Living A Full Life

Exploring Protein's Role in Nutrition and Health

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 12

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Unlock the secrets to optimizing your health with the power of protein! Join me, Dr. Enrico Dolcecore, as we embark on a journey to understand why protein is a cornerstone of our diet and how it impacts every facet of our well-being. From building and repairing tissues to supporting your immune system and even serving as an energy backup, proteins are the unsung heroes of nutrition. Together, we'll explore how to strike the perfect balance in protein intake for muscle growth and recovery, and dissect the complex interaction between proteins, carbs, and fats. Discover how factors like age, activity level, and health conditions tailor individual protein needs, with a special spotlight on the unique challenges faced by older adults.

In the second part of our discussion, we spotlight the best sources of protein and discuss the pros and cons of animal versus plant-based options. Whether you're a fan of grass-fed beef or prefer a hearty serving of lentils, I’ll guide you on how to make the most of your protein choices. We’ll dig into the benefits and considerations of using protein powders and supplements, especially for athletes and those constantly on-the-go. Plus, I’ll bust some common myths around protein timing and absorption, ensuring you have the knowledge to meet your nutritional goals effectively. Equip yourself with practical, science-backed insights to harness the full potential of protein in your diet today!

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of Living a Full Life. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori, and this week's podcast is all about protein. What is it, why do we need it and what does it do inside the body that makes it so great? Protein is really important. There's three macronutrients that we all talk about all the time Carbs, proteins and fats. And carbohydrates are one thing. Fats are another thing. They all play their roles in the body for many different things, but today's focus is strictly on protein.

Speaker 1:

Protein as a macronutrient is a chain of amino acids which are micronutrients, and you may have heard of amino acids and may even take some supplements to help support amino acid branch chain amino acids, specific amino acids, l-arginine, l-theanine, whatever it may be to help with certain things and to help build better protein chains. That we're going to get into and talk about what protein chains really are. What do they mean physiologically? Where do they show up? How do they work inside the body? Let's talk about it. It plays a vital role in our overall health with protein. I think one of the underlying, if not the deepest part of the iceberg when it comes to the problems and solutions to health is diet, and we talk about this. And when we talk about diet, what do we mean? We mean macronutrients, we mean the nutrition that we're getting from our diet, and I think one of the fundamental problems with the American diet is protein. For many different reasons, we don't get enough, the sources aren't clean and because of not getting enough, it skews a lot of the processes in the body. So talking about protein is really important. It's really essential alongside the carbs and fats. But the amino acids are the building blocks of all protein chains in the body. So what they do is they build and repair tissue, muscles, skin, organs all of this stuff is made up of protein chains. They support immune health, the production of enzymes and hormones, which I think is going to catch most people's attention and it provides energy when necessary. It's an energy source inside the body as well. So those are some of the vital things that protein does for us, and what we need to do is understand it on a cellular level and then understand it in a global level so that we can put some more emphasis into it for our own health and well-being.

Speaker 1:

So protein synthesis is, you know, the body uses the protein to repair and grow by DNA and RNA coding and protein production in an intracellular level. So as protein turns over like any other macronutrient in the body turns it turns over. Old proteins are broken down, their amino acids are restored and whichever ones can be used to help build new protein chains. So your body takes protein, digests it and then allocates amino acid chains to do all the things in the body. Maybe it's to produce some more hormones, maybe it's to produce some more muscle growth, maybe it's to repair some organ tissue. Whatever it is, it's really important to balance protein between the muscle growth and recovery cycles in the body, and it's done by communication and neurotransmitters, which we call hormones, the endocrine system. So proteins play this major role behind everything.

Speaker 1:

When we talk about carbohydrates, it's mainly a fuel source for the body. The brain strictly works on glucose and the rest of the body converts it to glycogen and uses it as energy, like muscles. So carbs are eaten up very quickly and they're used mainly as energy sources. Fats are broken down into triglyceride chains or fatty acid chains that help on a cellular level as well. They build every cell membrane in the human body. Fatty chains build the membrane strength of every cell in the human body. They play a vital role. That's why we talk about essential fatty acids, so each of these have their specifics, but today protein is the highlight on maybe what we should do and think about.

