The genetic structure of every cell in your body is composed of protein. Your muscles, brain, skin and even the hemoglobin that transports oxygen around your body are made from protein. In fact every body function from the blinking of an eye to performing on the sports field is controlled by thousands of different enzymes – and all enzymes are proteins.
Furthermore did you know more than 98% of the molecules of your body including, muscles, organs, teeth and bones are replaced every year? Over the last month your skin and membranes have completely rebuilt themselves. Over the last 3 months you have got a completely new blood supply. Over the last 6 months every protein cell in your muscles has been replaced. Unlike carbohydrates and fats your body has no protein store to draw upon. Body structure is all re-built day-by-day exclusively from the protein you eat. Therefore if you eat garbage proteins from fast foods etc. you will grow a garbage body? That’s right every time you eat a poor quality food its builds right into your body’s structure. There’s no getting away from the fact: You are what you eat.
So if you would like to improve your health or excel in sport its essential you understand the role protein plays in your body. In this article I will show you how to choose the correct types of protein at the right time, in the right amounts, in the right way every day, giving you one of the essential keys to not only improve your sports performance, enhance your health but also help you build the body you’ve always dreamed of!
Protein, Amino acids and food quality
Both the protein in food, and in your body is made from small molecules called amino acids. Just like the letters in the alphabet can be combined to give thousands of words, the different amino acids can be combined to give countless proteins. Your body can make 21 of the amino acids but it can’t make the 9 amino acids, they are called the essential amino acids. All of these essential amino acids need to be provided by the food you eat.
Today the majority of people don’t eat the type of food they were born to eat; namely fresh organic meat, fish, vegetables, fruit etc. Unfortunately most modern food is technologically enhanced, comes in a package with a long shelf life is essentially dead as it contains little if any nutrients, often overloaded with simple carbohydrates (high Glycemic index), too much of the wrong type of fat (trans fats), too little of the essential fats, and too little fiber. Furthermore most people are chronically dehydrated due to inadequate water intake. This results in most people not getting enough quality protein in their daily diet. It is interesting to note that our ancestors whose natural diet was much healthier than the average modern diet consumed between 25-35% of their calories from protein, that’s double the amount of protein most people eat today!
Our poor diet has its consequences. We are becoming fatter and unhealthier. If you are overweight you have less energy, are at a bigger risk of developing diabetes, heart disease etc. Don’t make the same mistake, make the correct types of exercise a part of your lifestyle, learn how to eat healthily (focus on fresh organic meat, fish, vegetables, fruit etc.) and follow the advice in this article so that you incorporate enough quality protein into your daily diet!
Protein’s satisfying and thermic effect
During digestion your body breaks food down into its basic components- carbohydrates, fats and proteins, and then turns them into energy and building blocks it can use. But there’s a trade off: to get the energy from food your body must spend some of its own energy. You body actually uses 3 times the energy to break down protein than it goes either fat or carbohydrate. In other words: Protein’s thermic effect increases your metabolism and causes you to burn more calories than if we ate an equal caloric serving of either fats or carbohydrate.
In addition studies have not only shown that protein satisfies your hunger far more effectively than either carbohydrate or fat i.e. Protein does the best job of making us feel full; research has also shown that to turn protein into fat stores needs more energy than either carbohydrate or fat. But how do you know if you are getting enough protein?
Eat Protein, build muscle, boost your metabolic and burn fat!
Your metabolic rate is the most important factor in determining your weight. It refers to the speed at which your body burns and utilizes energy. When you eat foods that contain more energy or calories (the unit that’s used to measure the amount of energy contained in food) than you need, the excess gets stored in the body primarily, as fat. Later when you need more energy, for any reason, your body taps into its most plentiful and efficient energy source – your fat stores and mobilizes it to where it’s needed. Even though all the cells and tissues in your body use fat for energy, your muscles, which are always contracting and moving, require significantly greater amounts of energy than other tissues. Due to the strenuous nature of the work they perform, your muscles can be though of as miniature fat furnaces. They’re unsurpassed in the way they burn calories, at least 18 times faster than fat cells for example. That’s why central to any fat loss concept is exercise and protein intake to maintain and increase your muscle mass. When you build muscle tissue, it becomes a fat burning powerhouse, and increases your metabolic rate, thus allowing you to eat more without gaining weight. With this in mind, here’s something else that’s very important for you to understand: the distinction between fat loss and weight loss.
Why diets don’t work; weight loss vs. fat loss
Eating fewer calories than your body burns creates an energy deficit. Here your body will utilize its stores of fat, carbohydrate and protein to make up the difference between the energy it needs to function and the energy it gets from food. So in principle just cutting the calories and therefore the amount of food you eat every day is a perfect way to loose weight. However, it’s not as easy as this to trick your body.
