Limit Protein to 20g Per Meal?
Egger29
Posts: 14,741 Member
Interesting article about Protein Metabolism and Muscle Synthesis.
Bottom Line: Timing your protein intake regularly through the day keeps your Protein Synthesis and Metabolism functioning at Optimum Efficiency for Peak Performance
Article" Limit Protein to 20g Per Meal? by John M Berardi, November 4th, 2009.
Two recent studies have shaken up the weight lifting and athletic worlds with respect to protein intake.
For those research geeks among you, here are the references:
So, what did these landmark studies show?
Well, the first study showed that when college-aged weight-trainers drink 0g, 5g, 10g, 20g, or 40g of protein after a weight training session, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated maximally at the 20g dose. Interestingly, there were no further increases in muscle protein synthesis at the 40g dose.
Similarly, in the second study, when young and elderly volunteers were given 30 or 90g of dietary protein in a single meal, the 30g dose maximally stimulated muscle protein synthesis. Again, there were no further increases in muscle protein synthesis at the 90g dose.
20-30 Grams and No More - Oddly, since the publication of these two studies, I’ve read no less than 2 dozen articles and blog posts suggesting that these two studies definitively close the case on protein intake. Indeed, some authors have even suggested that we’re ignorant wastrels if we dare eat more than 20-30g of protein in a single sitting.
Here are a few quotes:
Is Muscle The Only Reason We Eat Protein? - Now, while I can always appreciate a good muscle protein synthesis study, I sorta wonder if all the hoopla regarding these two studies is doing healthy eaters a service or not.
I mean, it’s definitely a good thing to discover that 30g of protein provides the upper limit of amino acids necessary for maximal protein synthesis at a particular point in time. However, the important, big-picture question is this one…is building muscle the only reason we eat protein?
I think not.
Challenging the notion that eating more than 30g in a sitting is wasteful, here are a few thoughts I sent to a group of colleagues:
1) What Else Will You Eat? - Let’s say you’re on a high calorie diet. Maybe you’re into bodybuilding or you’re training for an athletic event. And now you limit your protein intake to 20-30g per meal. What else do you fill up with? Carbs or fats?
Let’s take an example. Say you’re eating 4000-4500kcal per day for competition, which many larger lifers and athletes will need to do. And let’s say, because of these studies, you limit your protein intake to 5 meals of 20g each. In the end you’ll be getting 100g and 400kcal from protein.
Well, that’s 8% of your diet. What makes up the other 92%? If you’re loading up with that many carbs or fats, body comp can suffer. Remember, the protein is being replaced by macronutrients with lower thermic effects (more on this below).
2) What About The Other Benefits? - Muscle protein synthesis isn’t the only reason to eat more protein. There’s satiety, the thermogenic effects, the impact on the immune system, and more (see below).
Plus, there are probably a few benefits science can’t measure yet. I say the last part because there’s so much experiential evidence suggesting that when you’re training hard and you up your protein, you do better. So maybe we just haven’t looked in the right places to notice the real benefits.
Other Protein Benefits - In an article I wrote a few years back, I listed some of the benefits of eating more protein. And although the article is a few years old, nothing’s really changed since then. Here’s the list:
Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding — While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding/muscle building.
Increased Glucagon — Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.
Metabolic Pathway Adjustment – When a higher protein (20-50% of intake) is followed, a host of metabolic adjustments occur. These include: a down regulation of glycolysis, a reduction in fatty acid synthesis enzymes, increase in gluconeogenesis, a carbohydrate “draining” effect where carbons necessary for ridding the body of amino nitrogen is drawn from glucose.
Increased IGF-1 — Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.
Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk — Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.
Improved Weight-Loss Profile —Research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 — If you’re at all interested in protein intake, you’ve gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).
Increased Protein Turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.
Increased Nitrogen Status — Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.
Increased Provision of Auxiliary Nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. And don’t forget the vitamins and minerals we get from protein rich foods. (And lest anyone think I’m a shill for the protein powder industry, this last point clearly illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements.)
Looking over this list of benefits, it’s hard to ignore the fact that we don’t just eat protein for its muscle synthetic effect. We eat protein for a bunch of other reasons too. And since a higher protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum?
