[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to the Eat for Endurance podcast, where we explore the connection between nutrition, performance, and health for busy active people. I'm Claire Shornstein, a sports dietician and endurance athlete. And in every episode, I share evidence-based guidance inspiring athlete stories and practical tips on a wide variety of nutrition topics so that you can feel better, crush your endurance goals, and thrive as a human being. Today, I'm chatting with Holly Samuel, who came on the show a couple years ago to chat all about body image for athletes. That was episode 94 in case you missed it, and you want to go give it a listen. Holly is a sports dietician, certified personal trainer, prenatal and postpartum exercise specialist. And she hosts her own show, The Holly Field Nutrition Podcast, which I'll be a guesting on very soon. Our conversation today is all about protein, the most popular macronutrient of late. I've talked about protein needs for athletes with my colleagues so many times over the last six plus years of the show, but somehow I don't think I've ever spent an actual episode on it, like an entire episode. So we're doing that today. Holly and I are going to break it down by athlete type, life stage, food choices, and talk about so much more so you can apply it to your own nutrition plan. Two quick announcements before we dive in. My podcast survey is open until May 15, and I would love to get your feedback so that I can continue to improve your listening experience. It only takes a couple minutes, and as an incentive, you'll be entered to win one of three prizes, a month, month, membership, two, feel for life crew, and one of two fueling sticker packs. Head to my show notes to grab the link. Also, if you are enjoying this free content, there are several ways that you can support my work. You can rate and review my show, share this episode on social media with a friend. Listen to my latest ad read for my brand new sponsor, Good Ranchers, shop my affiliate codes, and my merch over on eFrenders.com, or donate a few bucks on my Patreon page. Countless hours go into creating these episodes, and I really appreciate your support so I can keep the show going. All right, with that out of the way, here is my chat with sports dietitian, Holly Samuel, all about protein. (upbeat music) Holly, welcome back to the eFrenders podcast. How are you doing today? - It's so good to be back. It's great to be back. We're doing good. It's still snowing here, but other than that, we're doing good. - Yeah, and you are over a new Hampshire, and I am sorry, I saw the pictures of the ice all over your driveway today. - That's rough. - We had to saw April 2nd. That's just a bummer. But it's just like that last little like hurrah of winter before, there are flowers growing, so that's good. Hopefully they keep growing and they're not dead now. - Yeah, well, it is sunny here in California, but we didn't have an earthquake that jolted me away from the little night, and then I didn't sleep. So we had the pay for the beauty and the sunshine. So it's never. - I know. - You know, I wouldn't. - I need to. - You can't wait, exactly. So you've been on the show before, we're in kind of waste time in intros. Everyone can check you out and we'll talk about that later. But I want to get into today's topic, because we have so, so, so much to talk about as we were just chatting through offline, protein needs for athletes. As I was just saying, I've talked about protein so much on this show, but for some reason, I haven't done a whole episode on it, and I've given it such a hot topic lately, then I figured it was about time. So let's start with why you think protein is having such a moment in recent years. - Yeah, that's a, you know, that's a really good question. I saw like that on your outline, and I was like, I feel like that could be a whole episode. - Right? (laughing) - Yeah, no, it's like, I think it's having a moment because it always seems to, like, I know you're, you know, your sports titan too who works with clients, and like, if we're gonna put, like if people are putting a macronutrion a pedestal in like the diet culture industry, in the wellness culture industry, in like the functional nutrition industry, it's protein. Like a protein seems to get the gold star, it's got like the, you know, it's got the King's throne. Like carbohydrates and fat kind of take turns being like the ugly step sister that we're demonizing. - Yes. - It seems, and I don't know why, 'cause they're all super important, but, you know, I think it's just like, it's another year, so protein's gonna have its moment in some way, whether it's in the context of low carb, in the context of high fat keto, in the context of carnivore, in the context of atkins, like, you can go on and on, and that's because I think a lot of the times the discussion around protein intake has to do with how it may or may not contribute to body composition and weight loss, which we can obviously talk about, and that's obviously super hot topic, like, all the time. I mean, in the past 50 years plus, so, mm-hmm. That's definitely part of it. I also think it would be naive to not bring up like the food industry influence, like a lot of, you know, we wanna call like, big food industry, lobbyists, and things like that in the US have to do with like, the meat industry or the dairy industry. So I do think that probably has to do a little bit with it too, especially with the newest dietary guidelines, being a little bit more protein forward, then they have been in the past, which I don't necessarily dislike, 'cause I think they need it to be more protein forward than they were in the past, but maybe, you know, with a little bit more nuance. - Yes. - And I think also like, you can sell it in powder form. So the supplement industry, all of the fan, of getting its moment and being able to, you know, market that towards people in the context, I think, usually of weight loss, performance, body composition. So I really think that's why I like that, you know, it seems like right now carbohydrates are maybe getting more of like, kind of like the ugly step sister, you know, black sheep treatment of the three macronutrients. But it seems to be a little bit less so than in the past in the sports world. So that's good to see. I think fats definitely having like a resurgence of, you know, it being like healthful and I think we've maybe overdone it a little bit in some cases, but it doesn't seem like we're as scared of fat as we were like in the 90s. Yeah, that's kind of my take on that. I don't know what do you think, like, because I know obviously you see this all the time too. Yeah, I just, I think it's seen as this kind of just safe macronutrient, you know, so yeah, as you say, it's being put on this pedestal. I think it's very much having to do with weight, body composition, gym culture, like just all that kind of stuff, you know, we're also in the time of, you know, GLP ones and, you know, proteins are being emphasized just across the board with now that perimenopause and postmenopause kind of nutrition. And that's all being addressed more. And I just think it's like in, yeah, so many different conversations. And of course, as you brought up those dietary guidelines, Maha, all of that, proteins just being kind of hyped up in so many different ways. And as dieticians, like I agree, it's great that we're giving attention to protein because yeah, there were, you know, there were lots of people who just weren't meeting needs. I mean, we're not, we don't live in a culture, culture in a country, sorry, where anyone is actually protein deficient, like that's not actually happening. That said, like we both work primarily with, you know, athletic people and, you know, we do have elevated needs, but as we're definitely going to get into this is being blown way out of proportion, you know, to me, I'm like, what should I call this episode? And I just kept thinking about like the Taylor Swift song where it's like, everyone needs to calm down. And I'm just like, I feel like everyone needs to calm down our protein. People are getting a little, yeah, people are getting a little, a little fricking crazy. And the other thing that immediately came to mind when I was just thinking about like the landscape of protein is that horrible David quote, quote, the fish, the frozen cod fillet, and the marketing around that, where it was just like-- It was just a lot of fun. So, I was disgusting. It was like, the really skinny model in the locker room sweating, pulling out the fish fillet from a locker. And that is, there are so many things wrong with that imagery. On so many levels, but it's like, ah, protein. It's like clean, clean protein, safe. It's like the acceptable food, I don't know. There's a lot going on. Yeah, I also just wonder, like, I mean, from a completely ridiculous take, like, the guys on the internet who are shirtless eating like a raw steak or like raw beef testicles, like, in a field, like that obviously gets so much attention on the internet. Like, we have several accounts who have made millions and millions of dollars, like, selling that narrative, like caveman narrative. And it's like, if that same dude was in a field, I don't know, like, having a big baguette, like, I don't know if it would get us like much attention. It's just such an interesting phenomenon that is just like, it's-- yeah, it's what-- there's huge, you know, kind of like, extremes of it that I think we're seeing more now, probably because it's being perpetuated by just the internet in general. Yeah. Yeah. And just to be clear, like, I mean, I'm an omnivore. I love all proteins. Like-- Yeah. I love meat. I love chicken fish. I love all the proteins. Like, they're all great. So I'm certainly not against, like, enjoying a steak or enjoying, like, whatever. But, like, yeah, I agree, like, things have been really taken out of proportion. Like, when we see people on the carnivore diet or kind of just pushing things to the extreme, having, like, insane amounts of protein that just are completely-- it's just completely unnecessary. And then when people are even worse recommending crazy amounts of protein, especially when they're not nutrition professionals, that's where things get a little dicey. Yeah. So I want to kind of just make sure we're all on the same page. I thought it might be helpful for the audience just to make sure they understand basics about protein. So maybe you can give us, like, a quick protein 101, just kind of summing up briefly, like, why it's important. Any other key concepts people should know about protein? Yeah. For sure. So it's one of the three, technically four, but one of the three essential macronutrients that make up our calorie or energy intake. The other two being carbohydrates and fat and technically alcohol. If we're going to count that one, but that one's not essential. Yeah. According to some.
