For instance if you hit a heavy workout and you eat a big protien heavy meal. Is there a difference in eating 50-60g of protien in one meal or spacing out that amount?
Not sure if this is the right place to ask this or if this has already been asked. Just curious if there’s like an upper range you should avoid for lack of effectiveness
Obviously, protein’s most well known function is muscle building. However, our body uses protein for far more than just building lean tissue. So all of the protein you eat is never going to go only toward building muscle mass.
Additionally, it’s generally a good practice to spread your protein intake throughout the day. This maximizes muscle protein synthesis and reduces muscle protein breakdown, resulting in more gains when paired with appropriate stimulus. Take a look at the diagram below to see how fluctuations of MPS/MPB during the day
Dr Gabriel Lyon on YouTube talks about this. Essentially you can’t eat too much protein in one meal. Your body may not utilize it all at once but it will keep it stored until it needs it. And it won’t turn into fat. She recommends 30-40g per meal or 1G per pound of body weight daily. I’m paraphrasing quite poorly but that’s the gist.
No nutritionist here, and I’m not providing a direct answer, but there’s an undeniable fact: there are lots of people who workout and eat one meal a day-and eat large amounts of protein. Might be worth exploring that rabbit hole to get a feel for it…
It’s better if you eat a little more protein than you need so that whatever you can absorb is available. The rest will go in the toilet. Don’t go very far beyond what your body can absorb for that reason. The exact amount you can absorb is hard for me to know,, but I go with 30gm every 4 hours just me, Hope that helps.
I don’t have my PowerPoints with me at the moment but I’m taking a nutrition for Fitness course at my college. So half the protein you get goes to your liver anyway. Of course the body takes what it needs overall but there’s nowhere to store protein in the body. So it’s converted to carbs and excess can make you put weight on. Hence those who get too much protein and get “fat”. The most optimal time to get your protein is right after workouts but as I just learned in a different course today this is debatable lmao. Post workout there are tons of hormones that would increase the benefit of hypertrophy, strength or whatever you’re training for. Definitely get your protein after workouts but idk about mass consuming it. I used to mass consume all my protein in 1 shake but I personally think it’s more optimal to spread it out over time. Don’t hold me to the fire on this lol this info was from my first exam and I’m taking my 2nd Tuesday lol. But if anyone insists I can grab my notes
Ballparking here protein absorption works out around 10g/h (this varies based on metabolism and type of protein). The common upper limit is around 20-25g per meal, so you would space meals out every 2.5 hours or so to best process large intakes of protein.