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episode #249

Paper: Importance of Protein Distribution Throughout the Day!

May 8, 2023 in Podcast

Intro

This week I reviewed a paper on protein and the importance of this nutrient as we age!

The focus on protein as a nutrient often centers on its thermogenic and satiating effect, and when included as part of a healthy diet, its potential to preserve lean body mass. I highlight some of the conclusions that were made from protein in this paper.

Here are a few conclusions:

  • a dietary framework that includes consumption of a moderate amount (i.e., approximately 25–35 g) of high-quality protein at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
  • a disproportionate amount of daily protein is consumed during the evening meal (>60%) with protein
  • unequal distribution of protein intake over a 24-h period may reduce the effectiveness of the total daily protein intake for promoting muscle health.
  • the combination of physical activity and protein enhances weight-loss efforts
Be sure to track your protein over a week to set a baseline and then aim for 0.8-1 gram per pound of lean mass. If you don't know your lean mass then just base it off body weight. I would also lean toward animal protein over plant protein for the bioavailability and amino acid profile of animal proteins. If that doesn't work for you then you might have to aim for higher protein levels with plant proteins.

Enjoy the show! Have a great week!

Study link:

https://cdnsciencepub.com/doi/10.1139/apnm-2014-0530



Brian (1s):

Hello and welcome to the Get Lean and Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian grn. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author, and this podcast is for middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was 10 to 15 years ago. I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. All right, welcome to the Get Lean e Clean podcast. My name is Brian Grn. I hope you had a great weekend. Happy Tuesday if you're listening to this on Tuesday and hopefully you'll listen to my interview with La Maner.

Brian (43s):

He's the research lead for a company called H V M N and they've developed a product called Ketones iq. So if you haven't checked it out, definitely check it out. We talk about all the advantages of taking this product along with ketones for brain health, high carver, low carb diets, the importance of self experimentation. So lats a really interesting guy and I definitely recommend listening to episode 2 48. Now on today's micro podcast, I know you're loving these studies that I'm bringing up today. I'm sort of bringing up an abstract paper done on protein, sort of the nutrient in focus is the name of it. And I'll leave a link in the show notes if you wanna read the whole sort of the whole abstract of protein.

Brian (1m 27s):

But I'm gonna just touch on sort of the highlights through this paper. They go through different studies that that, that have been done over the years about protein and what conclusions you can come from it. So it's really, it's actually a well done paper and I thought it'd be worth bringing it to your attention because it is a nutrient that comes up quite a bit on my, on my podcast I interview Dr. Don Leman. And so if you really wanna listen to that interview and learn more about protein and how you can apply to your life, definitely check that interview with Dr. Don Layman. Actually, some of this abstract talks about some of the studies that he's performed through the years. So definitely worth listen to if you haven't already listened to my interview with Don Layman. And today we're gonna touch on protein and I thought the abstract, I'm gonna read that for you really quick and then I'll give you a sort of conclusions from some of the things that popped out for me as I went through this.

Brian (2m 17s):

Now, protein's an essential component of a healthy diet. Its focus of research programs are seeking to optimize health at all stages of life. The focus on protein as a nutrient often centers on thermogenic and the satiating effect of it, while included in a healthy diet, it's potential to preserve lean body mass. So three great things that I just got from that was the fact, the thermo thermogenic effect of protein, meaning that just by ingesting protein, your body has to work that much harder to break it down. And so it, it, you know, your energy intake actually goes up. So that's the thermic effect of that food, which is a lot. It was just higher than both fats and carbs when it comes to having, having that high thermic effect on your body.

Brian (3m 3s):

So that, and the fact that it's a satiating nutrient is so important because obviously creating satiation throughout the day is really great because it, that way you're not overeating and you're making sure that you're not, you know, snacking all day and things like that. And then also preserving lean body mass is so important, right? We talk about sarcopenia and it touches quite a bit on sarcopenia in this, in this abstracts paper and what it, what it mentions the fact that sarcopenia is something that obviously happens as you age, typically after the age of 50 or 60 years old. And what they noticed was the fact that that establishing a frame framework with the consumption of a moderate amount of protein, approximately 25 to 35 grams of high quality protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner is fairly important.

Brian (3m 57s):

And I remember Don Layman talking a little bit about this is that if you can start and have your first meal be a higher protein intake meal, that will really set you up for the day, create satiation. And as it talks about here, it talks about protein dose and distribution and the fact that most people consume their proteins as the last meal, greater than 60% of their protein intake is coming from that evening meal. And what it talks about here is the UN and I'll quote and the unequal distribution of protein intake over a 24 hour period may reduce the effectiveness of the total protein intake for promoting muscle health.