Maybe it's recording. That's so lubricant. Anyway, but yeah, so it's one of our macronutrients that do provide us with calories or energy. However, it is not the body's favorite source of energy to get ATP from, which is our very nerdy, basic building block of energy. The kind of building blocks that make up protein are amino acids. So there are several different amino acids. Many of them are essential, which means we have to get them through the diet. Our body cannot just make them from scratch. So super important to be meeting those needs. And basically, protein digest a bit more slowly when we do consume it, which helps with regulating kind of like slowing down blood sugar spikes, which is a super trendy word that we can always talk about. But also just kind of helps with keeping you full, because it's going to stick around in your GI tract for a little while compared to carbohydrates, which tend to digest a little bit more quickly. And then fats also digest pretty slowly, like protein. You can convert protein to fuel, like a fuel source, but it's not efficient. It's not the body's preferred way of doing that. And basically, that means you're breaking down tissues in order to get that fuel source. So we kind of want to avoid that, especially if we're talking about like an athletic population who has really high energy needs from like a calorie standpoint, but just you're trying to have a lot of energy in your day to do all the things you want to do. But the main kind of like component of protein is a macronutrient is that it's really a building block. So it builds tissues such as your muscle tissue, like hair skin and nails. It's going to build like tissues in your GI tract. It's making enzymes to help with digestion and different reactions throughout the body. It's helping make stomach acid to help with digestion, the GI lining, like it's really involved in being a huge building block for our bodies. So obviously that makes it super important. - Yeah, absolutely. And we can't store protein the same way we can store carbs and fats, but we do have kind of an amino acid pool. And then we can use that to kind of build things. So, raise an extra little tidbit there. So what about, let's talk about animal versus plant protein. This is forever a popular topic of debate or interest. So maybe we can talk about how they differ. And of course, they're not all the same like plant proteins. There'll be some varieties. We can talk through the nuance there. But let's maybe start with kind of animal proteins and what kind of sets them apart. - Yeah. So like animal proteins, they tend to have a complete amino acid profile, which just means they do contain all of those essential amino acids that we need to get through the diet. In like relatively abundant amounts. So if you're consuming animal proteins, especially like a good variety of different types throughout the week, month, you're probably doing a pretty good job getting like that amino acid pool that you just talked about to be pretty robust abundant. So that your body's not really like having to break itself down. - In order to make that happen. - And animal proteins, like they do tend to be, like if you think about sources of animal protein, chicken breast, chicken thighs, steaks, ground beef, ground turkey, fish, dairy, those types of things. Like they tend to be foods that have protein in them and like maybe some fat. Dairy has a little bit of carbohydrate, but like these are foods that are pretty protein forward. Like they're not very complex in that regard. Compared to a plant-based protein, where we're talking about those like edamame, chickpeas, tofu, grains, like nuts and seeds. Like those are pretty complex foods. They have carbohydrates, they have fat, they have fiber. Like there's a lot different nutrition profile going on with some of those foods, which is why variety in plant-based proteins is also super duper important. And our animal proteins to kind of swing back to those, they also tend to have like a pretty rich like mineral profile from a micronutrient standpoint. That's super important. Like it's important to get a variety of those. I think you probably see this as often as I do when people are really relying a lot on like one type of protein source, like they're doing chicken breast and like protein powder. And that's it. And it's like, well, we're just not really getting. We're not getting a lot of like vitamins and minerals from only those protein sources. We were getting protein from milk instead of way protein, which also comes from milk. But if we're just consuming the milk, we're getting like calcium and potassium and magnesium and vitamin A and like some carbohydrates and like all of this other great stuff, whereas way protein typically has protein. And that's about it. So that's definitely a facet of, I guess, just like a barrier that I see if there's not a ton of variety, which is why a lot of people, especially when they are athletic and they do have higher needs, it can be helpful to consume animal and plant proteins and really have a lot of variety with both. I've got people who are plant-based athletes who don't consume animal products too. It's possible. You just have to be really intentional about what you're doing so that you'd get enough and probably consume some supplements as well for like higher volume needs. Yeah. But our plant-based proteins also don't have necessarily all of the essential amino acids in like single sources of plant-based proteins. So you kind of have to do a good job of combining them throughout the day. It doesn't necessarily have to be a single meal, but throughout the day, throughout the week, again, to get that variety. So that amino acid pool is nice and varied. Yeah, totally. And we probably want to call out soy as to differentiate soy from the others, right? Because that's going to be a higher quality protein. That's going to be kind of-- Absolutely. --be a little bit-- yeah, it'll be complete. It's going to be different than, say, like beans or something like that. I don't know about you, but for me, having high quality proteins stopped and ready to hook makes it so much easier to stay consistent with fueling, especially during busy training weeks, work weeks, and family life. That's exactly why I decided to partner with good ranchers. A delivery service for high quality chicken, beef, pork, and fish, source from local American farms and ranches. Everything is vacuum sealed and pre-portioned, so it's really easy to pull out exactly what I need from the freezer, whether I'm cooking for myself, having friends over, or feeding the family. And having a variety of options keeps meals from getting repetitive, so really love that part. I was honestly so excited when my first box arrived that I finally bought a second freezer just so I could store everything. It's something I've been meaning to do for years and this ended up being the perfect excuse. You can choose one of their curated boxes, or you can build your own with exactly what works for your household. And if you start a subscription, you can use the code IEARNED to save $25 on your order. And one quick but important note, after checkout, there's a short survey. And when they ask how you heard about good ranchers, make sure to write in, eat for endurance, so they know that you came for the podcast, and you are helping to support the show. So if you want to make it easier to keep high quality protein on hand for both performance and everyday life, head to goodrangers.com and give it a try. And if you do try it, let me know what you think. All right, let's get back to the episode. The other thing that occurred to me as you were describing the way protein and the milk was, people who only have egg whites, and they're not having the yolk, and the fact that the yolk is so rich in, well, number one, it's giving you energy, in fact. But it has all these other micronutrients and other things in it. So it's not that you can, if you just prefer to have just egg whites or whatever fine, but just kind of being aware that when you're not having the variety or when you're only having a certain type of thing, like you are missing out on other nutrients. And so often when I'm working with someone like that, like, okay, well, how do we get those things? I'll sort of die if you really don't like this. Sometimes I'll have sometimes people say, like, I really just don't like egg yolks. That to me is also a little bit of a red flag going about you, but I'll be like, hmm, interesting. Why do you not like egg yolks? Do you really not like egg yolks? Are you trying that to get the extra calories or fat or have you been given information about cholesterol that's outdated? So, okay, cool. Thank you. Oh, and the other thing I want to point out is losing, kind of losing content. So, losing is one of these essential amino acids that is important, especially for recovery and for muscle protein synthesis. And so, again, it's not that we cannot get losing from plant sources, but they are found more abundantly in some of these animal proteins, just kind of FYI. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. We can talk about that too. You wanted to bring up like a life cycle nutrition too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, losing is one of the branch chain amino acids that can help with muscle protein synthesis. And you typically want like two grams post workout, but maybe up to four if you're over 40. So, if you're plant-based, yeah, you kind of have to be super intentional about that with animal-based, it's a little bit easier. If you're just like bumping up your protein dose. Yeah, totally. Well, let's get into lifespan, kind of protein across the lifespan. Let's start with younger athletes or teens or collegiate athletes. What do we need to think about when it comes to protein just given kind of growth in training demands and whatever else is going on with this population? Yeah. No, it's super interesting. A lot of the protein, I guess like reference ranges that are recommended that we'll end up talking about. They're in like grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. So, you're talking about a youth athlete. Like their body weight's going to change over time. So, like that's kind of where the protein needs go up over time for youth athlete. I mean, typically the pretty broad range that's given to athletic adults is what applies, like 1.2 grams per kilogram to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight, but really what's emphasized is just making sure they're getting in like enough food throughout the day. So, they're growing properly and that they have, you know, high quality sources of protein and a variety, if you can get it. I know that can be tricky for some kids. I was a super picky eater growing up and I became a dietitian.
