Protein Debacle

Protein is essential for the maintenance of your body e.g. reparation of muscles. It is also a preferred nutrient source as it is easier to be satisfied when eating protein , plus it has the highest thermic effect compared to other nutrients e.g. you burn more calories when eating protein.

It is essential for muscular growth, but noticeably a lot of gym-goers tend to overuse it, some to an extent that their shaker bottles are 1/3 - 1/2 filled with protein powder! If you follow the recommended intake of one scoop (usually > 20 g protein), it wouldn't even fill up 1/5 of the shaker.

Reading a recent article by Chad Waterbury, he raised an issue that eating too much protein would be detrimental if you're trying to lose body fat. Once the glycogen stores in the body has been exhausted, the next source would come from muscles and then finally body fat, the latter which is what most of us want to get rid of (to an extent of course). We want supply sufficient protein to minimize the catabolic effect of muscle breakdown for energy and maximize protein synthesis for muscle reparation. But if we supply an overload of protein to our body, the body would preferentially want to burn the excess protein for energy instead, leaving our fat stores essentially untouched.

Typical daily recommended limits for protein intake for a consistent gym-goer would be approximately 0.8 -1.0g per pound of body weight.

For instance, if you're 160 pounds (160/2.2 = 72.7kg)

Protein required = 160 x 0.8 = 128g

American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommmends these limits:

Endurance Athletes = 1.2 - 1.4g per kg bodyweight (0.55 - 0.64g per pound bodyweight)

Strength Athletes = 1.4 - 1.8g per kg bodyweight (0.64 - 0.82g per pound bodyweight)

There is always a limit to what our body can handle. What's the point of consuming soooooo much expensive protein when most of it is gone to waste? More does not always equal to better.