If you try to “starve off” unwanted body fat you, are playing a game you can’t win. To get long lasting results you need to work with your body not against it. Low calorie diets cause your brain to send a signal instructing your metabolism to slow – increases the number of enzymes that promote fat synthesis and storage, and stimulates your appetite all in an event to prevent any more weight loss. This is actually a survival mechanism passed on to us from primitive times. Our ancestors needed a way to conserve body fat during periods when food was scarce, and this mechanism worked very well. Unfortunately for people wanting to loose fat it’s still functioning in you and me today.
The reason why low calorie diets fail is because with a reduced metabolism, you have to cut your calories even further to maintain the weight loss. Notice I use the word weight loss, as your body also sacrifices essential muscle and uses up stored carbohydrates in to get enough energy to function. This loss of muscle, which is of course made from protein, is disastrous as it further cuts your metabolic rate. It’s very important to remember muscle is your body’s metabolic furnace. Muscles use energy, even while sleeping. Fat pretty much sits there. So with poor weight loss results, reduced motivation, a very strong appetite, more fat storing enzymes and a lower metabolism most people quit their diet.
However here comes the big problem, if you go back to your original eating habits and calorie intake, with less muscle and therefore a lower metabolic rate. You can now eat less and still gain fat – what a recipe for disaster! This results in people gaining all the weight back they managed to loose and often adding more kilos of fat than they carried before they started their original diet. This cycle of weight loss and gain is commonly termed yo yo dieting.
Hide the bathroom scales
If you are focused exclusively on weight loss and constantly checking the numbers on the bathroom scales you are making a big mistake. Scale measurements don’t tell you how much fat has been lost. Keep in mind that the weight lost can be comprised of water, carbohydrate, fat or your vital muscle which are of course made of protein. Believe it or not it’s actually possible to burn fat and increase muscle, while showing no change in scale weight. Since muscle is 22% heavier than fat, you can actually loose all your love handles and become significantly more toned (muscles actually take up less space than fat) even though your scales show you haven’t lost a kilo! So put your scales in the closet and instead focus all your attention on the way your cloths fit and how you look in the mirror. Or better still buy a fat caliper such as accumeasure to check your fat percentage once a month. This will tell you if the weight you’re loosing is fat and not muscle!
How to successfully lose fat and keep it off
So, if you’re overweight or just wanting to get in shape and toned for summer via dropping a few kilos of fat, it’s essential for you to speed up your metabolic rate if you want long term results. How do you do that? It’s simple really. All you need to do is increase your muscle mass. There are two factors essential to build muscle, one is by exercising via combination of weight training and the correct aerobic program (see my HIIT aerobic article for more details http://www.alun.dk/traening-high-intensity-interval-training.asp ) to give your body the stimulus to add muscle tissue. The other is to eat enough protein to give your body the building blocks to build muscle. Remember your metabolic rate is directly related to the amount of muscle you have. In other words the more muscles you have, the higher your metabolic rate, and the greater your body’s need for energy.
Slow the aging process: build muscle!
As we grow older, it’s even more important to maintain lean muscle mass. After about age 35, your muscle mass starts to decline and that’s one of the major reasons why as we get older we tend to get fatter! So it’s essential as you get older to make an active effort to maintain or develop muscle tissue.
Women should not be scared
Sometimes women get worried when they hear all this talk about muscles. They’re eager to loose fat and understand the importance of exercise but are scared weight training will turn them into Arnold Schwarzenegger. But there is no need to worry, because firstly fat takes up much more space than muscle. This means if you replace the fat on your hips, or thighs with the same weight in muscle, your thighs will get much smaller. Secondly, Arnold has something women don’t: male hormones. For hormonal reasons, women simply can’t get big bulging muscles no matter how hard they train. The muscular women we see in body building magazines have used extreme measures including the use of steroids in many cases. So ladies don’t worry, weight training and eating adequate protein will only increase your metabolism, tone your muscles in a feminine way and result in a younger, healthier, fitter looking you!
Which protein rich foods should I choose?
Part of eating healthily is preparing 3 quality meals per day. Every meal should contain some quality protein to constantly provide your body with the protein ingredients your body can use for repair and to improve your physical condition. If you don’t constantly supply your body with protein then you risk breaking down your muscles to provide the protein for the more essential body functions – exactly what you want to avoid if you have ambitions of building a healthy body!
