Moderate Amounts Of Protein Per Meal Found Best For Building Muscle.

[Darryl Shaw]

Moderate Amounts Of Protein Per Meal Found Best For Building Muscle.

ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2009) — For thousands of years, people have believed that eating large amounts of protein made it easier to build bigger, stronger muscles. Take Milo of Croton, the winner of five consecutive Olympic wrestling championships in the sixth century BC: If ancient writers are to be believed, he built his crushing strength in part by consuming 20 pounds of meat every day.

No modern athlete would go to such extremes, but Milo's legacy survives in the high-protein diets of bodybuilders and the meat-heavy training tables of today's college football teams. A recent study by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston metabolism researchers, however, provides evidence that strongly contradicts this ancient tradition. It also suggests practical ways to both improve normal American eating patterns and reduce muscle loss in the elderly.

The study's results, obtained by measuring muscle synthesis rates in volunteers who consumed different amounts of lean beef, show that only about the first 30 grams (just over one ounce) of dietary protein consumed in a meal actually produce muscle.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1026125543.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...4/?tool=pubmed

See also -

Ingested protein dose response of muscle and albumin protein synthesis after resistance exercise in young men.

[Allen Yeh]

So this is basically saying the whole "eat no more than 30 grams per meal as the excess will be used as energy"? The study indicated that it was 17 young and 17 old people....do you think it would make a difference if it was 17 athletes versus 17 sedentary?

[Mike ODonnell]

Sedentary people will have different protein requirements than more active people if muscle building is the goal. That and exercise stimulates growth.....as seen when you put one arm in a cast and eat all the protein you want, one arm is normal (muscles were used) and one is deteriorated.

While I do agree the amount of protein needed daily is much less than most people think with the bodybuilding mentality....not buying the age old myth of you can only digest and use 30g of protein per meal (especially when it is whole foods that takes hours to digest and assimilate).

[Derek Weaver]

30 grams of protein per one ounce? That sounds odd.

I remember a post, or maybe even an article by Lyle a while back pointing out how elderly responded differently to amino acid "pulses" differently than those in the younger, more common age group (which, honestly could be anywhere between 12 years and 65 years, or older). For the life of me I can't find the paper if he posted it (I usually download the studies/abstracts if he posts them on his forum), and can't remember how it was different, I just remember one group had a significantly different effect.

Think the casein vs. whey debate.

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Derek Weaver

Think the casein vs. whey debate.

Here's one study on that:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2342962/

Lyle did a whole series on protein digestion worth reading too:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/nut...stion-pt1.html


BCAA supplementation during the day is worth noting as a potential way to increase AA levels and protein synthesis.....many people doing IF along with BCAAs are having success....of course we are probably not talking about creating 250lb bodybuilders with IF.

I agree that people who have higher than normal needs for protein synthesis/calorie load (people who train a ton like athletes) may do better on more frequent feedings (and BCAA supplementation).....ala Zone style. The rest that just train a few times a week at the gym, can go a different route and have a life outside of eating as the total protein/calorie requirements are lower anyways.

[Mike ODonnell]

Also interesting to note that "protein pulsing" is also seen to be more effective than just eating all day long (and intakes are pretty high below).

Protein pulse feeding improves protein retention in elderly women1,2,3
Marie-Agnès Arnal, Laurent Mosoni, Yves Boirie, Marie-Louise Houlier, Liliane Morin, Elisabeth Verdier, Patrick Ritz, Jean-Michel Antoine, Jacques Prugnaud, Bernard Beaufrère and Philippe Patureau Mirand

Background: Adequate protein nutrition could be used to limit gradual body protein loss and improve protein anabolism in the elderly.

Objective: We tested the hypothesis that an uneven protein feeding pattern was more efficient in improving protein anabolism than was an even pattern.

Design: After a controlled period, 15 elderly women (mean age: 68 y) were fed for 14 d either a pulse diet (n = 7), providing 80% of the daily protein intake at 1200, or a spread diet (n = 8), in which the same daily protein intake was spread over 4 meals. Both diets provided 1.7 g protein•kg fat-free mass (FFM)-1•d-1. Protein accretion and daily protein turnover were determined by using the nitrogen balance method and the end product method (ammonia and urea) after an oral dose of [15N]glycine.

Results: Nitrogen balance was more positive with the pulse than with the spread diet (54 ± 7 compared with 27 ± 6 mg N•kg FFM-1•d-1; P < 0.05). Protein turnover rates were also higher with the pulse than with the spread diet (5.58 ± 0.22 compared with 4.98 ± 0.17 g protein•kg FFM-1•d-1; P < 0.05), mainly because of higher protein synthesis in the pulse group (4.48 ± 0.19 g protein•kg FFM-1•d-1) than in the spread group (3.75 ± 0.19 g protein•kg FFM-1•d-1) (P < 0.05).

Conclusion: A protein pulse-feeding pattern was more efficient than was a protein spread-feeding pattern in improving, after 14 d, whole-body protein retention in elderly women.

http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abst...e2=tf_ipsecsha

and actually T-nation has an article about that as well (including reference to the study above):
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_a...se_eating_plan

Hence why many have success with some larger protein meals and IF....as there is much more going on with the body as a whole....rather than always micro-focusing on meal to meal response, whole body up-regulation and increased utilization is important.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

So this is basically saying the whole "eat no more than 30 grams per meal as the excess will be used as energy"? The study indicated that it was 17 young and 17 old people....do you think it would make a difference if it was 17 athletes versus 17 sedentary?

Assuming that an athlete is around average weight three meals per day plus snacks each providing up to 30g of protein would result in protein intakes >1g/kg/d, effectively a high protein diet, so I doubt it makes much difference that this study was conducted on none athletes.

Regardless of the results of this study it makes sense from a practical perspective for an athlete to eat small meals throughout the day as this avoids the gastrointestinal discomfort that inevitably results from trying to cram in all your food in one or two large meals.

[Allen Yeh]

I guess to me 90g/day seems to be on the low end of the spectrum since I've been in the a community of people that regularly go for 1g/bw.

This is just anecdotal but when I'm IF'ing I seem to need less protein and calories overall in my day for maintenance than when I'm eating 3+ meals per day.

[Darryl Shaw]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

I guess to me 90g/day seems to be on the low end of the spectrum since I've been in the a community of people that regularly go for 1g/bw.

This is just anecdotal but when I'm IF'ing I seem to need less protein and calories overall in my day for maintenance than when I'm eating 3+ meals per day.

Three meals per day plus snacks would be more than 90g of protein per day which is more than enough for most people assuming that calorie intake is adequate.

[Jay Cohen]

Originally Posted by Allen Yeh

I

This is just anecdotal but when I'm IF'ing I seem to need less protein and calories overall in my day for maintenance than when I'm eating 3+ meals per day.

Allen;

I find the same is true for me. I IF M-F, skip breakfast, eat lunch/dinner, no snacking.

Jay