So like there's hope. But yeah, it's definitely helpful. But yeah, I find like making sure people aren't getting too hyper fixated on protein for kids and youth athletes is helpful because a lot of the times if they're eating like three square meals, they're getting in their snacks and we're talking about the quality and the kind of makeup of those like the mouth will kind of work itself out for kids. So their reference range doesn't differ too much than adults who are athletic. It's just their body weight's probably going to go up over time to the protein need total is going to go up over time. Yeah. And we should probably point out before, well, I mean, maybe we're doing as part of this. So for adults kind of before we get to the kind of aging population, maybe we should talk about kind of more sedentary healthy adults and where we're kind of landed because that's also changing. That landscape has shifted recently in terms of what recommendations are. But yeah, maybe we're doing that and then we can move into athletes actually. Yeah. But for like forever, it was recommended that adults in America get point eight grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. I mean, that's just like not a lot. I mean, I can do some math real quick, like for 150 pound person, I just like to use that round number as a case study. That's like 54 grams of protein per day. Yeah. That's not an amiable. Yeah. Yeah. That's not a whole lot. And it's kind of been like shown to help prevent protein calorie malnutrition, which is like a medical diagnosis where there's muscle wasting and there's like deterioration of the body. Like that's kind of where that bare minimum came from. But then we were applying it to a population and kind of like saying it was good enough for like optimal health. And like you said at the beginning of this, like we're not really in a country where we have to worry a ton about protein calorie malnutrition for the majority of the population. And security is a whole thing, but like not necessarily protein calorie malnutrition, like learning about like quasi or core and those types of conditions and third world or underdeveloped country. Like very different from where we live. Just because of what's available and what food industries are prioritized. So that changed, which I think was a good thing in the newest US dietary guidelines from 2025 to 2030, which is crazy to say. But that reference range change to start at 1.2 to about 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. So for 150 pound person, that's about 82 to 109 grams of protein, which is like, I mean, that's significantly more than what it was. That's kind of high for like a general population, right? Like it's one thing to talk about an active population of athletes, right? And we were saying, yeah, like as you just said, like 1.2 to 1.8, we were saying offline, like often with my athletes, I'm doing some routine 1.4 and 1.8 and like that. But like for the general population of Americans to recommend 1.2 to 1.6 is like, I mean, 1.2 okay, you know, but 1.6 is like really? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. 1.6 is really high. And I don't know if they're trying to take into account like encouraging people to be more active. Yeah. But we know that maybe we're not. Yeah, but no. So, yeah, it's kind of a confusing, it's a hard, it is kind of a hard thing to develop because it's like, well, I think people maybe have paid more attention to the guidelines this time than any other time, just because they were so controversial and social media exists compared to like 2020 guidelines. But we historically know that the problem isn't necessarily the guidelines. It's that people don't follow them. Like that's, yeah, that's kind of the historical issue with the guidelines is that. Yeah. And we've been tweaked and changed a bit over the years, some for better, some for worse. But like we have studies showing that like the issue is that Americans do not follow them. So, you know, kind of assessing the why of that. A lot of it's, you know, our, our, our built, you know, kind of like how you can be active outside. Is it safe? Are there food deserts? Food assessability, food prices like all of these things can make a really big difference in people's ability to follow them. So yeah, that wasn't really addressed. They just kind of changed a bit of those things in the recommendations this time around. But I agree with you. I think they needed to be higher than point eight, but I think one point sex is like a bit much. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And especially looking at like, you know, the, so the next phase of life being okay, like when you are, you know, in midlife and beyond. And we know that you do need a little bit more protein. But I think this is where things have really been blown out of proportion. And kind of people are starting to pray on, especially when we think about like midlife women and paramedicos, postmenopause. And they're in a very vulnerable time. You know, bodies are changing. It's really hard. And everyone's being yelled at to like consume just insane amounts of protein. Now granted again, like, it's hard to like separate populations out between like quote general population and like quote active population because like, you know, there are a lot of people who are very active. And then we have like the athlete population. So we are going to be differentiating to some extent between these two different groups. But you know, a lot of people are active on some level. I mean, we know some people are not. But I, this is where like, what is the research actually support and what are people just being told like and like kind of fear moderate into? Because right now people are like, you know, there's like all these jokes like, oh my god, he and proteins my full time job. You know, like, he's like women and, you know, in mid life. And it's like, okay, this is getting a little out of hand. And we also know that they're not consuming enough carbohydrate, probably not consuming enough total food. So yeah, I'm kind of curious your thoughts on kind of as we age, again, not getting super specific with athletes just yet, but just generally speaking as we age protein needs. I know it's so tricky. I think like just as a population, we're really like to hyperfixay on like one thing that we can work on or like just kind of obsess over or take to an extreme rather than looking at 10 different things in a smaller way. You know, because it's kind of easier sometimes to say, all right, I'm going to pick one thing to focus on and I'm just going to do the crap out of that essentially. But it's true. I was talking to some clients about this yesterday who were like, I'm 50. So I'm getting hit with like all the paramedic positive algorithm. And I'm realizing that I'm 50 and I'm in that category, but I'm also running 30 miles a week. And that's not who that algorithm is really talking to. And then I think we also have the people who are getting hit with that algorithm. And they're also like, I'm not really exercising much at all. Like I just don't feel like myself and it seems like it kind of has slowly changed over the course of the past few months. So they're trying to figure out, yeah, what to do about that to feel better. And I think the answer is the same as kind of like the argument around the guidelines. Like I think, yeah, like a lot of women who are maybe not focused on a well-rounded diet who are experiencing, you know, aging, the aging process, maybe hormonal changes too. That obviously complicate that. I think they could probably stand to focus a little bit more on protein intake than they probably were before. But I think, yeah, we're probably trying to take them from like one number that's low to like this number. That's like double or triple that, which is insanely, you know, dramatic and probably not necessary. So, yeah, I mean, from like a population standpoint for goals for that. I mean, I agree with you. I really think like one to one point four grams per kilogram of body weight's probably like realistic to like actually achieve and pretty effective. And I know what we were talking about offline too was that when it comes to body composition, you know, there's a couple different categories we can be talking about, which is typically what the paramedicol's conversation is about is about, you know, losing weight, building muscle mass, toning up. Like however you want to, you know, discuss body composition. But they're all kind of different things. Like if we're wanting to build muscle mass, we really need to incorporate the body. We need to incorporate strength training like strength training is the number one thing that's going to help with that. And we need carbohydrates to strength training as we were talking about. So we have energy to do that and recover properly. And yeah, like a protein intake, that's pretty modest like around, yeah, we got one point two to one point four grams per kilogram of body weight is going to supplement that. But much higher isn't necessarily going to build muscle mass. So it's like more isn't always better is what I'm trying to get at. Now we lose. We have a study showing, I mean, completely different things that don't really take exercise into account at all. They're just trying to talk about how can we maintain muscle mass and not lose it, but not necessarily build more in a calorie deficit, which is a whole different conversation. And those reference ranges are much higher, you know, kind of like over two grams per kilogram of body weight, which is a, you know, a ton of protein that might not be realistic either for people to hit. And then it depends on the body size though. So that's the thing like, yeah, and that's the other thing. And I think it's worth discussing too is that, you know, depending on someone's body, because these are all gram per kilogram, right? So if you are in a small or body, it might not be that hard to reach say 90 to 115 grams or whatever. But like what if you are in a larger body, you know, and like, yeah, like clinically, we can use adjusted body weights and do stuff like that. But I think sometimes, you know, people who are in larger bodies get overwhelmed, confused, whatever, because they hear these recommendations, they calculate it for their, for their own body weight. And, you know, the recommendation, even when it's not crazy high is like, oh my god, I have to have like 175 grams of protein. So maybe we can talk about that a little bit. Like how do you handle protein?
