[quote]Defender wrote:
Where did the “10-15%” number for protein calories come from? I’ve read it elsewhere, and it always seems to derive from some sort of need-based calculation. I’ve seen the same thing with fat.
It’s almost as though researchers decided the body can only handle so much fat and so much protein, therefore the rest must be carbs. It just doesn’t make good sense to me that the percentages and bodily effects of two macronutrients would be scrutinized so heavily while the other is merely used as backfill.
Or am I missing something about the way the traditional distribution of the macronutrients is decided?[/quote]
As far as i am aware the portion guidelines are exactly that - guidelines and 10-15% can work out to be fairly inaccurate at different bodyweight levels.
A better way is to opt for g/lb as this makes it more personal to the individiual.
Im always skeptical when certian magazines and individuals recommend stupid amounts of protein as often they have something to sell anyway - more often than not in the line of shakes or some new product (No dig at anyone in this thread)…
Id love to see some of the scientific data showing what is now believed to be OPTIMUM for strength athletes…
Oh. my. god. That is an incredible amount of food. Do you use the blender a lot to make shakes? I just can’t imagine chewing that much whole food.[/quote]
Yeah, that’d be a lot of solid food…
I usually have 3-4 solid meals/day, and 4 liquid meals a day.
[quote]
Defender wrote:
Where did the “10-15%” number for protein calories come from? I’ve read it elsewhere, and it always seems to derive from some sort of need-based calculation. I’ve seen the same thing with fat.
It’s almost as though researchers decided the body can only handle so much fat and so much protein, therefore the rest must be carbs. It just doesn’t make good sense to me that the percentages and bodily effects of two macronutrients would be scrutinized so heavily while the other is merely used as backfill.
Or am I missing something about the way the traditional distribution of the macronutrients is decided?
supermick wrote:
As far as i am aware the portion guidelines are exactly that - guidelines and 10-15% can work out to be fairly inaccurate at different bodyweight levels.
A better way is to opt for g/lb as this makes it more personal to the individiual.
Im always skeptical when certian magazines and individuals recommend stupid amounts of protein as often they have something to sell anyway - more often than not in the line of shakes or some new product (No dig at anyone in this thread)…
Id love to see some of the scientific data showing what is now believed to be OPTIMUM for strength athletes…[/quote]
I think one of the problems is the disconnect between the actual science and its reporting.
I’ve seen my own work bastardized when it was condensed into a short blurb to make it more palatable to the masses.
“…has been shown to increase the risk of disease A.”
is transformed into
“…will give you disease A.”
There’s just too much license given to this kind of stuff that the intracices and boundaries of the research itself are lost, opening it for easy misinterpretation.
I think you’re absolutely right that these are guidelines. Unfortunately, there are so many variables present that trying to encompass them all with a small range of numbers is doing a disservice to people.
I think one of the problems is the disconnect between the actual science and its reporting.
I’ve seen my own work bastardized when it was condensed into a short blurb to make it more palatable to the masses.
“…has been shown to increase the risk of disease A.”
is transformed into
“…will give you disease A.”
There’s just too much license given to this kind of stuff that the intracices and boundaries of the research itself are lost, opening it for easy misinterpretation.
I think you’re absolutely right that these are guidelines. Unfortunately, there are so many variables present that trying to encompass them all with a small range of numbers is doing a disservice to people.[/quote]
Completely understand what your saying but surely the quality of Journal and experience of reporter plays a big part.
Im aware some journals will print any crap but the more established prestigious ones are more thorough in their acceptance and printing standards??
Here’s what I don’t get: I’ve seen some “experts”, including some authors on here, advocate up to 2g per pound of bodyweight, but then if I say I’m a 270 pound man eating around 550g a day, they act like I’m out of my fucking mind.
Completely understand what your saying but surely the quality of Journal and experience of reporter plays a big part.
Im aware some journals will print any crap but the more established prestigious ones are more thorough in their acceptance and printing standards??[/quote]
It’s not so much the journal quality that concerns me, although that does play a part. Peer reviewed journals are extremely diligent about making sure only good information graces their pages.
All it takes is for the wrong person (usually someone with an agenda) to take someone else’s results from a journal and present them to the public without addressing all the issues. Journal articles tend to be extremely specific, but they are often used as the foundation for sweeping generalizations.
The one that sticks out in my mind the most regarding this thread is the myth about “high” protein diets being bad for your kidneys. The studies on which part of that belief is based were conducted on renal patients. It’s not surprising at all that people with kidney problems had even more kidney problems when faced with a high protein diet.
But somewhere along the line, someone extrapolated that data and applied it to healthy patients even though the data did not support such a conclusion.
I think we are just getting started on understanding the complexity of the human body. So for people to claim a range of 10-15% protein in one’s diet is ideal simply floors me.
I honestly have no idea what the ideal range is for most people or for me in particular. No one has a full understanding of it.
General nutritionists go for the .8 gram/kilogram of bodyweight but most athletes believe, and science is now showing, that is not enough for active people.
The latest scientific evidence is from the NSCA which recommends that athletes get 1.4-1.7 g/kg of bodyweight of protein per day, basically double the RDA. That usually equals about 20% protein. That also often is line with 1 gram per pound of lean mass.
Zatsiorsky mentioned that in times of severe stress his athletes would take up to 3.0 g/kg for a short peroid of time but not on a regular basis (he was inline with the NSCA for normal intake).
General trends are that endurance athletes need to use the lower end of the scale (1.4-1.5) and strength athletes need the higher end. Now the debate is, is this enough (about 150 grams for a 200 lber) or do we need even more? Hard to tell for sure. These recs apply mainly to natural people, I don’t know what the best recs for juicers are.
As a side note the RDA has recently revised its protein recs from 10-15% of the diet (generally too low) to 10-35% of the diet, basically acknowledging that higher protein diets, while perhaps aren’t necessary, aren’t harmful as they used to be considered by the traditional nutritionists.
And to throw one more wrench in the whole thing, this doesn’t talk about timing of protein intake, and if that 50 grams is more important when you wake up, after you train, before you go to bed, or whenver. In other words you might be eating the right amount of protein at the wrong time.
[quote]nptitim wrote:
And to throw one more wrench in the whole thing, this doesn’t talk about timing of protein intake, and if that 50 grams is more important when you wake up, after you train, before you go to bed, or whenver. In other words you might be eating the right amount of protein at the wrong time.[/quote]
Isn’t this article talking about normal people? People who don’t lift weights 2 + hours a day and don’t carry more than 3X the muscle mass of the typical couch potato?
This really made me laugh from one of JBs articles, and its also what I think of everytime I hear things like “you only need 60g of protein a day!” or worse.
And whether to get 1g/lb or 2g/lb or higher, I usually think of 1g/lb as a minimum, and don’t care if I go well over, I like getting more calories from protein, and I don’t like eating most carbs, so unless I read something showing that too much protein would actually hurt my progress I’ll just eat as much protein as my caloric total requires.