Take-Home Message - It seems to me that whether someone’s on a hypoenergetic diet (low calorie) or a hyperenergetic diet (high calorie), the one macronutrient they would want to be sure to “overeat” (relatively speaking) would be protein.
But that’s not what people do, is it? Instead, their protein prejudice often leads them to look for what they consider the bare minimum of protein (whether it’s 20-30g/meal or 0.8g/kg/day), and then overeat carbohydrates and fats instead. That could prove to be a performance – and body composition – mistake.
To this end, my advice is the following:
Women – 1 serving of lean, complete protein (20-30g) with each meal, every 3 hours or so
Men – 2 servings of lean, complete protein (40-60g) with each meal, every 3 hours or so
This pattern of intake will make sure you’re getting enough protein to reap all the benefits that this macronutrient has to offer. Not just the protein synthetic benefits.
End Article.
Bottom Line: Timing your protein intake regularly through the day keeps your Protein Synthesis and Metabolism functioning at Optimum Efficiency for Peak Performance
Article" Limit Protein to 20g Per Meal? by John M Berardi, November 4th, 2009.
Two recent studies have shaken up the weight lifting and athletic worlds with respect to protein intake.
For those research geeks among you, here are the references:
Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009.
A moderate serving of high-quality protein maximally stimulates skeletal muscle protein synthesis in young and elderly subjects. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 2009.
So, what did these landmark studies show?
Well, the first study showed that when college-aged weight-trainers drink 0g, 5g, 10g, 20g, or 40g of protein after a weight training session, muscle protein synthesis is stimulated maximally at the 20g dose. Interestingly, there were no further increases in muscle protein synthesis at the 40g dose.
Similarly, in the second study, when young and elderly volunteers were given 30 or 90g of dietary protein in a single meal, the 30g dose maximally stimulated muscle protein synthesis. Again, there were no further increases in muscle protein synthesis at the 90g dose.
20-30 Grams and No More - Oddly, since the publication of these two studies, I’ve read no less than 2 dozen articles and blog posts suggesting that these two studies definitively close the case on protein intake. Indeed, some authors have even suggested that we’re ignorant wastrels if we dare eat more than 20-30g of protein in a single sitting.
Here are a few quotes:
And so on…“So basically what you’re saying is that we don’t need to consume any more than 20g of high quality protein after exercise. You could get that in a 500ml serving of milk…This info is really going to piss off a bunch of internet keyboard jockeys.”
“I’ve cut back on the amount of protein I eat during most meals…No more slogging down 50-60g in a sitting. “
“Looks like 3 eggs post workout is just as effective as drinking a protein shake. Plus all that extra shake will be wasted.”
Is Muscle The Only Reason We Eat Protein? - Now, while I can always appreciate a good muscle protein synthesis study, I sorta wonder if all the hoopla regarding these two studies is doing healthy eaters a service or not.
I mean, it’s definitely a good thing to discover that 30g of protein provides the upper limit of amino acids necessary for maximal protein synthesis at a particular point in time. However, the important, big-picture question is this one…is building muscle the only reason we eat protein?
I think not.
Challenging the notion that eating more than 30g in a sitting is wasteful, here are a few thoughts I sent to a group of colleagues:
1) What Else Will You Eat? - Let’s say you’re on a high calorie diet. Maybe you’re into bodybuilding or you’re training for an athletic event. And now you limit your protein intake to 20-30g per meal. What else do you fill up with? Carbs or fats?
Let’s take an example. Say you’re eating 4000-4500kcal per day for competition, which many larger lifers and athletes will need to do. And let’s say, because of these studies, you limit your protein intake to 5 meals of 20g each. In the end you’ll be getting 100g and 400kcal from protein.
Well, that’s 8% of your diet. What makes up the other 92%? If you’re loading up with that many carbs or fats, body comp can suffer. Remember, the protein is being replaced by macronutrients with lower thermic effects (more on this below).
2) What About The Other Benefits? - Muscle protein synthesis isn’t the only reason to eat more protein. There’s satiety, the thermogenic effects, the impact on the immune system, and more (see below).
Plus, there are probably a few benefits science can’t measure yet. I say the last part because there’s so much experiential evidence suggesting that when you’re training hard and you up your protein, you do better. So maybe we just haven’t looked in the right places to notice the real benefits.