routine needs when someone is in a larger body. - Yeah, and I think the same overwhelm can come up with carbohydrates too, if you're in a larger body. - Yes, exactly. - How many grams of sugar in a larger body? - Yes, yes. - Yeah, it's like quadruple what I'm habitually doing. So, yeah, I mean, it depends on the person in the larger body, the rest of their health status, what their goals are, what their activity levels are, how they're responding to that, how realistic it is. Like, there's so many different nuances to that. Whenever I'm working with people, I tend to not be super numbers data, calculatory forward, just because I come from eating disorder and formed lens, and that's just not good for everyone that I tend to work with, who are attracted to my message. - Yeah. - But, you know, it's, when we are talking about that, I always, you know, kind of say the data and the calculators and the numbers, and like, you know, the chat GBT of it all, like, it's a starting point, like it's not the end all be all, because you're a human, you're not a robot, and a lot of these studies are more short term, like some of the really high quality studies are more like short term, like they're not necessarily having people control this for the rest of their life when they're going and getting sick, or they're, you know, moving or changing jobs, or changing exercise stimulus, like people aren't lab rats in a vacuum that have no other factors, like affecting their life. So, I always kind of use these as a starting point, kind of see where they're at, and start to say, can we fill the gap? And when you find a place where you're feeling good, and it's realistic for you, maybe that's where we settle. - Yeah, guidelines are, you know, suggestions, not necessarily rules, and you always have to kind of individualize that, and that, you know, from where we sit, that means, okay, yeah, maybe we will play around with numbers and guidelines, and maybe not even share that with you, but then we use our own clinical judgment, and maybe we give you numbers, maybe not, maybe we just tell you in food terms, and then we're kind of figuring out what makes sense, based on where you're at right now, right? So, yeah, so if you're hearing all these numbers, and you're like, okay, well, what does this mean for me? And especially if you calculate them out and nothing, they're really, really high, and they're like, oh my god, this is so much. Again, number one, remember where you're at right now. So, you know, we always have to take you where you are today. And number two, like, you can work up to a goal slowly, and then like, you know, is it, is the number that sounds high? Is that like 1.2 grams per kilogram of protein? Like probably not, like maybe like you've been influenced with this like 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is absolutely ludicrous. And like, like we were talking about this, where we started recording, like, we're gonna just even come from, like, like, where did this come from? You do not need this much protein. This is like just insane. And now granted, I will say, sometimes we have, we know, of course we get athletes who are, especially like ultra-athletes, Iron Man, whatever, who are, I mean, they need so many calories. They just need so much food. And so we have these situations where maybe in the context of eating like crazy amounts of food to meet their overall needs, they are having tons of protein. Like that, you know, fine, that happens. But in other circumstances where, you know, maybe that's not the case. Like this is kind of more the context we're talking about. We're like more general. The other thing that also occurred to me, you know, we, I think, I gravitate a lot towards talk around midlife women because I'm 40, almost 45, and you know, this is kind of my world. But like there are a lot of men who are just slamming protein, prioritizing protein, you know, whether it's in the context of like lifting and gym stuff, wanting to get big, like, you know, just like so many things. So, you know, this is very much not just a women-centric thing. It's like men are being blasted with protein stuff. And so I don't know if you want to spend any time talking about that. I think you mostly work with women, right? I forget. - I do. I work with men too. - Are you work with men? - Okay. Again, I tend to work with more women just because that's who I seem to attract. But I have quite a few men too. The, the, it's so interesting because that narrative of like, okay, the men who are trying to get big, you know, shredded, cut, like whatever that, like beauty standard is for men, they're using protein to try and do that in like super high quantities. And then women are being sold the message of like being smaller with super high amounts of protein. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make any sense. (laughs) Like, it makes no sense. So it's just, it's maddening. But that's so true. And like a lot of the times too, you know, I don't know what your experience is, but like, it tends to be like in that category, I find it's a lot of supplements, which are just unregulated, potentially problematic, not nutrient dense at all. And or it's like a ton of animal protein on top of it. And that may or may not be high in like saturated fat. And maybe they're so full of protein that they're not able to meet their carbohydrate and fiber needs. So then there's like a lipid panel issue or, you know, like a cardiovascular health issue. If it's just again, like in this extreme amount, that can be super frustrating too. And it's really hard to encourage people to just like have a little bit more of a balanced approach. Like we need to pull back on your protein a bit to make room for the carbohydrates that you need to try and sustain the amount of training you're doing. And maybe rest a little bit too, 'cause that's what's actually probably going to help your cortisol levels, like instead of being in the gym seven days a week, but, you know, in that population, the sedentary population probably could be encouraged, exercise more, but it's tricky. It really depends on who you're talking to and like assessing the why of it all. Because if you start to peel it back, I mean, you probably do the same thing. I'm, I always am like, oh, you're taking this list to supplements, like I need to go over like the brand, the dose and also who recommended it and why. And it's half the time I heard it on a podcast. I just thought I should because I've all this influence or and they were talking about it. Some guy at the gym told me and they're saying it out loud and they're like, I'm ashamed to tell you this because I know how it sounds like now that I'm saying it out loud. And I'm like, I get it. Like it's marketing is very powerful and it's easier to just kind of accept that advice and try it out rather than, yeah, say can I make my diet a little bit different and can I cook a little bit more and can I, you know, maybe try to do the scary thing and eat more carbohydrates like that's I think a lot harder to do. So I get why people do it. Like I've been there. I totally get it. So yeah, it's always interesting to peel back the why like in the layers on that. - Yeah, yeah, no, totally. I want to go through kind of different types of athletes for a little bit. - Yeah, you know, so we are kind of exploring general population maybe kind of active people, but let's talk specifically about endurance athletes now. We can talk about strength power athletes and then if we want to say anything else about kind of like everyday active people, though I feel like we kind of address that. But what do we want to say about endurance athletes specifically when it comes to these? - We should define that first too. - Yes, please do. - When I, yeah, like when I am talking to endurance athletes, I feel like half the people who probably should be listening to what I'm about to say, like they tune out 'cause they're like, well, I'm not an endurance athlete. Like I don't have a race on the calendar or I'm not. - Yes. - On this fast marathon or whatever, they're like kind of standard is in their head. But typically like when I'm saying, oh, this person's more of like an endurance focused athlete, you know, I'm like they're probably doing cardio training for like at least three or four hours a week. That's kind of what I consider it. They're doing extra, you know, strength training, Pilates, yoga, whatever it is on top of that. Great, like that just contributes to more volume too. But that tends to be someone where it's like the majority of what they're doing in a week is, and it's greater than that of what's recommended to the sedentary population, which is 150 minutes of exercise per week. You know, if they're doing more than that and tends to be mostly cardio focused, you know, in terms of the pie chart of what they're doing, yeah, you're an endurance focused athlete, especially if like some of your bouts of exercise are like approaching not like our mark, or even, you know, longer than that. If you have like a half marathon on the calendar or marathon, like yes, you're an endurance athlete. You don't care what your pace is, you're an endurance athlete. You know, and if we're doing five Ks, 10 Ks, like that's awesome too, like a lot of the times the volume required for that to do it well, you know, if it's like a goal for you is also that of an endurance athlete. So we're talking about like Olympic track events. It's like anything over like, it's like 800 meters and above is considered endurance, like an aerobic versus like an aerobic. So yeah, yeah. And for those people who don't know 800 meters is like half a mile. So, you know, if we're talking about really high efforts too, like it pretty short distance is considered endurance. So yeah, that's kind of that population, which is probably I'm sure a lot of who's listening. But from a protein standpoint, people, I mean, we've been arguing about this. I feel like for a long time, you know, the endurance athlete population it used to be like, oh, you don't really need to worry about protein. Like protein's not that important, like 0.8 grams per kilogram. And then it was like, oh, maybe like 0.8 to 1.2. Like maybe we do need a little bit more. And now we're starting to see like much higher reference ranges. And it's really nuanced. So I mean, the reference range I tend to give just from like research because there's so many studies saying different things. So I just use the broad range is 1.2 to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight. And that has a lot to do with is the person also strength training, is the person trying to like approach body composition in a certain way? Are they like a master's athlete over 40? Do they just do better with more protein? Like there's a lot of nuance to that. And I find most people tend to be happiest like habitually in their daily life, you know, taking out the extremes of like the three to four weeks of peak marathon training around like 1.4 to like 1.8 kind of like what you were saying. Yeah.
