When we look at proteins, there are two factors. One is what’s the composition of the nine essential amino acids and the other is – What is the bioavailability meaning How will I digest and absorb it?
With animal proteins and most isolated proteins, Whey isolate even soy isolate the digestion absorption is pretty close to 100 usually 95 or higher for all animal proteins.
For plant proteins you have to realize that the protein is there for the purpose of the plant and so a lot of it is attached to fibers, leaves stems, roots, seeds & if you just eat that in its raw form, maybe only 60 to 70% available because we just can’t digest the fiber.
So there’s something out there called a DIAAS score, Which stands for “Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score”. Which takes two factors in a Protein, composition of amino acids and bioavailability and then you come up with a protein quality score.
Sounds great right but theres a lot of problems with the scores some say being too low, some say not comparing amino acids correctly especially when one has a limiting amino acid that really doesn’t affect muscle growth & also only about 300 or less foods have a DIAAS score on the USDA database.
So, a brilliant man, doctor Don Layman came up with an idea to focus on a subset of amino acids, three in particular, one being Lysine, one being Leucine and the other being Methionine. Make sure you get enough of them out of each meal and the rest will take care of itself. Meaning if you’re having an animal-based protein diet and a plant-based protein diet all the rest will fill in the blanks as long as you get those three main amino acids in each meal.
Leucine is an amazing trigger for mTOR, The primary muscle building pathway in the body. You should get about 4.4grams per day.
Lysine, which is always limiting in grains so you’ll have to get that in an animal based protein or supplement. You should get minimally about 3.4grams per day.
Methionine is essential for the body to make and repair, DNA and RNA, to make Taurine, to make the nonessential amino acid Cysteine and to make glutathione, an antioxidant. 1 gram of Methionine per day should be good. Now Methionine is limiting in all legumes, soy, pea and lentils. A good source would be in eggs, so if you’re vegan, make sure you find another way of getting this Amino Acid.
OK, so for the Anabolic person doing resistance training, you need four meals to break up your protein requirement for the day especially for a positive nitrogen balance. each meal should be between 30 and 60 g of protein per meal. The RDA for protein is .8 g per kilogram of body weight most think that’s pretty low, so I’m going to say 1 g of protein per kilogram of body weight, that’ll be your daily requirement so break that up into four meals.
The most Critical meal of the day, is breakfast you’ve had an overnight fast, your protein synthesis is down and mTOR Signal molecule is down regulated. it’s inhibited. And until you have enough protein, especially Leucine, your muscles stay catabolic. You need to frontload your day with a solid meal of protein in the morning. Your post workout meal doesn’t have to be right at the end of your workout or exactly right after your workout especially if you’ve been training for a while It can be within the hour. Exhaustive exercise is catabolic, You’re gonna break down muscle no matter what you do during the work out so you can wait at least until your workout is over to have your protein meal and become anabolic.
Let’s talk about the efficiency of protein synthesis for someone who is 25 or younger compared to a person in their late30’s, 40s or above, both putting muscle under progressive overload both eating the right quality and quantity of proteins and amino acids.
The process of proteins synthesis and protein turnover as we get older, that efficiency of the protein turnover goes down but if you give an older person more enriched sources of essential amino acids meaning more protein, you can make the adults efficiency look just like a younger 20-year-old person. so the efficiency goes down but the capacity to respond does not so if you’re an older person and your required daily protein intake is .8g or 1g per kilogram of body weight, you should double that to 1.6 or even 2 g per kilogram of body weight.
Younger people, say 25 and below, insulin and IGF-I dominates in their body. Insulin is a growth hormone up to the age of 25 and then ceases to have an effect on protein synthesis and muscle. So, someone 25 and under could actually not have a great protein intake, but they would still reap the benefits of the growth hormone Igf-1 and insulins growth hormone effect.
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