Other Protein Benefits - In an article I wrote a few years back, I listed some of the benefits of eating more protein. And although the article is a few years old, nothing’s really changed since then. Here’s the list:
Increased Thermic Effect of Feeding — While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding/muscle building.
Increased Glucagon — Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.
Metabolic Pathway Adjustment – When a higher protein (20-50% of intake) is followed, a host of metabolic adjustments occur. These include: a down regulation of glycolysis, a reduction in fatty acid synthesis enzymes, increase in gluconeogenesis, a carbohydrate “draining” effect where carbons necessary for ridding the body of amino nitrogen is drawn from glucose.
Increased IGF-1 — Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.
Reduction in Cardiovascular Risk — Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.
Improved Weight-Loss Profile —Research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management (Layman et al 2003 — If you’re at all interested in protein intake, you’ve gotta go read the January and February issues of the Journal of Nutrition. Layman has three interesting articles in the two journals).
Increased Protein Turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.
Increased Nitrogen Status — Earlier I indicated that a positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.
Increased Provision of Auxiliary Nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. And don’t forget the vitamins and minerals we get from protein rich foods. (And lest anyone think I’m a shill for the protein powder industry, this last point clearly illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements.)
Looking over this list of benefits, it’s hard to ignore the fact that we don’t just eat protein for its muscle synthetic effect. We eat protein for a bunch of other reasons too. And since a higher protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum?
Take-Home Message - It seems to me that whether someone’s on a hypoenergetic diet (low calorie) or a hyperenergetic diet (high calorie), the one macronutrient they would want to be sure to “overeat” (relatively speaking) would be protein.
But that’s not what people do, is it? Instead, their protein prejudice often leads them to look for what they consider the bare minimum of protein (whether it’s 20-30g/meal or 0.8g/kg/day), and then overeat carbohydrates and fats instead. That could prove to be a performance – and body composition – mistake.
To this end, my advice is the following:
Women – 1 serving of lean, complete protein (20-30g) with each meal, every 3 hours or so
Men – 2 servings of lean, complete protein (40-60g) with each meal, every 3 hours or so
This pattern of intake will make sure you’re getting enough protein to reap all the benefits that this macronutrient has to offer. Not just the protein synthetic benefits.
End Article.
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Replies
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hmm so no more double scoop protein shakes for me!! thanks!!0
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Too bad they didn't title it "limit to 30g" --- then I would agree 100%
Anyway it always amazed me that so many protein shakes give their dosage as 2 scoops and ridiculous amounts likje 50-60g protein per serving --- i've always used just one. This has been a hotly debated topic for a long time and I think general concensus seems to be anything over 30g at once sitting is a somewhat of a waste.
Of course if people start realizing this and not using their double scoop propoganda they'll make less money
You'll only have to buy protein half as often!0 -
what is your opinion on Alan Aragon's take on this?
"Short-term research supporting the magic limit
I’ve heard many folks parrot that the maximal anabolic effect of a single protein dose is limited to 20 grams, citing recent work by Moore and colleagues [7]. In this study’s 4-hour post-exercise test period, 40 g protein did not elicit a greater anabolic response than 20 g. I’d interpret these outcomes with caution. Fundamentally speaking, protein utilization can differ according to muscle mass. The requirements of a 140-lb person will differ markedly from someone who’s a lean 200. Additionally, a relatively low amount of total volume was used (12 sets total). Typical training bouts usually involve more than one muscle group and are commonly at least double that volume, which can potentially increase the demand for nutrient uptake. Finally, the conclusion of the authors is questionable. They state explicitly,
“…we speculate that no more than 5-6 times daily could one ingest this amount (~20 g) of protein and expect muscle protein synthesis to be maximally stimulated.”
So, they’re implying that 100-120 grams of protein per day is maximal for promoting muscle growth. Wait a minute, what? Based on both the bulk of the research evidence and numerous field observations, this is simply false [8,9].