grams per kilogram of body weight. So again, to kind of do the broad range, 1.2 to 2 in a case study format for that 150 pound person, that's 82 to 136 grams of protein. So like pretty reasonable, in my opinion, like not the main character of the macronutrients at all. And some of my clients tends to be one or the other. Some of them have a really hard time meeting that. There's not like attracted to protein rich foods. They don't like them that much, which can sometimes point to other things that we have to work on. And then some of my clients come to me and they're like, yeah, 40% of my intake is protein because that's what I've been told to do. And we kind of have to pull back on it to make room for other macronutrients. So it tends to be one or the other. But that's a general consensus. It's like, it's a pretty big range. And we're kind of seeing it trend up a little bit over the years in terms of what's beneficial for recovery and research. Yeah. And yeah, and this is, I'm right over there with you with the, you know, with the types of people I'm getting and what I'm traditionally recommending. And yeah, sometimes people like really just don't enjoy more protein rich foods. And we kind of have to explore that a little bit more. If someone is on more of a plant-based diet, it could be a little bit harder to kind of reach goals. But, you know, we're kind of considering that. And then sometimes like maybe someone does need, you know, a fair amount of protein, but they're really struggling to get enough carbohydrates in. And so, yeah, so we are kind of like, okay, well, maybe I'm going to go on the lower end of protein needs because I really want to prioritize their carb needs first and then see where we can go from there. So yeah, there's a lot of kind of playing around with that. But yeah, 1.2 to 2, that's a huge range. And so as you're kind of saying, like if you're also doing strength training, that's going to increase your needs further. So we want to kind of maybe go up a little bit. And if you are a master's athlete, you know, a master's athlete. So as we age, then yes, we want to go a little bit up. But it doesn't mean you need to. I think that's this is where some people kind of get really confused because they're like, oh, well, you know, I am a master's athlete and I am strength training and I am training for an endurance event. So I must need crazy amounts of protein. But then I'm really confused too because everyone's telling me I need so many carbs. It's like, how do I fit all the stuff in? It's really hard to fit all in. So what's kind of some messaging there that I mean, again, I know it's all very dependent on the person. But what's some like messaging you might want to say not about that? Yeah. And I'll add to like the ones who might be like elevated protein within that endurance population because I forgot, which is hilarious because the supplies to me is if you're pregnant or breastfeeding too. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Congrats, by the way. Thank you. I forgot about myself. That would be that would indicate a little bit of just higher energy needs in general, but higher energy needs to do. But yeah, for so for that person, which is like, I mean, I probably the majority of the clients that I work with, like, I would say, how do you feel? What does your blood work like? How are you performing? Like, medically, how are you? Because if you feel good consuming a little bit less, then great. Like, that's what we're going to do. You know, we can focus more, yeah, maybe on the carbohydrates of it all during certain seasons of your training because that's what feels better. And that's what's realistic for you to actually do. And if you're like, I really feel like I could feel better. I don't feel that great. I'm not that happy with where I'm at. I feel like my body composition is doing X, Y, Z. Then maybe we play with it a little bit and we try to scale things up and down and see how you feel. Like, it's all about experimental once you're within the reference range. Like rarely are going to, they're going to be huge outliers like to the reference range. Because the reference range is pretty big. So it's kind of figuring out like where you fit in that category and how you feel. I don't know about you, but like in my population too, like why am I coming out things from more of an eating disorder focus lens to like a lot of people are super disconnected from how they feel. They're like, I don't know how I feel. How do I feel? What do you mean? Like, how do I feel? So that's something that we're trying to focus on and just like re-emphasize how important it is to be connected to that to some degree because I can give you, I mean, you can you can go crazy like searching for different nutrition recommendations. But if you feel like complete trash implementing them over long periods of time, then like we probably should play with that a little bit because they're a starting point. They're not necessarily the rules. Yeah, yeah, totally. Before we keep going, I want to speak to something I know a lot of you are dealing with. If you're training consistently and trying to stay on top of your nutrition, but it still feels really hard or confusing, you're not alone. Many of the athletes I work with are motivated and doing their best while juggling a lot. These athletes don't need more nutrition rules or more discipline. They need guidance that's realistic, flexible and supportive. That's why I created EatFrontDurance. On a website, you'll find free nutrition downloads, tons of detailed blogs, low-cost mini-guides and master classes, and my monthly membership feel for life group. For just $39 a month, you can ask me your questions in our private Slack community, drop into my monthly live office hours to essentially get a mini one-to-one session and connect with other busy active people navigating similar challenges. And if you're looking for a much more individualized and a higher level support, I also offer three and six month one-to-one nutrition coaching programs with limited spots available. You can explore everything over at EatFrontDurance.com. One thing we were talking about offline was it was a couple of posts I had sent you from a researcher that was talking about protein needs in different populations. And he basically was saying that there was basically a ceiling of 1.6 grams per day. And the context was a little bit different. So I'm, well, he kind of looked at a lot of different things. And I'm still trying to kind of understand what this all means, because we were saying, wait a minute. But you know what we have seen, this is just self-sale. There's a lot of research out there and there's a lot of conflicting information. But you know, like when someone is for instance in a caloric deficit, trying to lose weight or when they're injured, there are periods of time where you want to go up to 2.2, maybe even higher grams per kilogram, right? But this was kind of pointing out, like the post says, this is from Stewart Phillips, by the way. We pulled, this is what he says, we pulled 74 randomized controlled trials nearly 2700 people in the signals clear. Once you hit 1.6 grams per kilogram per day of protein, combined with resistance training, more doesn't build more muscle, more strength, more function, more anything. And then they kind of looked at some other things. And then they, he was also posting about women and older adults. So I just, I thought it was like really interesting because he was basically like, he's still looking at 1.2 to 1.6. So it's still elevated, but it's not going as high. And yeah, I just thought it was, it was very interesting that they like, he was basically saying this lower protein group, even though they were, let's see, oh yeah, they put young men in a 40% caloric deficit for four weeks. They had a high protein group of 2.4 grams per kilogram per day and a lower protein group at 1.2. And so the higher protein group basically did gain 1.2 kilograms of lean mass in last 4.8 kilograms of fat, but the lower protein group held their muscle, the lean body mass didn't change. They got stronger. And so it's kind of counter to that general narrative we hear where it's like, oh, if you don't go higher, you're going to lose your lean body mass, even though you're losing. So yeah, so I just thought it was interesting. And again, they, he did post about women and older adults as well. That was kind of similarly looking at these relatively lower. So it's still elevated. It's still like 1.3 or 1.4, whatever. But yeah, curious kind of your thoughts and all this because I like sent it to you and knowing we were going to talk today and I'm just like, what do you think about this? Because I'm still trying to wrap my head around. I'm also curious to what did it say how long the studies were for. You know, I'm not sure. I don't have the information. I'm sure I'm sure it's somewhere. I just didn't call that. That's something that I can really matters because like I think, yeah, like I think before weeks, four weeks is what four weeks for the deficit just for that part. I don't know about some of these other things, but yeah, but it's a bunch of it's it's looking at 74 randomized controlled trials. So I don't know each one like what the length was. I have no idea. Right, right, right. Yeah. No, right. Like it was it was looking at a ton of different studies. And that was kind of like that. I think that is important and interesting. Like, yeah, you can manipulate macronutrients to an extreme like that. But it's like, how long is that going to be sustainable and how long are you going to keep seeing that same result? Because you're not going to just keep losing fat mass forever. Like there's going to be an end point where adaptations happen. And same thing with muscle mass, like it's really hard to keep just gaining muscle mass forever and ever and ever. So I think like the length of time matters. And I think in the I think what was cool about that is he was trying to kind of put in the context of like protein intake and strength training together. I think a lot of the time studies focus on one or the other when they're both super important for metabolic change, or they'll just focus on different things as a result of them. Like they're focusing on muscle mass versus fat mass versus like glucose levels or like this lipid panel or whatever the outcome is. But when we're talking about like long term sustainable weight loss or using a GLP one like in that kind of regard to or someone who's had weight loss surgery, things that are meant to be more like long term. It's just not that black and white because I also think we need to think about well, what was their vitamin D status? What was their ferritin status? How did they feel like there's so many more factors that go into health that I'd be curious to read about and see if that's something that gets addressed in the future that I think is impossible to address in a research study. I mean way too many factors. But I do see that. Like I see it's not going to be sustainable to consume a crazy high amount of protein for a long period of time. Like it's just going to be really hard for a lot of people to do that. And
feel well and be able to train at the level they want to train at without some sort of side effect of I'm not getting enough carbohydrates so my sleep or my stress levels or this is kind of going wonky and I think fiber and exactly too. Fiber and gut. Health, health, having that up. Yeah, I mean, I definitely like the approach of like, yeah, we probably don't need a super crazy high amount of protein to achieve like a very reasonable body composition change. I think that's pretty accurate to what I see in practice. But yeah, I always like to look at the length of time because I'm like, well, yeah, you can do anything for like four weeks. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my big takeaway from these posts and again, I didn't go digging into this research. I just kind of saw these these posts from someone who, you know, puts out some good stuff and so I thought it would be a good point. But my big takeaway is like, people again need to calm down about protein and and are just below just going crazy with this when they don't need to be at the same time. Okay, well, if 1.6 gram per kilogram is the ceiling as he's saying in this specific context, if you happen to be consuming 1.8 grams per kilogram and you're getting everything else you need, like that's also not really harmful. Like it's fine. It cares. You know what I mean? So it might be a ceiling, but it doesn't mean like you're going to be harmed if you're consuming more. It's more just this standpoint of, or this perspective of like, I need all the protein and the more's the better, you know, it's like, well, no, more is not always better. We know that. I don't think we need to go digging into it too much more, but I just thought it was really interesting and worth exploring together. So thank you for introducing me on that. Well, when I think of more as like an interesting concept argument that I see a lot online, like that researcher is talking about, you know, grams per kilogram of body weight. So like as the size of the person increases, obviously the total protein is going to increase. Like it's scalable, like it's dynamic. That makes a ton of sense to me. The argument that I see a lot is like, oh, we can't absorb, you know, more than X grams. I always like to say like 40 or 50 grams of protein in a setting. That's an argument that I see a lot against high protein intake. And it's like, well, that's not true. And it was like, that's not the more. Yeah, like if we're looking at, like, are you going to tell LeBron James he can't absorb more than 40 grams of protein in a setting? What's he going to do? Like he's a very large man. That needs a lot of protein. Like that doesn't make any sense. So like that's a myth we can debunk. But I like that. At least it's like talking about the total day and how dynamic that can be with like a person who's larger versus smaller. Yeah. Let's talk about timing, protein timing is a big one. And in the context of this discussion, talking about kind of pre post workout. So does