Brian (4m 40s):

The human body has a limited ability to store excess protein amino acids for later anabolic use. Therefore, there may be no protein synthetic advantage gained by consuming overly large servings of protein in a single meal. And this study, pat Jones in Rasmussen 2009 talk about reported that consuming a moderate amount of protein at each meal stimulated 24 hour muscle protein synthesis more effectively than skewing the same total amount of protein intake towards the evening meal. I thought this was sort of a great highlight in the fact that, and I think all of us might run fall to this, is if you look at what people are eating first meal of the day, cereal, breads, bagels, croissants, not much protein, very grain heavy, second meal a day, I don't know, it might be salads, maybe a little bit of protein, right?

Brian (5m 37s):

Some people do add protein to salads if they're having that and they might consume some of their protein in that middle meal. But if you think about that last meal, you know, a lot of people probably have a steak or you know, chicken or some type of fish and that's sort of the highlight. So they're prioritizing protein for that last meal, but they're not doing it for the first two meals. And that's where the problem lies. And they're talking about that you wanna make sure you have this equal distribution of protein intake throughout the day as opposed to just having one big meal with, you know, si over the than 60% of your protein needs in that meal. So I thought that was really interesting, something you might want to take in consideration when you're sort of planning out your meals.

Brian (6m 21s):

And then it talks a little bit about a high protein diet and weight loss. And this has been known for a decent amount and touched on in a lot of different studies. Physiological research has clearly established a dietary protein represents the macronutrient with the greatest thermogenic potential and the most pronounced satiating effect. Thereby implying that calorie for calorie high protein diet should be expected to facilitate appetite control and reduce subs. Subsequent inner energy intake as I mentioned earlier, right? Appetite control and controlling your energy intake throughout the day. So, you know, when applied to a weight loss program principles, these principles that support the idea that a high protein diet should accentuate the weight reducing effect of a diet based obesity treatment.

Brian (7m 8s):

Okay? So yeah, if you're looking to lose some weight, prioritize having a high protein diet should be, you know, one of the staples of sort of your program. And then it talks about high protein diet and physical activity cuz just eating high protein obviously has a lot of great benefits as I mentioned. But we wanna add some physical activity, and I'll just read a little bit from from this section. While increasing protein intake during weight loss offers some benefits, the combination of physical activity and protein enhances weight loss efforts. And this has been specifically investigated by layman in 2005, Dr. Don Layman, who I've had on, who recruited obese women in a 16 week weight loss program who were assigned to four conditions differing by the exercise prescription and the protein content of the diet.

Brian (8m 1s):

And as there's a table shown that the high protein exercise combination increased mean body fat loss by about three kilograms compared with the other conditions while preventing loss of lean body mass. So bottom line high protein along with exercise had the best results. Dr. Don Layman did this study over a 16 week period with obese women. And so this agrees with data recently reported who showed that the com combining exercise training with a higher protein diet primarily derived from dairy foods, enhances body weight loss accompanied by greater fat free mass.

Brian (8m 42s):

So there you have it, I mean, I do like to add dairy from time to time. I, I for, for myself Greek yogurt. Love it. So that would be a great one to add in and it's just showing this combination of high protein and exercise can really help with fat-free mass. So those are some of the main highlights I got from that. So the bottom line is I would just track, see where you're at on a daily basis when it comes to protein intake. And I would shoot for, and Dr. Dunley, we talked about this, about 0.8 to one gram per pound of lean mass. If you don't know your lean mask as you can get that done by a DEXA scan, just go off your weight.

Brian (9m 23s):

So if you're, you know, if a hundred, a hundred and you know, let's just say you're 200 pound male, I would say if you could get, you know, probably around the one 70 gram mark per day would be great and, and don't try to get that in all than in, in, in one meal. Try to get it, as it talked about here, that sort of the distribution of protein throughout the day, you're better off getting it over three meals at least. And, and this'll help with muscle protein synthesis for you throughout the day as, as opposed to just having protein in that last, or at least a majority of protein in that last meal. So definitely track, see where you're at and then, you know, shoot for a number.

Brian (10m 4s):

Also not talked, at least I, I didn't see it, but Dr. Don Lemi talked about the fact that leucine is an amino acid that helps with muscle protein synthesis. So make sure you're getting quality proteins and mostly obviously animal proteins do have a better bioavailability and for the most part, if, if you eat animal proteins would be the way they go. It can be done with, with plant proteins, you probably just have to consume that much more of them to, to get the same amount than you would from animal proteins. So, but whatever, what other, whatever one fits your bill, it can work. And so yeah, that's what I wanna touch on sort of with this abstract paper done on protein. I thought you'd find it beneficial. I'll leave a link in the show notes, would love a review, that'd be great.

Brian (10m 47s):

If you're loving these micro podcasts, let me know. And if you have any questions, email me brian brian gr.com and I hope you have a great rest of the week and I will talk down Friday with another great interview. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean e unclean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member who's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again and have a great day.

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