Good quality protein foods should primarily come from meat, must be organic and the animals should be grass fed, anything else and you are compromising your health. If you eat non organic foods you risk consuming the hormones, pesticides and synthetic chemicals manufacturers use to give the food a better appearance, taste and shelf life. Furthermore if animals are not grass fed the way nature intended, then their meat quality is compromised. For instance when you feed animals grains instead of grass you alter the ratio of the essential fatty acids resulting in too many omega 6’s and too little omega 3’s. The optimal ratio is 1:1 but today we are getting between 20-50 times more omega 6’s than omega 3’s and that’s not good news for our health.
Fish is also a good protein source but don’t eat farmed fish as they are fed the wrong type of food and chemicals are often used to give them a nice color. Always eat wild or ocean caught fish. I wouldn’t eat fish more than twice a week due to concerns over the high mercury levels in today’s fish. So to make sure you get enough of the essential omega 3 fats that fish provide I recommend you take a healthy fish oil product such as Nordic naturals.
Don’t rely on vegetables for a significant protein source, as they often don’t contain some of the essential amino acids and are therefore termed incomplete proteins. But when you eat vegetables make sure they are organic because not only are they healthier they contain on average a higher percentage of protein than non organic food. Stay away from soy protein as they way it’s prepared today it’s not something you or I were meant to eat, anyway who wants to eat a Frankenstein food made via the untested and unsafe GMO technology. Stick to organic meat, fish, eggs etc that’s what we were born to eat for your natural protein source.
Is milk a good protein source?
The milk you see on the supermarket shelf is not the type of milk you and I were designed to drink. Humans are the only species that drink milk from other animals; we are designed not to drink milk after we stop breast feeding. While it is perfectly fine to drink raw organic milk that has not had its ingredients destroyed by pasteurization, I would not recommend drinking the milk you find in the supermarket. Commercial milk has been heated to high temperatures that destroy most if not all of the goodness in the original milk. Furthermore non organic commercial milk has come from cows that don’t conform to organic standards which further decrease the quality of the milk.
How much protein do you need?
The amount of protein you need is genetically determined and due to many factors, including, muscle mass, health status and the amount and intensity of exercise you do. The best way to accurately find out how much protein you should be eating is to determine your metabolic type. This will give you a good starting point and allow you to eat the correct ratios of proteins, carbohydrates and fats for your unique body. See www.metabolictyping.dk for more details.
Training increases your protein requirements
All people involved in exercise who want to improve their performance and reshape their body should consider taking extra protein when they take part in a serious exercise program. This is because during training protein in your muscles is broken down and used for energy. Your diet therefore needs to provide adequate protein to repair muscles, to make new enzymes, hemoglobin etc. This repair faze should start straight after training and a good way to do it is to take an organic whey protein drink that is 100% natural, see below for more details. If you don’t eat enough protein, especially just after exercise then you won’t get the best results from your training effort.
Protein Supplements: Protein powder vs. real food?
Supplements can never replace the health and performance benefits of good organic food. However the optimal time to take protein is just after training. Its here your muscles are “hungry” for protein for repair and growth and carbohydrates to replenish your energy levels at the same time your enzymes and hormones such as insulin are primed to optimize recovery. Consuming a carbohydrate and protein meal immediately after training results in a large secretion of the hormone insulin (transports nutrients such as glycogen, amino acids, etc. from you blood to your muscle cells) and activates the enzymes that help in this transportation process. This period lasts for about an hour after training and scientists have called it the “window of opportunity”.
This “window of opportunity” is in fact evolutionary advantage passed onto us from our ancestors. It gave ancient man more chance to survive, because his body recovered faster from exercise. This meant he was better able to find food or fight off a hungry tiger etc. that presented one of his many dangers.
For most people it’s often not practical or palatable to take a protein rich food such as a chicken breast or boiled egg with them to training. Furthermore most people are not hungry after training. Therefore to take advantage of this open window whereby you can rapidly supply your body with protein if real food is not an option for you then I suggest eating a piece of fruit and consuming 40g of an organic natural whey protein powder. This is the only time you should use a protein supplement as the health focus should be on real food, which not only contains protein but also vital nutrients that protein powders don’t!
But make sure this protein powder is organic 100% natural and not chemically enhanced with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame etc, synthetic colors, flavors or other nasty ingredients. None of these ingredients has ever been shown to be safe for humans to consume. For these reasons don’t buy any of the popular “brand name” commercial protein products!
Before buying a whey protein powder make sure:
1. The whey protein comes from grass fed organic cows that are healthy and have not been given antibiotics and hormones.
2. The milk used to make the whey has not been pasteurized or processed at high temperatures that destroy all the goodness in the milk.