timing matter? And this has also been another one of these things that's been changing. Over the years. So when I say this timing matter, meaning both from like an athletic perspective and not. So more generally speaking, what if you just like having oatmeal with some fruit and nuts and maybe it's colorically adequate, but you know, it's not the most protein rich thing ever. But you know, your lunges and dinners are a little bit higher in protein. Or, you know, maybe it is an athletic standpoint and kind of looking at kind of the pre and post. So yeah, I just kind of talking about timing, meaning like reaching, we're comparing reaching your total needs per day. Like however you do it across the day versus like spreading it out, kind of more in a moderate amount. Yeah. I'll like say you need 100 grams of protein a day just to have a nice round number. It's like, should I have that all at once? Should I have 250 gram doses? Should I do like 10, 10 gram doses? You know, how should I spread that out throughout the day? I mean, the best way is usually like research supported like three to four times per day having 20 to 40 grams like at those doses. Now there's gonna be nuance to that. And that tends to be beneficial from our recovery and like protein muscle synthesis, which is a fancy way of saying like hashtag gains like hashtag recovery. You know, those things are why that's important blood sugar control management, you know, to kind of help with just having balanced meals like because we're also having carbohydrates fat and fiber in those settings with the 20 to 40 grams of protein. So that's what I find tends to work really well for people too. I think where some of the nuance comes in is when do you work out? What's your schedule like? How do you tolerate protein before you work out? Because that's where with endurance athletes specifically can be a little bit trickier because one, our exercise duration can be long. It's like a chunk of your day, especially some days of the week. And also, yeah, you might not tolerate 20 to 40 grams of protein when you wake up and then need to go run 30 minutes later. So we kind of want to pick and choose when that's happening and what makes the most sense. Recovery, like right after a workout, whether it's a run, a strength session, I mean, that's something that I'm pretty stingy about just because most of my clients have a hard time meeting their energy needs over the course of the day. So the sooner I can get them to eat something, the better. But there's a little bit of wiggle room in that research too. We used to really be like, yeah, that 30 to 60-minute window post workout is the most important thing ever. There's some research showing like, it's a little bit less important than we thought it was. I tend to see there's more collateral. You throughout the rest of the day, that's negative if people aren't getting in like a 20 to 40 gram of protein, but also probably like 40 to 100 gram of carbohydrate with that dose within the first hour, even if it's broken up in two different meals or snacks. I tend to see that working really well. And if people aren't doing that, they tend to need to snack or even binge a little bit more throughout the rest of the day. Or their blood sugar controls worse. Or even if they are meeting their energy needs over the course of the day, their recovery is worse. They have like relative energy deficiency in sports like syndroms and they're presenting like that. Or they have like their periods missing because there's that like midday deficit happening. So I mean anecdotally like I I am a little bit stricter about it for people and really encouraging that post workout dose to be pretty prompt. But definitely more flexible around the pre workout because if you can get in some protein and you feel good doing that, great. As long as you're getting enough carbohydrates and you're feeling good. Super. Yeah. But some people just don't and I don't I don't think it's as important as long as they're able to get it after and throughout the rest of the day. What do you think? Yeah. So here's how I think about it. I always tell people meeting your total daily needs is like the top priority for protein. Like when we're just thinking about protein. So we want to make sure you're being your total daily needs. That's number one in theory based on some research we've seen like yeah, maybe spreading out and across the day isn't as important. But practically speaking and kind of like I see a lot of people who as you're saying like we have to just seize all these eating opportunities and your body's really well primed for it. Like immediately after workout. Especially if it's a harder lot longer. That's the other thing we're looking at with nuance. It's like did you just do an easy 30 minutes? Did you have a protein rich breakfast or not? Like what is all of this context? Right? It's important. So usually what I'm saying is like okay, even though yes, me and your total daily needs is the most important thing like practically speaking, it usually is going to feel the best and just make the most sense for you to spread it roughly across your meals and snacks. And I also say don't stress because everyone's like this is another more things like your breakfast has to be so protein rich. It's like well, but again, what's the context because are you getting up and you're running working out within 30 minutes or an hour or you getting up and running or working out within two to three hours? So I always talk to people about how much time do you have to digest? Because if it's two to three hours, then yeah, we want to get a good dose of protein in, you know, are you doing a really really long hard session or kind of an easier session? Are you doing strength training? Are you running? Are you biking? Are you hiking? Whatever you know, so there's like we have to also think about what you're going to tolerate. So again, there's so much to consider here. There isn't like one black and white rule that you always have to follow. You always have to think about context. And so like I kind of talk about it in those senses. So like yeah, so maybe like a breakfast often, not always, but often is maybe that's more like 20-ish grams because of what you enjoy eating and maybe lunch and dinner is a little higher in protein. Like we obviously don't want to get to a point where you're trying to play ketchup later in the day with anything, with any of your macronutrients because that's just not going to feel good. It's just not going to be good for a number of reasons. So yeah, that's usually how you talk about it. And then as for recovery, yeah, it's it's it's a needing opportunity because usually when people are not on top of it, they're going to get distracted by emails. I mean, this is like I do this too. I'm like so guilty of this sometimes. I'm like I'm just going to respond to this one email. And it's like one and a half hours later. I'm like, you know, I haven't showered. I have a client in two minutes. I'm like, I'm like, oh my god, take your own advice Claire. What is wrong with you? So, you know, so like it doesn't, it doesn't have to be complicated and you don't have to have like this insane amount of protein. But, you know, we can think about it. Like usually like we say out 20 to 40 grams or so or what is the exact is it like 0.5 ish, 0.5 gram per kilogram. I think it's the post workout amount. Yeah, I think we're going to point five, five, six, point six. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you can kind of do the master pilgrimage. But body weight, which is usually like, yeah, like 20 to 40 for a lot of people. Most people. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And that's where too, like if you are like a master's athlete over 40, sometimes there's some research to support, like a little bit of a higher protein dose right after you work out being beneficial compared to when you were like in your 20s. And there's some new ones to that too. But like I do see that helpful for folks to work on, especially if they're trying to maintain like a pretty good training load. And they have to like recover pretty quickly for, you know, an hour session the next day or like a double later in the day that can be super important. It's definitely tricky to yeah, to kind of
like give super baseline recommendations just because it's your right. It's like, well, if you're going to go wrong, you're sloshing your GI tract around. But like if you bike, maybe you can tolerate a little bit more. And maybe if you're strength training, it's like you can tolerate even more. So the kind of depends on on the person too. But yeah, and intensity like like like like depending on the sport, even if you're doing like a race even like, are you doing an ultra or are you doing a marathon? And I know I'm going to talk about ultra nutrition on your podcast soon. And so I'm sure we'll talk about this. But like, you know, I'd say a breakfast before an ultra marathon is probably not going to be the same as like your breakfast for your road marathon because, you know, intensity is a little bit different. It's much longer. You're missing more meals. I mean, you need something a little bit more sustenance. You probably want a little bit of protein and or, you know, a little fat as tolerated in their compared to I mean, even for a marathon where, you know, like I I'm sure you're working with tons of people for Boston right now. I have a bunch of people and like we're talking about well, how do we fuel for a later start marathon where we're having more than one breakfast like they're starting like I have some interesting at 10, you know, he's me starving. You know, so yeah, we we're not just going to give you like some grandcrackers and a plane bagel or something like you need to have, you know, some a little bit of protein in there like carbs are still the most important. But like we need you not to be starving versus say the like because I have clients who are doing Boston and Big Sir and then other clients who are doing Big Sir are so big Sir that they're getting on the bus at 330 the race starts at 645 like that's like a totally different beast, you know, so we always have to remember exactly what you're doing and and make adjustments there. I know are kind of coming up on time but I want to hit a few more things as allowed here. I want to talk about when to consider supplements and then we'll kind of talk about what like protein foods in real life and what that can look like. But protein powders bars, you know, shakes all the things like for athletes, you know, I do personally I feel like these are really helpful but they're often overused and in the general population they're really being overused. So I do think they're convenient and they're necessary in many cases but I don't know about you but I have a lot of clients who very easily could just have real food protein and they're just making a shake when I know it's convenient but they totally could make just eggs or have yogurt or something. So curious kind of what your thoughts and all that. Yeah, I think there's just like an over emphasis like we're putting them on a pedestal and it's like it's protein. Like it's just it's not, it doesn't, it doesn't need to be on a pedestal. I do think where it can be helpful as if you are struggling to meet your elevated protein needs and you already are getting some good variety in with the other protein sources in your diet. It can just be convenient to yeah, drink some real quick. I think it can be convenient. And yeah, those kind of like high stress or like busy work day, weird job where you're not allowed to have like food at certain points like I'm a lot of people working like labs or you know that type of thing. Yeah, you have five minutes so like you can go drink a protein shake real quick in five minutes compared to trying to eat like a chicken breast meal or something like that. I also think that most you know appropriate use of them that I see a lot and do myself is like that post run especially if it's like a harder workout or a long run and you're like I know I need to eat but I do not want to sounds awful like but I can get down some liquids and you're also kind of multitasking by like rehydrating a little bit too especially if you like go somewhere else to run too and you're like on the go that can be really really convenient. I see that being helpful. I mean I definitely relied on protein supplements too like in my first trimester when I was like I have this huge meat aversion. You know that was definitely helpful to be like all right I know this is going to be 20 to 30 grams of