In another recent study, Symons and colleagues compared the 5-hour response of a moderate serving of lean beef containing 30 g protein with a large serving containing 90 g protein [10]. The smaller serving increased protein synthesis by approximately 50%, and the larger serving caused no further increase in protein synthesis, despite being triple the dose. The researchers concluded that the ingestion of more than 30 g protein in a single meal does not further enhance muscle protein synthesis. While their conclusion indeed supports the outcomes of their short-term study, it’s pretty easy to predict the outcomes in muscle size and strength if we compared a total daily protein dose of 90 g with 30 g over a longer trial period, let alone one involving a structured exercise protocol. This brings me to the crucial point that acute outcomes merely provide grounds for hypothesis. It’s not completely meaningless, but it’s far from conclusive without examining the long-term effects.
Longer-term research challenging the magic limit
If we were to believe the premise that a 20-30 g dose of protein yields a maximal anabolic effect, then it follows that any excess beyond this dose would be wasted. On the contrary, the body is smarter than that. In a 14-day trial, Arnal and colleagues found no difference in fat-free mass or nitrogen retention between consuming 79% of the day’s protein needs (roughly 54 g) in one meal, versus the same amount spread across four meals [11].
Notably, this study was done on young female adults whose fat-free mass averaged 40.8 kg (89.8 lb). Considering that most non-sedentary males have considerably more lean mass than the female subjects used in the aforementioned trial, it’s plausible that much more than 54 g protein in a single meal can be efficiently processed for anabolic and/or anti-catabolic purposes. If we extrapolated the protein dose used in this study (79% of 1.67g/kg) to the average adult male, it would be roughly 85-95 g or even more, depending on just how close someone is to the end of the upper limits of muscular size.
When Arnal and colleagues applied the same protocol to the elderly population, the single-dose treatment actually caused better muscle protein retention than the multiple-dose treatment [12]. This raises the possibility that as we age, larger protein feedings might be necessary to achieve the same effect on protein retention as lesser amounts in our youth."
7. Moore DR, et al. Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Jan;89(1):161-8.
8. Campbell B, et al. International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2007 Sep 26;4:8.
9. Tipton KD, Wolfe RR. Protein and amino acids for athletes. J Sports Sci. 2004 Jan;22(1):65-79.
10. Symons TB, et al. A moderate serving of high-quality protein maximally stimulates skeletal muscle protein synthesis in young and elderly subjects. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009 Sep;109(9):1582-6.
11. Arnal MA, et al. Protein feeding pattern does not affect protein retention in young women. J Nutr. 2000 Jul;130(7):1700-4.
12. Arnal MA, et al. Protein pulse feeding improves protein retention in elderly women. Am J Clin Nutr. 1999 Jun;69(6):1202-8.
http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/is-there-a-limit-to-how-much-protein-the-body-can-use-in-a-single-meal/0 -
hmm so no more double scoop protein shakes for me!! thanks!!
Not necessarily...
The 20-30g Limit is simply for Muscle Protein Synthsis. So you want to get at least this amount in your meals. Taking 60g following your workouts won't fuel your muscles any more than 30g will, but there are other benefits to increased protein intake throughout the day which are linked to your overall health and metabolism.
Instead of a double scoop twice a day....go for a single scoop 4x a day and you'll still get the increased protein, but maintain the amino content at maximal levels throughout the day.
Cheers!0 -
My muscle mass (via Dr. testing) has went up greatly since taking in protein shakes and other forms of protein. (Protein bars, and etc.)0
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**LIKE**0
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What is your opinion on Alan Aragon's take on this?
Irrelevant. If you read the article, you will note that the title is a Question, not a Statement. The studies of the 20-30g limit are in respect to Muscle Protein Synthesis only.
The article outlines the additional positive benefits of increased protein in the diet, and NOT necessarily a limit around how much is injested overall.0 -
hmm so no more double scoop protein shakes for me!! thanks!!
Not necessarily...
The 20-30g Limit is simply for Muscle Protein Synthsis. So you want to get at least this amount in your meals. Taking 60g following your workouts won't fuel your muscles any more than 30g will, but there are other benefits to increased protein intake throughout the day which are linked to your overall health and metabolism.
Instead of a double scoop twice a day....go for a single scoop 4x a day and you'll still get the increased protein, but maintain the amino content at maximal levels throughout the day.
Cheers!
Interesting concept. I like it! I'm going to give the 4X a day a shot.0
This discussion has been closed.
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