Speaker 1:

So by the end of this podcast, I want you to think about okay, where am I getting my protein sources for? Am I eating enough protein and am I utilizing protein properly for the best health and wellness outcomes possible? That's what all of our podcasts are about. So how much protein do we really need? How much protein do kids need? How much protein do we need? How much protein do we really need? How much protein do kids need? How much protein do we need? The general guidelines for protein on a daily allowance is 0.8 grams per kilogram, so everything's done on the metric system. So 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight works out to about 0.5 grams per pound. Okay, so if you're a 200 pound male, you need about a hundred grams of protein minimum this is minimum per day to help restore those amino acid chains in the body on a daily repair cycle.

Speaker 1:

Higher needs are for active individuals, athletes or older adults. Again, I'm going to highlight older adults. Unfortunately, what happens in the American diet is, as we get older, our appetites decrease naturally, which ends up decreasing protein. Why? Because protein is filling. Protein satiates our hunger and when we eat protein we feel full, so we don't eat much. And if we don't get enough protein then it breaks down the amino acid cycles, interferes with hormone cycles, and the list goes on and on and on. I think that's why, as we age into the senior years, protein becomes even more difficult to consume. So there's some factors that influence protein needs, and one is age. So if we're older in our senior years or if we're younger in our athletic college years, this changes the amount of protein we need.

Speaker 1:

Activity level. So if you play sports or you go to the gym or you're active every day, you're going to need more protein to replace the protein that's being broken down. And then certain health conditions as well. So we have to be careful with certain health conditions like kidney failure, kidney dialysis. Those are the ones that come to my mind right off the bat where we have to be careful with protein, because protein can be hard on the kidneys through the facilitation process of breaking it down through the bloodstream. So kidneys do a little bit of work there when it comes to protein chains.

Speaker 1:

So common myths about that is, if we have too much protein, it could damage the kidneys more. It's not true. Protein will not damage your kidneys. What protein does? High sources of protein. Let's say 400, 500 grams of protein per day for a while. What it does is it puts a strain on the kidneys. Kidneys work harder. It's kind of like F1 racing. That's high-protein diet. That's what happens. This car is going to go pedal to the metal around the track. 200 and something times. That's what ends up happening with a high protein diet. The kidneys can do it, they can handle it. It just puts a lot of strain on it. We need a lot more water intake, which makes us go to the bathroom a lot more. It's a completely different lifestyle.

Speaker 1:

To get into the 400, 500 grams per day, you definitely are a bodybuilder. You're definitely trying to put on a lot of muscle mass as quickly as you can over time, over years. So these are those types. These are the guys that make it to the front of Muscle Magazine. They win Mr Olympia, yada, yada, yada. And women too. 300, 400 grams of protein. They're doing something athletic in the background.

Speaker 1:

For 99% of the rest of us, we're not doing that. We're following the active daily living guidelines of 0.8 grams per kilogram. 0.5 grams per pound of minimum protein per day. That's minimum just to replenish everything that's being broken down each and every day. So if we go off the 200-pound person eating minimum 100 grams of protein, we got to start talking about how to get adequate sources of protein. So once you start doing this, you're going to notice an improved muscle strength and mass, just naturally. Let's say you're not going to the gym, you're not doing anything and you just focus on this one thing of eating more protein and eating less carbohydrates and fats so that you still keep the same adequate caloric intake per day. You're going to notice, just over time, muscle strength and mass goes up because now the muscles are getting everything they need daily minimum. You're going to notice enhanced weight management. Your weight's going to stay the same.

Speaker 1:

I've been on almost a two-year sorry, almost a three-year journey of body composition going to the gym four or five times a week, mixing cardiovascular, increasing my weights, putting on muscle mass, eating 220 grams of protein per day, doing my body weight stuff, doing it, seeing the changes over time. But these are permanent changes that are happening, unlike crash diets that can happen over a few weeks where you can have massive body changes 20, 30 pounds loss. This is different. This has been slow. My clothes have just been fitting looser. I have to buy new pants that are smaller Like. This has just been the small things that have been happening. But my weight is almost the same as when I started, at 204 pounds. I'm now 196 pounds. So after two years you're like that's it. You just lost eight pounds, but body composition is completely different.

