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Protein

There's quite a bit of controversy about the appropriate amount of protein required by various activity levels. It is common to read something like this, at the Weider site: "For those who are physically active, research has shown that between 1-1.5g of protein per pound of body weight is optimal."

In itself this is a virtually meaningless statement, given that no account is taken of gender or lean body mass, let alone body composition. A 105-pound cheerleader and a 240-pound bodybuilder, and a morbidly obese layabed are barely members of the same species -- Homo athleticus ... gracile, robust and otiose. The Weider site -- a commercial webpage with the primary purpose of selling nutritional supplements ... such as protein powders -- attempts to refine its figure with the following chart.

Fair enough. It's not uncommon to read estimates as high as 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That's 300 grams of protein for someone 150 pounds, and 1200 calories -- which is precisely half the calories of what most men need on a daily basis.

A very active athlete can burn up to an estimated 3000 calories per workout. This can be estimated with the rough and ready formula of: every pint/pound (of sweat) you lose represents about 350 to 400 calories burned. It's a rule of thumb -- ambient temperature, humidity, hydration levels, ventilation all factor in, confoundingly. That same athlete may lose up to 12 pounds in a few hours -- and must, MUST drink enough water in the next few hours to replace the loss.

How much protein does all this burning and sweating require? And how much protein should a normally active person get? Protein is 4 calories per gram -- same as carbs (most fats are just over twice that -- 9 cals; medium chain lipids are 7 cals, same as alcohol). If we go by the Weider numbers, an active 150-pounder with a 2000 calorie diet (rounding of course) would require up to 900 calories of protein daily. That's like ... uh ... um ... 45%, right? Seems really high. Just about half your calories coming from protein. What, are we cavemen?

That is the crux of the matter. How much protein. There's an actual test to determine what gets used and what gets wasted -- urea nitrogen urine tests, which reveal how much protein the body takes in but cannot use. We might go into it in a future post. But the number is much smaller than what the bodybuilders assert. Standard bodybuilding literature and protein supplement sellers put the number pretty high.

Hm. Now why would that be? It's a mystery. But maybe it's not greed. Maybe they are both profit-minded and sincere. Maybe they're not ignoring contrary evidence in favor of a bias. Maybe they're ignoring it for some other reason.

The contrary testimony puts the daily protein requirement, at the high end, at something between 10 and 15 percent of total calories. Ten percent of a 2000 calorie diet is 200 calories. Fifty grams of protein. Note the difference please, between 45% and 10%. It seems like a lot. Maybe 100 times difference? A million? How could we ever know? The math is so complicated. Of course we're comparing low-end needs of low estimates with high-end needs of high estimates -- but we're pointing that fact out, too. Illustrative of the wide divergence of opinion in the matter.

Protein isn't really supposed to be a fuel. It's about amino acids, which are building blocks and act as peptides and neurotransmitters -- hormone-like. Really important. But not optimal as fuel. When blood glucose isn't available, and when fat isn't up to the job, your body will convert proteins into sugar in an expensive and inefficient process. Your brain needs sugar, you see, more than your body needs muscle. How inefficient? Glad you asked.

This is from "The Second Brain" by Michael Gershon, the seminal figure in modern enteric system research. A few preliminaries, though. You don't need a stomach. "The small intestine and its associated glands can make do without them." [pp. 93-4] Vitamin B12 is the essential issue, since it cannot be absorbed without the "intrinsic factor" that is made in the stomach. Well, we have pills and shots nowadays.

The stomach's parietal cells which make intrinsic factor also make the hydrochloric acid that handles the digestion of protein in the stomach. Only protein is digested in the stomach. Carbs and fats are broken down further along the tube. An interesting question is, why doesn't hydrochloric acid digest the cell that makes it?
To produce the hydrochloric acid of gastric juice, the parietal cells pump hydrogen ions from the blood into the lumen [lining] of the stomach. Chloride ions follow the movement of hydrogen, resulting in the formation of hydrochloric acid outside the cell where the two ions meet.

