HOW MUCH PROTEIN DO I NEED TO BUILD MUSCLE?

Video Transcription:

John:
Hello again, everybody. This is John and Glen with bestpricenutrition.com. Today we're going to do a video that focuses on a question that we get asked a fair amount. It's how much protein do I need in one day? It's common. A lot of people wonder, and it's not a one size fits all question, because it really depends upon who you are, what your activity level is, what your goals are.

Glen:
Body weight also.

John:
Body weight especially.

Glen:
How much muscle mass you're carrying.

John:
Exactly. Obviously, if you're trying to, if you're not an active person, and you're not working out, then you don't need as much protein. But we're going to specifically address athletes, and people who are active, and have a high activity level, or at least moderate. Most recommendations, put it anywhere from about 0.65 to 1 gram of protein per pound of, we'll just say, body weight. A lot of times we look at lean body mass, but that's hence for lower numbers. Or if you want to look at it another way, is some people say, 1.4 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight, there's 2.2 kilograms per pound.

Glen:
What that generally means-

John:
For one pound.

Glen:
Yeah, when you get to the one gram per pound, so if you weigh 200 pounds, you'd want 200 grams of protein in a day.

John:
Yeah, and that's on the high end, and you probably don't even need that much. It's not going to hurt you to have that much. The negative effects of protein at that level are absolutely unfounded. There's absolutely zero research to show that. It's just nonsense that's perpetuated throughout. It's all old wives' tales. That's just not the case. Let's say a 200-pound person, if you have relatively low body fat, your lean body mass is going to be 180 pounds, let's just say, 180 grams would probably suffice. Now, if you're super, super active, and your carbs are low, well then...

Glen:
Yeah, then you'd want your protein higher. What I tell people a lot of times is that one gram per pound, because most oftentimes, people don't hit that mark in a day. If you tell them to shoot for 200, they get around 175, 180, that's perfect.

John:
Yeah, and most people are doing it, a lot of times they're trying to get lean or stay lean, so you want to make sure you're not burning protein for energy, so you want to ingest enough carbohydrates to have some energy, but also not too many so you can't burn body fat. You want to stay just below that amount, where you're walking that tightrope of burning body fat and still burning muscle. This also applies to women too. The more muscle you have, the more fat you are going to burn, because your muscle cells are the most metabolically active in the body. Having more of them increases your metabolosm, and metabolism can be summed up as just the sum total of chemical reactions in the body. That's really what it means. It's not anything fancy, or anything beyond that.

Glen:
And another thing to cover is, is when we say protein, of course we're factoring in protein supplements, but also protein from your food. A lot of times you get the question, how many protein shakes should I take in a day, or when should I take this? What we recommend is, if you get your meals in throughout the day, whatever else you need to meet your, let's say, your 200 or 175 gram goal, would be in protein supplements. If you've got in let's say 125 grams from your food in a day, then you'll need around 50 grams from protein supplements.

John:
Assuming you're about 175, 200 pounds.

Glen:
Assuming you're about that weight. That's two to three scoops of protein right there.

John:
Yeah, like you said, they're supplements, so they supplement what you don't get from your diet. It's hard to get that much protein from your diet alone. I don't know what happened to my voice there. It just went up. I just very high. Feel free to comment on that one. I don't know what happened there. I knew that people are going to comment on that, so that's why I'll address it not. Please, you can make fun of it, it's cool.

Glen:
So yeah, you don't want to be eating four or five steaks in a day, or some people just can't stomach eating three to four chicken breasts every day.

John:
It's hard, and the bigger you are, the harder it's going to be. That's just the reality. Granted, you should have a higher appetite, but the line is not linear, in terms of trying to attain that much. That's where supplements matter, and also the type of protein you're getting matters, the processing. This being a pure whey protein isolate, it's going to have a higher, more biological activity, a higher biological value, because of the way they process it. That's something else to consider. Yeah, I think that kind of addresses it. If you guys have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comments sections of the video or the blog. We're happy to answer. Also, you can find us on Facebook, at Facebook.com/bestpricenutrition. Thank you.

Glen:
Thank you.