Speaker 1:

I focus on eating 200 plus grams of protein per day and I've been doing this. I'm going almost done three years of this. So it's been over two years of doing this and that's what I've noticed on this journey is that it enhances weight management. So when I was off track over the holidays and we traveled a little bit and we ate everything and I didn't get to the gym my weight stayed within a couple pounds, which for the first time in my life other times I would retain so much water and have so much swings in my weight that that was interesting to see. I was like wow. And then, once I got right back, I went right back down to my number within two to three days, which was just a few pounds, just like three pounds. So I was right back at it. Then I'm stuck there because of the body recomb. So the body is constantly putting on and rebuilding muscle which is dense and that's offsetting the slow fat loss that happens at the same time. So it's very interesting, and I'm 41 years old, so that's for me, better bone health is one of the results of eating adequate protein.

Speaker 1:

You feel fuller for longer, so you're satiated longer when you eat protein. I think this is another issue, especially with children in America, is they eat such carby snacks, crunchy stuff, crackers, fruits. They're high in carbohydrates, lower protein. Very hard to get your kids to eat the chicken, the meat, all this stuff, and therefore they're not satiated longer. So they're constantly ravenous and hungry. And that's where we get into trouble with high carbohydrate diets which can skew metabolism at an early age. But by eating protein regularly, the same rules apply for your kids. They should be eating a lot of protein too. Is it boosts the metabolism as well. We get faster recovery from injuries and we support healthy aging by preventing muscle loss.

Speaker 1:

Long-term sarcopenia Sarcopenia is muscle loss. It's the medical name for muscle loss, and when we run into sarcopenia it's very common in the aging population because of this one factor not enough protein in the diet. So then the body starts to break down muscle over time and then we lose strength, we become weak, we are more prone to falls and if we fall and we're weak we can break bones. That's the normal decline that happens over time. So if any of you remember Jack LaLanne if you're old enough to remember Jack LaLanne he started the whole gym movement juicing. He was on television a lot.

Speaker 1:

No one really gives him credit. He was a chiropractor and had a long life. He lived to 98 until not too long ago 10 years ago, 98 years old he had a bout with the pneumonia at the beginning of the year, got through it and then seven or eight months later he got another bout of pneumonia which ended up putting him in hospital at 98 years old. So that was his last year of life. But up until 98 years of age he was working out an hour and a half every day, still influencing people around him to live a healthy life, still going to the gym at 97 years old. That's an amazing thing. And he really pushed protein. He was excited about protein. That was the whole point about juicing and adding protein to your diet. Great support. You look him up on Wikipedia. A great life story and a role model for health, for all round health, was Jack LaLanne. That's amazing stuff. And at 97, the point of my story was that at 97, the guy still had muscle tone and definition.

Speaker 1:

So this idea that we have to lose the because of aging we're we're victims of aging is a myth. We can hold as much strength and vitality for as long as possible by doing the right things, and the source of this is diet. For sure, exercise plays a big role too, but diet plays a role. So best sources of protein now. Now you're like okay, you got me Dr D, I need to eat more protein. I weigh 190 pounds. I should be eating about 100 grams of protein per day, but I'm also looking to put on some muscle mass. I've been sedentary with my job for the last 10 years. I'm looking to get back into it. I'm in my 40s, I'm in my 50s, whatever it may be, I want to get back into this. I want to put on some muscle mass to prolong my strength later in life. Great idea, great idea. So now, if we're prolonging it, you want to go up to one gram. You can go up to one gram per pound of body weight, that's to help build more muscle. So up to one pound. So if you weigh 200, 190 pounds, I would be eating 190, maybe even 200 grams of protein per day, and this includes this is the same rule for women per day to help put on lean muscle mass. Now women, listen, you're not going to gain weight. You're not going to become bulky. You may stay the same on the scale the longer you do this, but you're probably going to get the same results I did of losing fat, gaining muscle and trimming down. So it plays the same role there as well.

Speaker 1:

Now, vegans and vegetarians I apologize ahead of time. The best sources of protein. I'm going to go through the animal-based stuff first and we'll get into plant, but the animal-based proteins are the best amino chains you can get for protein. These are the best sources of protein. Grass-fed, grass-finished beef and bison are probably the two on the top of the amino acid chain for best sources of protein. So eating that is a great idea. Chicken, fish, eggs, dairy and lean beef all great ideas as well. Steak, ground meat, chicken, turkey all that stuff great sources of protein and amino acid chains.

