Protein Is an Over-Hyped Nutrient

Nutrition
5

[quote]Chris Colucci wrote:

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
How is it babies can double their weight in 5 months and triple it in a year by being fed human breast milk which is no more than 1% protein by weight?[/quote]
Adults can also double their bodyweight in a few months with Mountain Dew, pizza, and Milky Way bars. There’s something to be said for the effects of providing the body with abundant calories, almost regardless of macro breakdown. Breast milk is more than 3x as calorie-dense as whole milk. That’s going to be some growin’ food, high protein or not.

That aside, rather than calling protein “over-hyped”, it might be more accurate to say it’s “over-emphasized” or maybe “over-focused on”, even though, for bodybuilding, it literally is the stuff muscle is made of, so it makes sense to use it as the cornerstone/basis of most nutrition plans. But the idea of relatively-low protein intake has been around for a long time, though it’s always been pretty confusing.

In the '40s, Bob Hoffman was advising about .5g per pound of bodyweight, but years later he suggested it be up to 30% of the day’s calories. Gironda also swung the extremes, first writing about it being unnecessary to go beyond less-than-1g per pound of bodyweight, and years later writing about the effectiveness of 2-3g per pound.

A few articles from Lowery and Meadows/Harris discussing protein intake, including discussions of around 20g per serving being ideal:

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance_nutrition/inconvenient_truths_protein_health_and_strength_sports

A thread from earlier this year where people discussed protein cycling:

A thread from a few years ago discussing Thibaudeau’s suggestion for a once-a-week low protein day:

So, yeah, like pretty much everything else in bodybuilding or fitness, there’s not really one clear-cut 100% accurate theory that’s best for everyone. Anecdotally, it does seem more-than-obvious that the strongest and most muscular athletes shoot for at least 1 gram per pound of BW, so if less protein worked significantly “better”, you’d expect the news would’ve found its way into the spotlight to become the top recommendation.[/quote]

Thanks for the post.

Do you think hunger can be an accurate governor for protein needs?