Out of all the nutrients I feel that PROTEIN is misunderstood and overated. I think that we equate protein with muscle, the same way people used to equate fat with fat and carbs with energy. I think there is a psychological attachment thinking that the muscle fibers in meat correlate to muscle in us. When in fact if we look at our own muscle fiber make up. Skeletal Muscle is 70% Water and the mostly BCAA’s, glutamine and and other aminos it doesn’t take that much protein to get that amout of bcaa in the muscle. Don’t get me wrong here I’m not a RDA you don’t need protein guy. but I do think our guidance from how to eat as bodybuilders came first from guys who were on gear and then from the companies looking to make a buck. The guys on Steroids can defenitely bend the protein consumption rules but even then I think there is a point of diminishing returns. Not from the physiology of a human in natural state where the ability to grow muscle came way before we picked up barbells and consumed massive amounts of protein. Take a look at prisoners I have seen some of the biggest guys consuming very little protein on a daily basis and making tremendous gains. Protein is a very expensive way to take in calories, it is not used for energy easily,wont contribute to weight training performance, depleted glycogen will suffer you a poor workout before low protein will. Taking in alott of animal meats your body takes in the toxins they posses, hormones etc. Just some food for thought.
Yeah, Quest. You’ve whined about “excessive” protein intake before, but you’ve never provided very useful data. Maybe you should stop reading the radical vegetarian sites and check out what real lifters are doing!
Let me try to provide some anecdotal reasoning to this argument. First of all, most people will die with zero protein intake. People with very low protein (40g per day or so) intake will be in very poor health; many will lose their hair. People with about average protein intake (70g or so) will be catabolic almost as often as they are anabolic! Especially at night and following training. This is not a myth; simple nitrogen level tests back this up. Not a very conducive environment for muscle growth! Now, 1g to 2g of protein per lb bodyweight clearly results in reduced catabolism in most people, especially in people that regularly weight train. Finally, even “excessive” protein intake (3.5g per lb bodyweight or greater) will not harm most people with healthy kidneys.
Quest, do you really think protein in expensive? Maybe compared to bread or rice, but egg whites, skim milk, and other protein sources aren’t particularly pricey. Are you a PETA activist or something? Just curious.
Quest, your theory on low protein intake is completely wrong. Skeletal Muscle (voluntary) are composed largely of strands of Actin and Myosin (two very important kinds of proteins in the muscle). When training a muscle, the actin and Myosin stretch, and in order to repair itself, animal protein is the way to go. Weight lifting without a high protein diet is not effective at all, and can actually break the muscle down making it weaker and smaller. So eat up on your protein!
praise you! praise you! yes. I am definetlawed by people who ingest 350 grams of protein/day, even if they weigh 200 pounds. I am surprised people don’t just inject protein drinks into their asses like they do with other well-known substances. Two of my friends lift 4 times a week (doing Squats, Bench, DL’s, Cleans, and Curls each workout), and these guys (18 yrs old) are 185# and ripped and 175 and ripped. And when I ask them which food they eat most often, they say ‘chips.’ I ask them what their post-workout meal is, and one of them shrugs his shoulders and says ‘a banana, i guess.’ And their strength levels seem fine as well, both squatting 400+ and deadlifting 450+. They don’t use steroids, I know because they’re extremely moral and I know them well enough. I personally eat about 120 g’s of protein per day, weigh 168, with bf at 6%, and every time that I upped my protein intake to 250 (for experimentation), my body resorted to punish me by putting me in the crapper for a greater duration and with greater frequency. Quest, thanks for your words; I am in full agreement.
Your post is just fucking stupid-I am sorry just read what every expert in the field of bodybuilding says about protein intake. I can’t beleive you even come to T-mag.
Nope, not buying it. The cumulative training years of everyone who has made appreciable gains speaks to the importance of what you might call “excessive protein intake”.
Just letting you know that I’m about 99% sure that your old buddy “Quest” is not the same guy that is using the handle now. I still communicate with old “Quest” via email and he mentioned to me a few weeks ago that the guy now posting as Quest was not him.
Take care! I'm just trying to avoid any possible confusion.
Going off on a tangent a little bit here, but how much grams of protein are there in one whole egg?
Most recent studies show little to no utility from more than 0.6-0.8g per pound of bodyweight. 1g is certainly enough for any non-drug-using bodybuilder to avoid catabolism. Still, I am pro-protein, too. It’s harder to digest (good for body comp) and provides lots of wonderful necessities for bodybuilder and non-bodybuilder alike.