protein and like that's a good dose for me but what I tend to recommend for people if they're using like a powder is to please if you can like mix it with milk or like a non-dairy milk alternative like don't just mix it with water like you're just you're missing out on nutrients if you do that if you have to do water like it's better than nothing obviously but the biggest thing with protein supplements is they're just lacking in nutrients like compared to our whole food protein sources so if we can bump that up a little bit like adding some dairy milk or some soy milk or even like almond milk it's not you know super energy dense but at least it's got some calcium in it like you know that can definitely be helpful for our endurance athletes who have elevated like mineral needs anyway so I do recommend that but that's how I approach them but I do definitely see like an over-emphasis on supplements. Yeah I mean there but there are also different kinds too so like like I think it's worth calling out that there are the like when we say protein powder usually those products do not have carbohydrate or they're very low carbohydrate I personally use like an unflavored way protein isolate because I hate all the stevia among fruit like I hate all that taste of the flavorings and pea protein I did try using that by itself it was horrific like I do not recommend I'm flavored pea protein yeah so if you are if you are going for more plant-based sources yeah you probably want to flavor one yeah the way I usually do it is is if I have a blender and have time to do it then you know either well either number one if you have a blender like you can also get a really good amount of protein if you're doing like my typical shake is like Greek yogurt and or cuffee or soy milk you know some bunch of fruit you know some flaxseed like maybe I'm throwing in some oats or juices or I mean you just don't cram so many foods in there so like if you're doing a smoothie because of like appetite for instance or like sometimes when I have to hop on a client call and I just really need something fast and I'll have lunch later or something like I'll throw that together sometimes I put if I just don't want as much yogurt like I'll put some protein powder maybe not a whole scoop and then other times when I really like I don't want yogurt or I don't know for whatever else like yeah then I'll do kind of a protein power situation but then there's also recovery drinks and recovery drinks is a totally different category so thinking like you're scratch you're telling like you're whatever and like all the brands happen right and that's really something you can mix with water like like because they're just such different products for me or how I think about them because the recovery drinks I think of like the athlete who's out in the trail who's like at the trailhead they have a long drive home they need to just shake something up real fast and drink it and so remembering that recovery isn't all about protein people are like always thinking about protein protein protein we need carbs we need fluids we need electrolytes so so you can create that yourself in your recovery smoothie meal whatever or you can shake up a recovery drink if you really truly need a power that you have on the go so I think like just differentiating between those things knowing that not all protein shakes powders whatever are the same there are like the core power is out there where it's like basically no carbs and stuff which I just don't like the taste of it but like hey if that's your floats your boat then cool for a banana and some other carbs at it you know so just kind of being aware that we want to pair our protein and carbs are friends after I mean the race friends but especially after after workout yeah the analogy I always give for that like post workout needing bolts is like okay if you were asked you did a workout right that's the analogy of like I need to put an addition on my house because I am trying to make my house better so the carbohydrates are the contractors that are going to go and physically do all of the labor but then the protein is the materials like you need both if you've just had carbohydrates you're going to have a bunch of contractors but they're probably going to start using the stuff that's already in the house it's going to make it a little bit better but not as good as it could be with brandy new materials if you just do the protein you've just got a bunch of stuff lying around with no one to put it together so yeah it's like I've had a lot of work done on our house the past two years I don't know if you can tell from where my analogies are coming from but that's kind of where I approach it's like you need both so yeah you do have those protein rich supplements that I universally call you like yeah protein powder is protein supplements like the core power like the momentus the thorn like the big you know protein powder like bin that you're probably getting at most stores that don't really have much other ingredients other than protein artificial sweetener and some flavor in them then you've got recovery powders which are like basically powdered milk or like a powdered plant protein with some carbohydrate added sometimes they're a little bit more nutrient dense depending on the source that they're using like tailwind scratch sometimes all people mix those together just because those tend to be lower in protein and higher in carbohydrates which can be really helpful but if you do need kind of like both it can be helpful to mix them and then you've got like your sports drink that you know those are like carbohydrates only so yeah it's like we need to figure out what we're using why we're using it and if like the intention matches the product and if not you can kind of tweak it that's what I literally did this morning I had like a little protein shake and then I had a banana and like a fig bar because I didn't get have much carbs in the protein shake so yeah those convenience items can make fueling realistic and your body just needs the energy at that point so if you can get some nutrients in that's super helpful especially if it's like right in the middle of your day or a big piece of your nutrition for a few hours but at the tip of the pyramid yeah it's like just making sure you're getting in the macronutrients yeah any quick thoughts on bars that we want to yeah bars are all they're similar like they're not all created equal they're they're all over the place there's like fish bar you were talking about that's just like a piece of fish oh my god no there's you know there's like protein bars that are like this is a protein bar and there's probably less than like 15 grams of carbohydrate in it they're really trying to emphasize protein like the barebells you know and and those like the quest bars and those types of bars and I just tend to not recommend because they're usually loaded with like sugar alcohols and things that may just upset people's GI tracks when they're trying to use them
and we need the carbohydrates, but you know, there's also bars like Cliff bars, nature valley, fig bars that I just talked about. And those are more carbohydrate dense, they don't have a ton of protein. So like maybe you want to use those right before a workout or as a carbohydrate component for something else. And then there's kind of like mixtures that have like a little bit of all of the macronutrients like builder bars, specifically the go macro, a low hop, perfect, and those types of things. So yeah, it just depends on what you're using. Like again, what's the intention? And is the bar matching that intention? And also like, is it providing any additional micronutrient nutrition? That'd be great if it did, if it doesn't, then just get that from somewhere else. And is it also like does it have anything in it that's like upsetting your stomach? 'Cause some of them do have like extra fiber or sugar alcohols and it's just in like such a small volume that it can kind of like catch up with you too, depending on the person. - Yeah, totally. Let's start from this conversation with like, what meeting our protein needs can look like in real life? I'm sure this like is obvious stuff for us. Like we just like don't even think it's good. - Yeah, this stuff, but like, you know, whether it's kind of like easy protein add-ins or on the go protein ideas, I don't know, snacks, meals, whatever, like what are some things that people, 'cause like the obvious things of course are like, you know, our meat or fish or chicken or soy, you know, like all that kinds of stuff. But I don't know, what do people need to think about when it comes to like, - Yeah. And I think that's where like, you know, what we're about to talk about is gonna be beneficial, you know, I hope. And then also like working with a dietician, like we're not just gonna be like, oh, you need 1.6 grams per kilogram of protein per day. Good luck. Like, we're gonna go through and you know, say, okay, what are you already doing? And like, we're gonna pick and tweak certain things to make it better so that you're not so focused on like math. You're just like, oh, I need to go get Greek yogurt. And I need to add it here. Okay, like for my clients too, sometimes like the reason behind it isn't necessarily even as important if they're trying to get like away from data. I'm doing that all in my head for you. That's why you're working with me. And you're just going and actually implementing the action item. So yeah, so like if that is like where you get stuck, if you're able to working with, you know, a dietician like Claire, myself, any of the other amazing people who have been on this podcast, that's what we do. Trying to make it a little bit easier. But yeah, I mean, there's so many different ways like, you can if you're like trying to be very mathematic about it. I have some clients who like, you know, they'll deliver food logs, which I don't always have people log, but they'll be like, I food logged in an Excel spreadsheet and I divided it up. And they're usually engineers and they're like, and this is how we're engineers. Oh, it's yeah. You got my self-speche from the engineer. Yeah. And I'm like, okay, cool. And they're like, I like chicken breast and pieces of meat because it's like succinct and easy for me to calculate. Yeah. And then there's other times where maybe you're talking to a plant-based athlete or you're just talking to someone who likes plant-based foods and animal products. And it's like, okay, we're getting some protein from the quinoa in the bowl and the pumpkin seeds in the bowl. And maybe the chickpeas in the bowl. So it's a little bit more nuanced. Yeah, I mean, do you want to talk about like, like the kind of that 20 to 40 gram type of dose? Like, how do you want to put it into contact? Yeah. Well, yeah, maybe the 20 to 40 gram dose. But before we do that, like, you know, you were just kind of alluding to the fact that, you don't, like people often think about me as being like, oh, you have to have all this meat. And of course, it is a very like, boom, you hit your protein source. But like, you know, there is some interest in, you know, maybe even if you are an omnivore, but you're interested in including more plants and you want to have more variety. And meat isn't cheap. And so maybe instead of like a six to eight ounces of meat or whatever you're having, six ounces, let's say, you want to maybe do like four ounces, three or four. But maybe that alone isn't enough for you. Well, guess what? You can layer proteins and you could, you know, so if you want, if you enjoy red meat, but you don't want to eat quite as much or chicken or whatever it is, like, yeah, you can include some chickpeas and some quinoa, fero, nuts and seeds, like all these different things that you can throw some edamame, like you can layer in all these different things. So I just wanted to make sure we send that messaging that, you know, there's no doubt about it that eating plants is so crucial and so beneficial to health. But I do think they're like, we fall into these extremes where it's like, oh, you have to be plant based or someone's like, you have to be carnivore or whatever, you know, it's like, actually, you can kind of move all throughout this in between. And maybe one, you know, someday you're having no animal proteins because that's how you want to eat and that's cool. And another day you're having a lot. And then another day you're kind of layering all these different things in. And so just to say like, we can do all of this. You know, okay, I just want to give that a feel. (laughing) But yes, let's talk about, yeah, 20, 40 