Speaker 1:

The benefits of eating meat is that it's a complete proteins with all the essential amino acids. Once you get into vegetarian and vegan diets, you're missing some amino acids from your protein, but it doesn't mean you can't get them from other sources. So many vegetarians know this and are on top of it. So plant-based proteins that are great too, which you can also encompass into your diet to offset high consumptions of meat, are lentils, chickpeas, quinoa, tofu if you're into that, temp edamame, which is soybean, and nuts. These have to come from clean sources. So organic is a really important role on this, because the way these crops are grown, that's a different podcast for a different time. But those are the best plant-based and there's many more, but those are the best plant-based proteins with the highest amino acid composition that's needed for nutrition. So combining sources can help you get a complete amino acid array.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you're eating black beans or kidney beans, mixing kidney beans or just black beans, pinto beans, with rice, white rice can complete the amino acid chain perfectly, because the proteins in rice from carbohydrates actually the protein in rice that comes in rice or grains that's what I'm trying to get to. I'm sorry to get to, I'm sorry In grains. The proteins in grains can complement the vegetarian or plant-based other amino acids and together they create complete amino acid chains. This is why a lot of countries around the world have a staple of rice and beans. I don't know if they consciously know this, but they're healthier because of that staple. They're getting all the amino acid chains that they need through that diet. So everything's mixed in with rice and beans, then the chicken and the veggies and all the other sauces and all the other stuff, and that's a cuisine staple for many demographics around the world. If you look all over Central America, asia Pacific, even parts across Europe and Africa, these play a huge role. They're the staple. They grow everywhere Different types of species of beans around the world. But that is very interesting that that's a huge staple in most of the world's kitchens, right?

Speaker 1:

So discussing protein powders and supplements can get tricky, very tricky. They're helpful for athletes and for busy lifestyles, but we actually don't encourage people to use protein shakes because you want to be getting this from whole foods. Getting protein can get you into a little bit of trouble because you got to choose quality over the gimmicks and if you're finding stuff at GNC, you're getting gimmicks. If you go on Amazon, you're probably getting the worst gimmicks out there. So you got to have some complete source lab tested protein sources and whey powders that have been, you know, tested by multiple different supervising bodies FDA all these things that prove that you're getting the amino acid chains in there. There's a lot of fillers out there. You don't want to even know where they make some of this stuff from. So be careful when it comes to that.

Speaker 1:

If you're in the bodybuilding field and you're in the gym, like me, four or five days a week, getting a good source of protein every 25 to 50 grams shake can really help you on that journey to 200 plus grams per day. So if you've got a goal of that, it can be hard to consume 100 grams of protein through meat or plant. It's a lot. So that's what this supplement's for. So that's just a PSA. Be careful with your protein sources when it comes to that stuff.

Speaker 1:

And then the commonly asked questions that I get just from being a provider and talking about this stuff is it better to spread protein intake throughout the day or consume high volume of it in two meals? It doesn't matter, just get it down. That's the truth behind the protein, because if we start to get nitpicky about trying to spread these before and post workout and all this stuff. Yes, there's some science behind it, but at the end of the day, we want to consume, whatever it is 200 grams of protein or 150 grams of protein, wherever your goal is for your lifestyle. You just got to get this in. So if you're just the person that eats two, three meals a day, you're going to have to eat 50 plus grams of protein per meal. So that just means a lot of chicken, a lot of beef, a lot of just it's a big meal. That's just how you have to do this. So spreading it throughout the day is just makes more sense. At consuming 20, 25, 30 grams at a time. It makes it a lot easier.

Speaker 1:

Myths you can't consume over a certain amount of protein in one sitting. If you eat it, your body won't absorb it. There's some debate about this and what the number is, but it's pretty high. Some studies show 65 grams. Some studies show 100 grams. If you surpass that in one meal sitting, man, I don't know how you would eat 70 grams of protein in one meal. I guess a big steak would do it. A 10-ounce, 12-ounce steak yeah, because a six-ounce is about 35 grams. 12-ounce steak 70 grams yeah, because a six ounce is about 35 grams. 12 ounce steak 70 grams. So if you eat a 12 ounce steak warehouse by yourself and you consume 75 grams of protein, you're still in the clear of absorbing most of that.

