Have you ever had a day go by without the word ‘protein’ springing up? Even in jobs that aren’t concerned with the health and fitness industry, protein seems to always be lurking its head around. There’s also a lot of controversy as how much and how often we should intake protein in our every day diet. If you listen to your average gym ‘bro’ choose to follow his advice, you will likely be carrying around 16 Tupperware containers, containing 3 dry chicken breasts a piece, that you are instructed to eat every 2 hours in fear of losing all your hard earned gains.
Lets clear the air on this misunderstood macro to help you get a clearer picture, and save you money, with these few simple facts.
- Protein is one of the three major macronutrients along side the joyful carbohydrates and the dreaded fats (depending on which fad we follow).
- Protein contains around 4 calories per gram, the same as carbohydrate.
- The body does not generally tend to use protein as an energy source unless in extreme circumstances e.g Starvation.
- The majority of the time, protein is consumed to be turned into amino acids to aid the body with other tasks e.g Muscle repair, food breakdown.
- The rough figure required for protein to fill all your body’s physiological functions, assuming your training hard, is around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day. For a 90kg athlete that would be 198g of protein.
- There are a few exceptions where more than that amount would be of more benefit, but bulking isn’t one of them. One such example would be a figure athlete a few weeks out from contest.
- To continuously supply the necessary amino acids for anabolism (muscle growth) it is best to eat every….wait for it…. 3 – 5 hours. Tell your gym bro that and watch them have a heart attack faster than if you just said that its leg day.
- The best way to get protein comes from animal sources. Fish, chicken, turkey, beef and eggs to name just a few. These are the most complete proteins and are superior, only to within a slight margin, to vegetarian means of acquiring the same source.
To round off then protein is vitally important to an all round healthy diet and to our growth outside the gym. Protein is still however the most overrated macronutrient of the 3, with the majority of people consuming far more than they actually need. When you really need to bump up your performance or put that much needed size on, there is only one demon for that trick. Carbs.