I’ve seen that no more than 25-30 grams of protein at one time will help you gain muscle. But I have also seen that per day you should have 1g of protein per pound you weigh, which is a lot especially for me as an adult male. So should people just be having about 25-30g of protein every couple hours for muscle growth? That seems very frequent to me.
> I’ve seen that no more than 25-30 grams of protein at one time will help you gain muscle.
This is a partial myth.
Your body will adjust to digest however much protein you usually consume. Someone who usually eats a low protein diet who ate 100g of protein probably wouldn’t digest most of it, someone who regularly eats 100g of protein will digest all of it.
Your gut has a feedback mechanism with your pancreas so it creates the right proportions of enzymes for your diet, it can take a few days-week for it to adjust to sudden changes. This is also why people gets travelers diarrhea, they suddenly start eating a diet radically different so end up confusing the hell out of their gut.
> But I have also seen that per day you should have 1g of protein per pound you weigh
This is a guideline. What you actually care about is the amino composition of that protein and its bioavailability. Meat & fish based sources will nearly always have better bioavailability then plant based sources, meat vs fish fish tends to win.
The three important aminos for muscle growth are isoleucine, leucine & valine. Vitamins A, B6, B9, B12, C, D & E are also used by muscles themselves or by synthesis. Calcium, magnesium, iron & potassium are important on the mineral front.
Unless you are a body builder or an elite athlete the amino RDA’s will be sufficient for you. RDA’s are calculated to be ideal for 85-90% of the population with most of the remainder being those who are on medically restricted diets. As a general rule you will be hitting RDA if 15% of your calories come from protein.
You can use a tool like cronometer if you want to track your aminos and optimize your diet around that.
A risk with excess protein consumption is that if you force your body to convert aminos directly to glucose it will produce ammonia as a byproduct which increases muscle fatigue. Protein is not a great energy source for the body either as about a third of the total calories will be consumed during gluconeogenesis.
Where the hell do people get 30g max protein per meal data from? That’s bullshit, you absolutely do pull in much more than that, and it’s actually recommended to get like 40-60g per sitting for max mTOR activation but that’s heavily dependent on the leucine content
Look up don layman’s work for actual protein targets
The pile of food you eat turns into the “chyme” in your stomach. It’s basically just the jumbled up pile of sludge of everything you consumed combined into a large block that slowly moves through your digestive system. Having more protein in this sludge slows down how fasts it moves through, only digesting around 25-30 grams every hour or two or whatever the number is. But if you have 100 grams in that chyme, all 100 grams would move through eventually and get digested. If there was no protein, it would move through faster. This is why eating more protein keeps you full longer.
There are people out there who report literally only eating one giant meal a day and they are ripped and muscular. As long as they are getting the minimum amount of protein to build and maintain muscle in that one meal, they will be fine.
25-30 is a myth. Not only that, but anything that gives you a hard number that’s meant to apply to a large cross-section of people should raise a red flag. Unless we are meant to believe that the protein needs of an 85 Lb person are within 5 grams of the protein needs of a 400 lb person.
Here are a few links for further reading if you are interested…
The RDA for protein for healthy adults is 0.8 g / kg. That means that eating 0.8 g of protein per kg of body weight will be enough to meet the needs of 98% of the population. If you think you work out enough to put you in the 2% of the population that has needs above that, then usually up to 1.2 g / kg is recommended. That is what you NEED. But what you prefer, or find optimal, may be higher than that. Protein can help with satiety, so many people prefer having more. Eating more protein while trying to lose weight may also be beneficial and muscle-sparing. But as far as what you need, 0.8 g / kg is sufficient. We seem to overemphasize protein a lot for some reason but you actually don’t need that much of it to stay healthy and perform optimally in the gym.
The body can use upwards of 50 -70gs of protein in a single meal for muscle protein synthesis (dependent on composition of meal and other stuff, but way more than 25gs)
Optimal ranges of daily consumption is between 1.6 - 2.2gs of protein per kg of bodyweight per day. More if you’re cutting I’d say.
Don’t get hung up in the weeds of per meal protein amount. And instead focus on your daily intake and split up between however many meals you wanna eat per day.
Research shows that daily consumption is more important than anything else.
So nail your per day intake. Don’t stress about anything else.
For most people, 1.62g of protein per 1kg of bodyweight per day.
For strictly maximal gains, 2.2g of protein per 1kg.
Here’s a very extensive essay on all things MPS: https://www.nutritiontactics.com/measure-muscle-protein-synthesis/
I take Whey protein and I would recommend it to just about anyone….especially those who are very active, work at a very physical job, or are serious lifters….I do work out three times a week but the main effect it has for me is it helps heal up the aches and pain from work….it has made a huge difference since I started taking it….as for dosage, I stick with the manufacturers recommended dosage….
It’s easy to overwhelmed when there’s research and people saying x, y, z is the only correct way. After working out and being fitness conscious for almost 10 years what works best is what you’ll stick to. Ideally optimal protein intake is 0.8-1g per pound of body weight split into 3-5 meals throughout the day. This is why protein powders / drinks are popular because it’s a drink for so much of your daily protein intake which is easy for almost anyone to do.
1.6-2.2g/kg protein per day. I posted about this the other day, many people are not getting this amount in their diet and should definitely strive to do so to be as healthy as possible as they near older age