grams, what that might look like, you know, easy ways to kind of get that in. Yeah, that would be, I think a helpful thing. - Yeah, totally. I think I agree with you too. Like I think, unless it's like medically necessary, like labels are harmful rather than helpful. Like I talked to my plant based athletes about this a lot 'cause a big, I'm like a pescatarian that sometimes eats eggs. I'm like, okay, like we could just talk about what you eat and like if you feel like adding and some other things sometimes, I'm not gonna tell the vegan police. Like, you know, like if you are vegan and it's really important to you and that labels helpful, that's great. And sometimes like we need to change certain things or people want to change certain things about it, which I hear actually super often more lately. I have a lot of plant based athletes with, I mean, no encouragement for me. I just support them in their decisions who are like, I want to incorporate me again. I'm like, okay, why? Like when we talk about why? And I have some who don't. So yeah, I think labels can be like, you're putting yourself into a box and maybe not for a good reason. But anyway, should be all over. 20 to 40 grams of protein in the context of like, yeah, maybe a balanced meal. I mean, the super easy place to start is like, kind of like the typical like meat vegetable, you know, carb type of meal that we are all used to seeing. Like in the athlete plates and like a lot of people make for dinners, maybe family dinners, that type of thing, where you've got a chicken breast and a potato and some green beans or something like that. Like the green beans have some fiber micronutrients. The potato is where the carbohydrates are and the protein, maybe a little bit of fat is where the chicken is. And like, there's not much overlap in macronutrients with those foods. You know, if you're having like three ounces of chicken, probably around like 20 ish grams of protein, if you're needing more than that, you scale up the chicken. Or like you were saying, for a lot of my clients, maybe we actually need more carbohydrates and a little bit more protein. So maybe we're adding something and that could maybe cover both. Like we're gonna add, you know, a little bit of like a quinoa salad or something on the side. That's gonna have a little bit of both. A lot of grains, especially whole grains like quinoa, pharaoh, brown rice has a little bit too. Oh, it's like they'll have anywhere from like three to eight grams of protein per serving, which adds up. Like if you're including it in a meal with other protein sources. And I think breakfast is a good option of that too. Like you can have that oatmeal bowl where your oats are contributing a little bit of protein. Maybe you're gonna cook them in milk or you're gonna put some Greek yogurt in there. Now you've got, you know, an extra 10 to 15 grams probably depending on how much you're using. Maybe then you're gonna put some nuts or nut butter on top. Okay, that's probably like another five to 10 grams depending how much you're using. And all of a sudden we've got 30 grams of protein and we didn't even need to use eggs if you don't like eggs for breakfast. Like totally. Yeah, the example I like to give is like bagels, everyone thinks, oh, it's just carbs. You know, it's like a bagel has like eight grams of protein in it. Like, you know, and then like, okay, let's say you do two spins of peanut butter. Okay, so there's another egg, I'm sending it at 16. And like let's say you have a latte or something and you can get some milk. You can easily get up to 20 plus grams there. You know, so yeah, so it's like people kind of think, oh, it has to be eggs. And then even with eggs, it's like, well, one egg is only like six to seven grams of protein. People seem to think like eggs that, I'm gonna have two eggs. We're like, dude, that's not that much. It's like, okay, well, maybe you're adding your bagel or you're, you know, two slices of whole grain bread that bomb said, you know, so we have to kind of, this is where like layering the things can be important and necessary and not thinking like, like, oh, in order to get protein in, I have to eat these like three foods, like we get protein from all over the place. And so that's personally like how I love to eat. As I said at the start of this episode, I love all forms of protein. And you know, sometimes my meal really is like, my protein is just from my chicken breast and my car is just from my potato, I knew whatever. And then other times like, I'll make this like beautiful, colorful quinoa salad with chickpeas and tons of vegetables. And then maybe putting like two food on top or just a little bit of a shredded chicken or something like that, you know. And so what's nice about those situations is like, maybe you don't need as much meat to meet your needs in that case and you're really relying a little bit more on these other things. So there's like, as I've said a million times and I'm sure you say too, it's like there's no one right way here and we can change it up all the time, which is great and it's encouraged because right is good. - Yeah, and I think you're right. Like I think when people are worried about increasing their protein intake, 'cause maybe we discovered that they did need to, they're like, oh, don't like me. Like I don't want to eat eggs. It's like you don't have to. Like there's so many other ways that we do not. - Or time thing too. - It's like a time thing too. - It's a time thing. Yeah, and like, yeah, the eggs example is such a good example 'cause they will, they'll think, oh, well, I have eggs for breakfast. So like I'm good on the protein. It's like, well, you're having two eggs. That's like 12 to 14 grams of protein, depending on the egg size. Like that's probably not adequate unless you just didn't need enough a lot of protein then, 'cause you're gonna go run and you were focused on carbs or whatever it was, but there's a lot of new things.
wants to getting in your protein intake and it doesn't have to come from like those protein sources that are meat. I have to have some protein in it too. Right. Yeah, like with my plant-based education, like kind of like the plates I use for plant-based athletes or just someone who's like, "I'm trying to make a meal out of plant-based things, even though I eat meat too." I kind of have a couple different categories. I have like carbohydrates and then I have protein-rich carbohydrates and protein-rich fats because that's kind of what is going to make up the protein source of the meal while also contributing to those other macronutrients. And since I'm talking to athletes, the carbs are still like, you know, also super important. But that's where like a protein-rich fat could be like your nuts and seeds. And then your kind of like protein-rich carbohydrate is maybe more like the grains, the beans, that type of thing. And then you can also get some straight protein too, like, you know, with tofu and stuff. Although you could count that kind of in either category. They have a little bit of everything in them. But yeah, like I think layering different things is one, just good, variety-wise, it's taste good. And two, you're going to get more amino acids in that pool that we were talking about the variety being super important and more micronutrients. So there is like an art to it as well. Totally. Awesome. Well, I think we covered it. Is there anything else you feel like it's important to say or we can give this our stamp of approval and move on from protein? Yeah. I think if you're worried about protein, like maybe calculate out these reference ranges, if you're like, I don't weigh myself, you know, a ballpark, like it doesn't need to be super precise. Like it really doesn't need to be super precise for most people. And you know, either like trying to understand what your protein intake is at like meals and snacks throughout the day by either logging or checking out, working with the dietitian so we can kind of do that math for you. Just so you kind of like, no, because once you know, it's pretty easy to just keep like doing that, moving forward without being so stuck on guessing because then you're going to get got by the algorithm. That's always encouraging more protein. And also this is the supplement that I sell to fix your problems when a lot of people don't necessarily need to worry about that. So I think just getting a understanding, getting a pulse on what you're actually doing and is it in the reference range and how do you feel is where I would start? Yeah. And if you land on a number, then just divide by three and then kind of come up with a little bit of a range for yourself and then just be like, okay, like let's say, you know, if you needed, yeah, if you needed 100 grams a day and you're like, okay, cool. So maybe I'm aiming for like 25 to 35 or even 20 to 35 and meals and the rest in the snacks and then you're kind of thinking, oh, okay, well, what has this much protein and you can kind of think yourself, you know, again, like you can kind of just familiarize yourself with how much is roughly in different things, but without making it too much work. And then as you're saying, like visually, then you can kind of like figure it out. So yeah, it doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be this like, you know, hyper crazy, yeah, this crazy thing and obsessive tracking rigid rules, all that kind of stuff. It can be kind of Lucy Goosey just trying to roughly be aware and, you know, as I'm always encouraging people to do, just kind of looking down at your plate or bowl or whatever you're eating and just like, okay, does this have all the things I need? Yeah. And if you're on the opposite end of the spectrum where you're like, I have been super hyper fixated on protein. I know exactly how much I get because I weigh it and it is like, you know, lots of grams than I would say, listen to Claire's other podcast and make sure you're getting enough of the other macronutrients too because there's a chance you might not be if you're feeling bad in any type of way or if you're, you know, got like labs that are not looking good and you're kind of trying to focus on that stuff. If you feel great, good, feel great. That's awesome. That's great. But I do think, yeah, it tends to be two camps. And if you're like the tracking, the label reading that really, if it's truly a tool, like you should do it a little bit and then be able to be like, I learned something. I don't need to do it again for maybe a long time so that you're not, yeah, getting into like the super rigidity of it all, which I feel like protein is what gets people into that rigidity a lot of the times with macro counting. Yeah. And please for the love of God, do not buy protein pretzels, protein popcorn. Like all these just ridiculous products that are being sold that are not only like disgusting, but they are not good sources of protein, like just eat your food. Like, you know, as we said, like if you have to do like this, the powder bar, whatever fine, but like don't, don't bother with all this other crap. It's just stupid. Yeah, stupid. All of your protein sources should not be coming from a supplemental type of situation. You should be coming from mostly food. And then if you've got a supplement one today, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool. We'll end it there. Holly, thank you so much. Where can everyone find you if they want to work with you? Reach out, follow all the things. Listen to your podcast, of course. Oh, of course. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I love your show so much. I'm excited to have you on my show. So people should check out the Holly Field Nutrition podcast where Claire will be on very soon talking about ultra marathon nutrition. But yeah, thank you. I'm Holly Field Nutrition everywhere. So my website's Hollyfieldnutrition.com. That's where you can kind of figure out like services. I'm a team of dietitians, so we offer one-on-one nutrition coaching, some training as well, since I'm a personal trainer. And then we also have like group programs and courses and self-paced things that are more accessible as well, along with the podcast. And then I'm on Instagram at Holly Field Nutrition as well, which is definitely the social media platform I'm most active on these days. Yeah. Awesome, Holly. Thank you again so much. So fun chatting. Of course. That's our show for today. I hope that answered all of your protein questions, but of course if it didn't or you just want to let me know what you thought of the episode, feel free to reach out.
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