Eating For Top Performance – Why Protein Matters

Guest post by Denis Faye
Protein Pile-up: Some science regarding everyone's favorite macronutrient

Got Protein? As of late, this macronutrient has become the darling of the sports world. As the battle rages on regarding the merits of carbs and fat, everyone seems to agree that you can't go wrong with protein. The problem is, as is frequently the wont of Americans, we've decided that if a little bit is healthy, a lot must be awesome! Like, you're totally going to get ripped, man, if you pile on those amino acids!

Unfortunately, this just isn't the case. While nutritional science tends to shift and evolve, at this writing, there's simply no credible research indicating that excessive protein consumption increases muscle mass. Let's have a look at the facts.

Protein is made up of various smaller components called amino acids, which function countless ways, including acting as the body's primary building blocks. Your muscles, bones, and skin are all made of protein.

There are twenty amino acids, nine of which are essential, meaning that your body can't convert them so they must be present in your diet. They're all present in animal protein, including eggs and dairy. There are also plenty of non-animal sources of the essential nine, but you need to be a little more strategic when you're a vegan or vegetarian. Hemp and soy contain all eight. Grains are a good source of half the eight and legumes are a good source of the other half, so a combination of the two works well. You don't need to eat them both in the same meal; you're fine if you just consume both over the course of a day.

Protein works its way through the digestive tract, being progressively broken down into amino acid components, until it hits the small intestine where these acids are absorbed into the blood stream. At that point, the body re-assembles the amino acids into different kinds of proteins that do an assortment of things, such as provide structure, regulate fluids and pH, and build muscle.

Contrary to popular demand, excess amino acids are not peed out. They do one of two things. If the body is low in dietary carbs and fat, they're converted to ATP (cell energy) either via the liver, which converts it to glucose, or directly via a process called oxidation. If the body already has enough dietary energy, amino acids are converted to fat and stored in adipose tissue (body fat) – albeit not as readily as carbs.

What is peed out are used-up amino acids as well as the waste products created when amino acids are used as energy. It's called urea and the kidneys filter it.

So you see, excess protein doesn't go dog-piling to your muscles. It just doesn't happen. On average, a body can absorb about 30 grams of protein per meal for protein-specific purposes (http://www.adajournal.org/article/S0002-8223(09)00769-X/abstract). Anything beyond that goes to energy. Normal people should consume about .8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily (as opposed to pound of body weight). According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, athletic types may benefit from upping that number to 2 grams per kilogram (http://www.jissn.com/content/4/1/8).

There's even some research suggesting that weight-training athletes need less protein because their bodies are more efficient at using the stuff (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15212752).

So now I've "scienced" you up. While I'm sure you're thankful for that, there's still a rather large gap in this explanation. If "protein piling" doesn't make you buff, why do body builders who eat a bunch of protein get so huge?

The reason for this, in my opinion, isn't which calories they're eating. Rather, it's how many calories they're eating. When bodybuilders want to add mass, they eat a ton of food – protein, carbs, and fat. Not only are they hitting the required protein, they're taking in energy in general, which fuels their workouts, making sure they get the most out of those reps. Sure, that extra protein benefits them, but mostly when it's converted to energy.

But if you're really hell-bent on overdoing protein, it's probably okay. It's generally accepted that healthy kidneys can cope with the load brought on by a high-protein diet. The trick, however, is to maintain balance. When you sacrifice other nutrients for protein, you start to have problems, as demonstrated in a study on Korean bodybuilders who experienced metabolic acidosis (overly acidic bodily fluids) due to high-protein diets (http://www.jissn.com/content/8/1/10). As the study indicates, potassium and calcium supplementation offset the problem, but I'm wondering if the issue would have occurred to begin with had these guys made sure to maintain a balanced diet filled with plenty of vitamins and minerals.

So if you're looking to build muscle, maybe it's time to stop thinking high-protein and start thinking high-healthy-and-balanced. You'll be, like, ripped in no time!

Formerly "weight challenged," Denis Faye shed 50 pounds following a 5-year jaunt through Australia, a trip that helped him become the extreme fitness and sports enthusiast he is today. He's been a professional journalist for 20 years, writing for GQ, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Wired, Surfer, Outside, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Los Angeles Magazine, and Pacific Longboarder. His sports include trekking, rock climbing, mountain biking, spelunking, swimming, scuba, swimming, and — most importantly — surfing. Denis currently writes for Beachbody, which provides effective home workout dvds including the popular P90x program and exercise dvds for the new Insanity: Asylum workout.