The trick is to be able to pump the hydrogen ions. This is not easy. Hydrogen ions carry a positive charge. Moving charged particles is difficult because they affect one another. Particles with the same charge repel.... A cell thus cannot just gather up a bunch of positively charged hydrogen ions and move them from one place to another. To successfully transfer a large number of positively charged hydrogen ions from one side of a cell to the other, some other particles with the same charge have to be moved back the other way to replace the hydrogen.

Pareital cells manage to avoid charge separation by making the pumping of hydrogen ions a simple transfer operation. The cells exchange hydrogen ions for potassium ions. Which are similarly charged. ...This hydrogen-potassium exchange is the process that is blocked by omeprazole (Prilosec). Once it stops, acid production comes to a screeching halt.

Since the concentration of hydrogen ions in blood is far less than the concentration required in the gastric lumen, the pariental cell pumps against staggeringly unfavorable electrical and chemical gradients. In terms of the amount of work involved, the pumping of hydrogen ions is not unlike going *up* Niagara Falls in a barrel. The effort is vast and requires the consumption of immense quantities of oxygen, the utilization of magecalories, and the production of an amazing amount of the high-energy molecule ATP. ATP is the currency that the cells spend to get the work done. [p. 95; Gershon's *italics*, emphases added.]

All this work, in order to produce hydrochloric acid, for the sole purpose of digesting proteins. See why this is important? Protein is astronomically expensive as an energy source. It's not like burning coal. It's like burning diamonds. That would be an amazing, vastly immense megawaste of staggering effort. Every effort should be made to spare this expense.

Per Colin Campbell, grand old man of protein research and author of The China Study, the RDA for protein is "about 10%.... This is considerably more than the actual amount required." [p. 58] "Relative to total calorie intake, only 5-6% dietary protein is required to replace the protein regularly excreted by the body (as amino acids)." [p. 308] He's speaking of course about mere metabolic requirements, not fantastical bodybuilder conceits of beef-packing. We won't elaborate on Campbell's frankly compelling argument. His conclusion is that high levels of protein are carcinogenic.

However much protein the body actually requires, any more than that amount is simply foolish. Unfair? We've seen the lengthy quotation that established the context. Digestion produces energy, but it uses energy too. The body is an economy. Profitable economies run as efficiently as is reasonable. When all conditions are optimal, we can afford to be profligate. When there are wide-open frontiers, we might pollute. When we are looking for elite results, we need to apply intelligence and diligence to the process. It is self-evident.

So how much protein do we actually need? For sedentary adults, the RDA for protein is 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. "Health experts say that at maximum, athletes may require 0.55 to 0.73 grams per pound." That's quite a range. The caveman estimate of 1 to 1.5 grams is twice the, uh, smart man estimate. Heh heh. How ever shall we determine which is the more likely?

Results. We have vegetarian athletes who use no animal protein whatsoever, for decades. One of them, for example, in his late forties has 8% body fat, with a BMI is 21.9 -- the exact center of "healthy". He is, as they say, ripped. His daily protein intake averages about 70 grams total -- .39 grams per pound -- 280 protein calories, out of about 3000 calories daily, on which he exercises vigorously for 2 and 3 hours a day.

Clearly, excessive protein is not the key to health. Sufficient protein is a key. Thus, the horrific Atkins Diet is not about health, but fat loss. We won't go into it now. Enough to say it is generally damaging, when extended too long. That's the problem with fad diets. They are fads.

Lasting fitness is about lifestyle, not gimmicks. The body gets stronger by doing what human bodies do, natually. Doing non-functional, highly artificial exercises can make you less fit -- there is a detraining effect that we'll talk about some time. Point is, what you just happen to hear, on TV or at the gym or standing in line, may be true, or it may be foolishness. At FitWorks we hope we make that clear. Because fortune favors the prepared, and doing just anything is a zero-sum game. Do what is effective.

Be excellent.

Here: CrossFitBurbank.com


FW
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