3. The processing of the whey protein is done at cold temperatures and in a way that doesn’t damage the protein
4. The product only contains whey protein, with no unnatural additives such as synthetic colors, flavors or artificial sweeteners.
5. You buy the product in a smaller tub so that it gets used quickly stopping the protein from being damaged when in contact with the air.
Unfortunately if you follow the above guidelines then 99.9% of the protein products on the market should not be used. Furthermore I would never buy a popular “brand name” protein product from the USA because the milk standards in the USA are whey below those of the EU.
Who should eat protein after training?
Its not just strength athletes that should consume protein after training, everybody from people only interested in fat loss to endurance athletes, footballers, racket sport enthusiasts etc need optimal recovery and the best results for the time the use exercising. Muscles are made of protein, and you break them down during training, so if you supply them with the right building blocks at the right time you will really feel the difference. You will recover faster, have more energy, less muscle soreness, less chance of injury and be stronger and faster the next time you train.
5 essential protein TIPS
1. Protein is being constantly broken down and built up in your muscles. Weight training breaks down about 15% of your body’s muscle mass every month. If you can swing the pendulum to the muscle building side then you are on your way to bigger muscles.
2. Protein regeneration in your muscles is controlled by the hormone insulin. Insulin is released by your pancreas after every meal. By eating both carbohydrate and protein together as this gives a synergistic effect 1 + 1 = 3 – resulting in even more insulin released and even more carbohydrate and protein transported into your muscles = faster recovery and better results. After training is the only time a high concentration of insulin is healthy.
3. The biological value is the technical term used to determine how easily the body absorbs and incorporates the protein into your body’s structure from the foods we eat. As you can see from the table below, vegetable sources such as beans, wheat, and rice are relatively poor sources of protein, as is soy. It’s interesting to note that organic vegetables contain more protein and other nutrients than conventionally grown crops. So you not only get fewer chemicals but more health building ingredients! Fish and animal proteins will provide you with good quality proteins as will eggs and whey protein produced from organic grass fed hormone free milk.
Protein type BV
Beans 49
Wheat 54
Rice 59
Soya 74
Chicken 79
Beef 80
Fish 83
Whole eggs 100
Whey protein 104
4. Approximately three hours after a meal your bloods concentration of anabolic (build up) hormones decreases and catabolic (break down) hormones increases. The repair process slows down and the muscle breakdown process increases. This is the reason why you should eat often to provide your body with a constant source of protein. If you are too busy during the day to make a healthy meal then prepare food at home and bring it with you. The best and fastest way to do this is to cook double the meat or fish you need for dinner then add in fresh vegetables and fruit and you have a ready made lunch!
5. If your main focus is on building muscle you may want to eat some quality protein before you go to bed. This will help you stay in a tissue building state through out the night thereby optimizing the repair and growth process. In addition if after testing your metabolic type you find out you’re a “protein type” eating a small high protein moderate fat meal may help you sleep better. But no matter what your metabolic type never eat a high sugar meal before bedtime as this will cause your blood sugar to drop and make it harder to not only fall asleep but also get a good nights sleep!
Conclusion
Every physiological process related to sport and health, energy, recovery, muscle strength, fat loss, immune function, and positive mental attitude are connected to amino acids and therefore protein. None of these protein structures are fixed – every one of them is being constantly rebuilt as your body has no protein store to draw upon. Therefore if you eat too many fast foods etc. then you are on the fast track to poor performance and poor health.
But if you give your body the right protein, in the right amounts at the right time every day then you will have taken an important step in the right direction to improve your performance and achieve your dream body!
Buy more organic raw foods in place of pre-packaged, manufactured foods. Eliminate processed, nutrient sparse, denatured dead foods from your diet so you avoid man made preservatives, colours, sweaters, pesticides, relied upon by modern food manufacturers to give a long shelf life and increase marketability and profits!
Quality organic protein rich foods are not only more satisfying than carbohydrates or fats, but they rev up your metabolism because it takes a lot of energy to digest protein and give you the building blocks to maintain vital muscle mass allowing the extra kilos to melt away while training.
So the take home message is: To achieve a winning sport performance, a healthy body or loose those ugly love handles you must maintain or increase your muscle mass and metabolism. It’s a principle that’s surprisingly simple but has amazing potential. You can achieve this by combining weight training (it’s a great way to build strength and muscle mass, strengthen the joints, build bone density and prevent osteoporosis) and HIIT aerobic training and by eating adequate protein to provide you with the neccary building blocks. This extra muscle mass will boost your metabolism allowing you to burn more calories every day, even while watching the TV, what a wonderful w
