I guess, because you've got these animal proteins and then plant proteins um that come from things like eggs and so on. W what is the best type of protein, do you think?
Is there such a thing?
I think that the best thing you can do
Is get a mix.
of different types of protein. It is true that gram for gram
generally speaking, animal proteins are more in quotes anabolic.
than plant proteins, meaning
that they stimulate a greater
Growth response.
of muscle. At the muscle level.
So they stimulate muscle protein synthesis more potently.
than plant proteins.
And
There are
maybe one exception to that that we know of, which is
Mycoprotein, which is a fungus based protein.
that actually outperformed milk protein for stimulating muscle protein synthesis.
So there's interesting exceptions like that. But generally speaking animal proteins are
better for muscle protein synthesis than plant proteins.
Now with that said, Stephen.
Once you consume a certain amount of total daily protein
Then it doesn't
appear to matter.
How much of your protein is animal based versus how much your pro your protein is plant based.
If we're looking at
Things like
muscle size and strength gain because this has been actually
Compared.
In uh
controlled interventions where um
Vegan group.
has been compared with an omnivore group.
And
Total daily protein was optimized at one point six grams per kilogram of body weight per day, or
Point seven grams per pound.
Yeah.
Progressive resistance training for twelve weeks.
No significant differences between groups in muscle size and strength in whether it was a
Omnivorous protein intake or whether it was a
Plant based protein intake and we have
Two studies showing that now.
You must have so many moments where you're working with someone through your career who's got a goal.
And he feels like they just can't accomplish it.
Where you find yourself saying the same thing over and over again.
To people about
how to lose fat or to gain muscle mass.
Is that same thing just to e
Have more protein.
It's a common thing with
The general population with the lay public.
My my protein target is
At least one hundred sixty grams a day.
So
I just make sure that I have four meals with
At least forty grams.
of of protein.
And it's
so easy to do. It's incredibly easy to do because
Two of my meals per day are just real
Oh.
Food.
And then two of my meals per day, two to three.
Are protein smoothies.
And so uh it is just so incredibly easy for me to to get my protein intake through like two scoops, bam, that's almost fifty grams of protein right there. Right there. So
You have two of those a day.
Got more than half my protein.
But if I if I have all of my protein in one meal.
Mm-hmm.
Is that going to impact my ability to gain muscle or lose fat if I have it all in one meal, if I just have like one massive protein shake?
I put like five scoops.
Now, if you were telling me, Hey Alan
I want a place really good.
in the nationals this year.
The N P C Nationals
Classic
Classic physique or you know, classic bodybuilding.
Or just any one of the physique divisions.
I would say, you know, y you you are not going to wanna try to get all your protein in
A single meal because what we want to do
is we wanna maximize the number of
Micro anabolic
Events.
In the course of the day, we want to maximiz the amount of times you
maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis in the course of the day.
And
Just from a a pragmatic standpoint.
You could probably do that at least.
three or four times.
And if you're able to do that three or four times in a day versus once
With that one big banger of a meal.
then you might actually over time
Gain.
more muscle than you would have.
And this could make the difference between placings at the end of the
Uh end of the prep period.
As somebody in the general population.
Theoretically you could
Mm.

I am gonna challenge you to do something here. I asked my audience
about weight loss and ask them for their fifteen most popular questions that
are currently unanswered for them. About weight loss.
The first one was
How do I lose weight fast?
Ha.
Yeah.
So
Essentially you can engage
What would
Could be classified as a as a
As a protein sparing modified fast.
You're basically crash dieting.
Um
I don't love doing that though, honestly.
Listen, I've got a wedding. I need to I need to lose weight fast. How do I lose weight fast?
Losing weight fast. So
you would basically do an aggressive
Caloric deficit.
So anywhere I I would say
twenty percent.
below your maintenance needs twenty to possibly forty, depending on the individual.
percent below your maintenance needs.
And then
Keep the protein high.
And this is going to default you to
relatively low carbohydrate.
Relatively low fat.

And
Just train regularly. Don't hurt yourself.
Um
Yeah.
Protein high and
Calories wise, so for example
If you maintained a
We'll we'll just take a round number, two thousand calories.
So you would just lop off
About a third of that.
And then just go.
And s see if you can
Maintain your fat loss.
While maintaining
Strength levels relatively.
You're the it's almost inevitable that
Crash diet.
And uh
Lose some strength.
in the process. But I mean we're we're talking about
Something that's not an optimal process.
But yeah, that that's that's the game. Basically
Aggressive chloride deficit.
Keep protein very high.
And then you just go and the deficit could be anywhere from five hundred to a thousand ish calories below what you normally take in.
The second one.
Is
Why do I regain weight after stopping a Zempek Wagovee?
Extra.
Alright.
Those GLP one.
RAs, the recep G L P one receptor agonist drugs.
Like Wagovie.
Yeah.
They
have um at least three different mechanisms.
That all converge.
Towards
Almost nullifying your your hunger and your appetite.
Response.
And so when you cut out the drug
Then here
Normal appetite comes back.
And
An unfortunate reality.
For a lot of uh GLP one users when they get off the drug is
They just don't have the habits and they don't have the skills necessarily to
maintain their weight loss and of course once again they're fighting their appetite.
So I would say
Perhaps try um
A weaning off process.
Instead of just a
jumping off process. A weaning off process where you are reinforcing
Countermeasures to overeating.
Where you are reinforcing
good training habits and good dietary habits.
And we're all where you're also
Progressively learning how to live with
And deal with sensations of hunger.
Between meals.
And just
train those habits in.
And uh
It can be done.
I'm not one of
The people in the camp who says it's impossible to get off of uh weight loss drug successfully.
So number three again is is my metabolism damaged after dieting? And they're asking a question here about something called adaptive thermogenesis. Okay, so this is not really a short shot here. Okay. So the the
Process of metabolic adaptation.
is kinda complex.
And it happens in both directions, whether you try to gain weight or whether you try to lose weight. So earlier we talked about
uh an increase in non exercise activity thermogenesis or neat.
An increase in meat in response to an increase in calories.
So
That occurs and
Across studies, I I gave an example that showed a three hundred thirty six calorie increase.
in neat when a thousand calories were stacked on top of people's maintenance.
But there are other studies where the caloric increase was not quite that aggressive. So so
On average
Increases in
Neat.
or non exercise activity thermogenesis.
are about two to three hundred calories.
So you increase your energy expenditure about two to three hundred calories.
If you're overeating.
Yeah.
So your body
We'll start to
Twitch more and move more, burning more non active calories. Correct.
When you're overeating, yeah.
So that's an adj that's an adaptation.
Caloric surplus side.
So in the caloric deficit side.
It's just the opposite thing, just the mirror of it.
So
People
decrease their
Non exercise activity thermogenesis.
Or they're neat. They decrease it on average like two