Speaker 1:

The studies show that if you eat bigger than that I just don't know how then you may not be absorbing it because your body wouldn't be able to keep up with the digestion. I'm not sure about that. So most of you can't do it. That's not a test, that's not a challenge, but most of you can't do it. So for most of us, kind of a futile debate on that part. Can you eat too much protein?

Speaker 1:

In the day we talked about the strain on the kidneys and the myths. There's no real reason to be eating 900 grams of protein per day. You never need to get there as a human, you just never need to do it. And you look at the species that have a lot of muscle mass, which is almost anything, anything in the farming industry cattle, apes, elephants, rhinoceroses, I mean they're just big pieces of muscle. These guys are huge horses. You look at what they eat. They're literally getting all that nutrition from plant-based diets. Right, they're eating a ton, but that's all they do all day is they eat. They eat 14 hours a day. They stand and they graze on grass all day, right, or leaves or whatever it is. You don't have that time to do that, so you have to kind of plan and get your meals in properly.

Speaker 1:

Is plant-based protein as good as animal-based protein? That's the most common question I get in our office. Is it as good? It's good. Protein is protein, but getting the full amino acid chain that we need comes from animal protein. That's it doesn't mean better or you should not be a vegetarian, it doesn't. It doesn't say that, it just says animal source. Grass-fed, grass-finished have the best amino acid chains and the point about organic, grass-fed and grass-finished is that we're not feeding the chickens and the cattle replacement meals, which can be soybean, all these fillers that they give them, which changes their fat composition.

Speaker 1:

This is the problem with non-grass. You'll find grass fed animals to be more gamey. They don't, because they're lacking the amount of fat that you're used to in store-bought meats. When you cook it, the fat keeps, it juicy, the fat keeps and you're tasting the fat in there which can be healthy. Those are healthy animal fat If the animal's healthy, but if they're given soy and non-organic food and not, you know, synthesized food from the lab. You're going to end up consuming this through the fat and that's what changes the composition on that, so let's not get too much into that.

Speaker 1:

So practical tips for adding more protein into your day is just swap high protein meals for snacks. So just you know, planning balanced meals protein, carbs and fats. So having a little bit of rice, your meat and some veggies pretty balanced meal right there. Reading food labels to identify high quality protein sources is really important. What you end up finding with a lot of these protein-based ones they're lower in protein than they are in carbs. It doesn't really help you when you're trying to consume 200 grams of protein, 150 grams of carbs and 70 grams of fat per day to get your 1,900, 2,100 calories per day and you're eating these replacements that have more carbohydrates than protein in it. By the time you get to four o'clock in the day you're like oh man, I'm skewed here. I got way more carbs than I have protein and your dinner is going to be pretty much a chunk of steak and that's about it, which some of you might not complain about.

Speaker 1:

So protein is essential for health, energy and longevity. Think about where you're getting your sources from. Think about protein from a different angle from now on and how it leads to vitality. Everyone needs to be very based on lifestyle goals. So don't just read the next 25-year-old personal trainer's YouTube thing and say I'm doing that because that might not link up with your lifestyle goals. And focus on quality over quantity when it comes to this.

Speaker 1:

Quality-based foods, variety and balance in protein sources. Don't just always default to deli meat, turkey, because the buildup of that can lead to other issues Nitrates, high uric acid in your urine, other issues there that can build up from that. So having variety helps offset some of the other effects that eating the same thing over and over again. You'll never get in trouble by eating organic free range meat. You can eat as much of that continuously every single day and you won't build up anything there. But once we get into synthetic stuff or processed foods, you can run into other issues there as well. Encourage listeners to share their questions and thoughts on social media. I have to do that. That was a little note for myself. If you like the podcast, share, leave a review, like and find us on the different social streams as well, like Spotify, apple Podcasts and just make sure to leave a review. It helps other people find our podcast and helps build the awareness on it. Thanks for tuning in this week. Stay well, stay healthy and catch you next week.

People on this episode

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host
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Dr. Crystal Corona

Co-host