Prisoners don’t use roids? Yet they can smuggle in everything else, but of couse they are on higher moral and ethical plane then us.
When looking at how brings out the need for protein consumption it makes me a bit suspicious (muscle mags = supplement dealers). Lyle McDonald, not afiliated and literally despises propaganda machines, suggests 1g of protein per pound. Anecdotally I have found that I need much more than that to success when dieting (both to lose fat or to put on higher % of lean mass). At the very least every scientist agree that individuals burn more calories in the use protein (TEF).
Should I point out that Lyle weighs 130 pounds and looks like he doesn’t lift weights? Nah, that would be mean.
It’s like what I tell my best friend (who by the way says things like “my body doesn’t need THAT much protein” and calls me a steroid user because I use Tribex and creatine): when you finally realize that you are making no gains at all (ie. body fat stays the same, strength stagnates, etc.) or even end up losing gains (ie. lose muscle, gain fat, etc.) and you’ve tried all the Men’s Health cover model workouts to no avail as well as eating what YOU THINK is a “sensible diet” (read, I don’t know and don’t care what I’m eating because the popular opinion finds it healthy) than perhaps you should start listening to me more often and actually READ - NOT SKIM - through T-Mag and take it upon yourself to discover what DOES and what DOES NOT work. Here’s a quote of mine once again: “Keep an open mind towards those that have come before you: that way you won’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
I know this is a somewhat off topic but how do prisoners get so big in prison. I am sure they can get steroids but I know their nutrition can’t be that good(last time I checked prisons didn’t serve 6 meals a day) and its not like they can sneak in containers of grow into prison in their rectums(wonderful picture I know).
This thread is ludicrous, as is the idea of consuming minimal protein. Everyone that is serious about strength training and/or muscle growth, should be consuming 2x bodyweight a day in grams of protein. Even more than that when using an anabolic agent.
I don’t know why I need to defend a universally respected source for reliable information (T-mag issue: “This book is written by Lyle McDonald, who I feel is aptly qualified to be called a “ketogenic dieting guru.” I can’t think of anyone who has more experience and knows more about these diets than Lyle. I know that Lyle has sparred a bit in the past with some people here at Testosterone, but in the interest of fairness and, more importantly, in the interest of telling you about ‘the best,’ TC and Tim have no qualms about letting me endorse Lyle’s tome. Move over, Dan Duchaine, Lyle’s got your number when it comes to this topic.” and issue 214 on Bromo)
If you what Lyle looks like you probably were shocked to see some of the other writers aren’t HUUGGGGEEEEEEEE. I would rather take advice from someone that collects empirical evidence then from some joe smoe ghost rider for M&F.
Guys, before flaming this dude, consider what some of the most respected people in the strength and fitness field always say, almost down to the last person. Some form of “there is no SINGLE right way to do something. Everyone is different, and something that may work for YOU, wont work for someone else. You need to have an open mind.” Quite simply, Quest says “Don’t get me wrong here I’m not a RDA you don’t need protein guy” and what do I see but replys of “Ur stoopid” and the like. Have an open mind, he’s talking about excess, and if there is one thing I’ve seen to be true in this world, is that moderation is KING. If I lift TOO much, I stop getting stronger, if I eat TOO much, I stop being healthy. I follow a fairly high protein diet, but I have to say, when I don’t sweat the details and keep things in moderation, I see the best results. For me. Like the guy said, it’s just “food for thought”, so put down the flame thowers. I’m gonna go have a steak now…
Curious take, There is an excellant paper by Dr Mike Rennie on just this topic in the Int J Sports Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism. It basically states that the more trained state that you are in, the less protein (exogenous) that you need due to your muscles and body becoming more efficienct and utilizing said protein for recovery and repair services. It is well worth the read, even for the closed minded “more is better” people.
that is the stupidest fucken post i’ve ever heard. by all means, please eat less protein and keep going to the gym so you’ll make all the guys who are hitting the protein look even better while you’re getting your ass kicked by the weights.
Synaptic, using 18 yo males as test subjects is probably not the best idea. When I weight-trained at 18, I was able to put on 20lbs of muscle in a school year eating Trix for breakfast, cookies for lunch and followed by something equally non-nutritious for dinner. If I ate that now, I would look like Jared from Subway. Hormonal levels at that age allow you to eat pretty much anything and still gain.