As a result of dieting.

So this is part of
a metabolic adaptation that occurs with dieting. Is this why people don't think the calories in, calories out?
system is working for them sometimes because they don't realize that if they're in a cal calorie deficit sometimes
They are
subconsciously moving around less, which means that they're burning less calories.
Um so actually they're not in a calorie deficit.
Yes, that's correct.
So
With the
Dieting side of things.
Which is much more of a public health issue. Weight loss is is much more of a
A necessity than the weight gain.
It's it's tougher for most people because in addition to the decrease in non exercise activity,
That'll cost people two to three hundred ish calories that they're
No longer uh
No longer burning at the end of the dieting cycle.

Then you've got
What's called
Adaptive thermoreduction.
Okay, so you mentioned adaptive thermogenesis.
Technically that is the
There's non-sivering adaptive thermogenesis and there's shivering adaptive thermogenesis, but that all has to do with
Increases in energy expenditure in response to cold environments. So that's technically that's what adaptive thermogenesis is, it's the increase in energy expenditure.
When people diet.
There's something called adaptive thermorction.
And that is the

is a decrease in non exercise activity thermogenesis.
You're you're basically saying that the body changes when we're in a calorie deficit. It stops doing as much.
Yes, that's that.
Activity part.
Yeah. But then there's also the metabolic part.
So we got
A decrease in non-exercise activity.
Yeah.
Then we have
Adaptive thermal reduction.
Which has to do with a
A metabolic component that has to do with the sympathetic nervous system and also
Potentially thyroid output as well.
So there's this metabolic
Change that goes on.
There's
behavioral or activity change that goes on. So when people say I've got a slow metabolism.
They might be telling the truth. When people say I I have a slow metabolism, what's usually happening

Pretty massive drop.
In need.
or non exercise activity.
To the order of
Two to three hundred calories.
Now
Adaptive thermal reduction.
is another fifty to a hundred calories.
Okay.
So we're looking at in the neighborhood of like
Possibly
Three, four hundred calories.
That they're no longer burning.
as a result of the dieting process.
Now
If
You take somebody with um
Clinically diagnosed.
Um
hypothyroidism.
then their resting metabolic rate could be seven to ten percent lower than somebody without a thyroid issue.
So you add another
one to two hundred calories less burned over here, then you have the potential
For five to six hundred calories.
of of energy expenditure that this person is challenged with.
So I guess it is kinda true in a in a way.
That people understand it. That if you
Overeat your metabolism.
As far as they understand what their metabolism is, is increasing. And if you undere, then your metabolism is
Slowing down.
Yes, but
I have to emphasize
The major component that slows down.
is your non exercise activity.
You're not moving around as much.
Yes, the other components
Like adaptive thermal reduction and potential thyroid issues.
That is the minor component. The major component is a drop in
Fidgeting, a slowing of the rate that you walk around, an increase in the amount you sit around. And you can control that.
Yes.
It's it's hard to put a
put a finger on it, but as long as you know that stuff goes down. I'll I'll give you an example of uh physique.
Competitors?
They are

Cutting
Cutting phase progresses.
They're literally lying around.
in between their cardio sessions.
And their resistance training sessions and their
Tupperware meal sessions.
Okay, they're no longer
tapping their heads, b you know, tapping their fingers and bobbing their heads and they no longer have a pep in their step. They're no longer doing
non exercise activities.
Basically.
Question four.
What diet actually works best for long term weight loss, keto, low fat, Mediterranean, intermittent fasting, and you gotta give me a answer here.

I'll say it in one sentence.
The diet.
With
Enough protein?
Enough total calories.
That is
Comprised
Predominantly of
Healthy food choices.
That
Fits the individuals.
Personal
Preferences and tolerances.
How do I lose belly fat specifically?
Can you target the belly?
Targeting bell fat specifically is a matter of targeting
total body fat.
You can't
Necessarily
spot reduce the the bell fat.
Now if we're go a layer deeper, it is possible that
for certain diets to be more conducive to preventing
visceral fat gain.
Or maybe even accelerating visceral fat loss. Visceral fat is the fat
Uh in the
Within the abdominal cavity around the
The organs.
And so
It is possible for certain diets
to be more conducive to reductions in visceral fat.
And that would be
diets that have a lower proportion of
Saturated fat.
Which just.
What's an example of a saturated fat food?
Fatty land animal meats.
So land animal fats are going to be
your saturated fats that are
More conducive to
visceral fat gain.
So if you were to switch out, let's say, fatty cuts of meat, just trim that fat out.
And if you replaced it with something like avocado nuts.
Olive oil seeds.
What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.