Protein for Weightloss

[Nancy LC]

Higher protein diets are better for fat loss and muscle preservation during weight loss (http://www.drbriffa.com/2013/08/30/higher-protein-diets-are-better-for-fat-loss-and-muscle-preservation-during-weight-loss/)

I wonder how it is Jimmy Moore has managed to gain muscle during his NK experiment where his protein is limited.

[Katfishy]

Yeah, but these people were on a restricted calorie diet, which I'm guessing means low fat. Given the choice between low fat/high carb/low protein and low fat/low carb/high protein, I'd always go with more protein!

[Merralea]

I think the thing here is that "high protein" is relative. The "normal" amount of protein used as a reference point was the US recommended amount, which is influenced far more by agricultural interests than by reality. The "low"/restricted protein recommended by Phinney/Volek (which, IIRC, is what Moore followed) is still well above the US recommended amount, and more similar to group 2 in the study than 1. "Low protein" in LC-land is "high protein" most everywhere else.

[inflammabl]

I think the thing here is that "high protein" is relative. The "normal" amount of protein used as a reference point was the US recommended amount, which is influenced far more by agricultural interests than by reality. The "low"/restricted protein recommended by Phinney/Volek (which, IIRC, is what Moore followed) is still well above the US recommended amount, and more similar to group 2 in the study than 1. "Low protein" in LC-land is "high protein" most everywhere else.

Is that the ~100g protein level?

[Nancy LC]

P/V's recommendation is low at all, IMHO. It ranged from 1-2.5g per kg of goal body weight.

Jimmy Moore was doing 80g-100g a day and he's a big, tall dude!

[inflammabl]

P/V's recommendation is low at all, IMHO. It ranged from 1-2.5g per kg of goal body weight.

Jimmy Moore was doing 80g-100g a day and he's a big, tall dude!

A 220lb person weighs 100kg. So it was 1-2.5[g/kg] x 100{kg] = 100-250g per day?

[Atrsy]

It would be almost impossible for me to get 250g of protein per day. I can barely make 100g.

[Nancy LC]

Why would you think your requirement is 250g?

You're supposed to go by target weight. Somewhere between .8-1.5 for most people. Only athletes are recommended to go to the highest limit.

[inflammabl]

Why would you think your requirement is 250g?

You're supposed to go by target weight. Somewhere between .8-1.5 for most people. Only athletes are recommended to go to the highest limit.

Because the first range you stated was 1-2.5 and now you're saying .8-1.5.

[Nancy LC]

I doubt anyone here needs to consume 250g of protein. If you're training for the olympics, maybe.

.8 is what I think the last Atkins book recommended for a minimum.

Let's walk through the calculation so people aren't confused.

.8 (lowest end)

Your ideal body weight in pounds divided by 2.2 gets you kilograms

150 / 2.2 = 68

68 * .8 = 54 grams
(150 pound, lowest end of protein)

68 * 2.5 = 170
(Highest. You're training for 200m butterfly in the olympics)

[Liz53]

The real question, as I see it, is:

How do I know that I'm eating the correct amount? How do I know if I need .8 per kg of ideal weight, 1.0 or maybe even 1.5? Is .8 enough for everyone who is not an Olympic athlete?

[deirdra]

What works best for me is calculating my protein requirement based on my lean body mass using:
http://www.getrolling.com/orbit/zoneCalcFemale.html
(ignore the Zone recommendations, just use it to calculate LBM & protein, which is what Protein Power does).

My protein requirement is 77-81g, as opposed to the USDA recommendation of 48-54g for me. So PP/Zone protein levels would be considered high by the fodder-pushing US government. I ate the USDA levels for decades while following various low-fat low-cal diets and always felt weak and tired, until I switched to Protein Power levels of protein (and 20-30g/day net carbs) and felt good on it for several years, dabbled around for a couple of years and ultimately returned to these levels which are optimal for me.

Then (mid-2000s I think) Mike Eades blogged about a Swedish study of middle-aged women who had a hard time losing, who ate more protein (~100g/day for sedentary/light exercisers). I tried it for a few months and did lose a bit more weight each week (1 lb instead of 0.5), but I think it was mainly water since I felt weak, tired and was constantly thirsty and spent a lot of time peeing. I also got the dreaded dragon breath and very dry skin. Despite drinking up to 3 gallons of fluids a day, I was peeing 1-2x per hour and got so dessicated that my eyelids would stick to my eyeballs! (I made sure I got enough potassium, but I wasn't hip to the need for NaCl too back then). So I went back to the 81g/day of protein and felt great again and lost more slowly, but I was losing fat.

I also dabbled with less protein, more fat, slightly more carbs (~50g) following Kwasniewski. But that led to carb cravings and not feeling as energetic as on Protein Power. The one thing I kept from Dr K's plan was the increased fat, since I was never hungry.

My advice is to tweak your diet to find what level of protein works best for you, logging everything you eat and how you feel and stick with each change for at least a week, preferably 3-4 weeks to evaluate it. I found +/- 20g of carbs, protein, or fat (changed one at a time) made large differences in my feelings: hunger/satiety, agitated/calm, tired/energetic, etc. I also found I felt best when I ditched all grains, legumes and most dairy.

[Nancy LC]

I think the breath is one sign you're eating too much protein. Jenny Ruhl mentions that.

[M Levac]

Here's a question. If you didn't reach your protein target for the day, and if you're not hungry anymore today, how do you eat more protein anyway? I can't wrap my head around the possible answers. If you eat more food, it's gonna be hard to do when you're not hungry anymore. If you eat a highly processed source of protein like whey powder or something, just to reach a hypothetical protein target, that makes even less sense to me.

Where does that protein target come from anyway? As far as I know, the idea of eating a certain amount of protein originally came from the concept of protein deficiency diseases like kwashiorkor for example. Only recently has it been discussed in the context of athletic performance. Maybe we started talking about that only because a high-carb diet has a catabolic effect on lean tissue, by virtue of its anabolic effect on fat tissue, i.e. fuel partitioning. So we imagined that eating more protein would compensate for this. It's a good hypothesis, until you start digging. Not very deep.

Carbs + protein = even more insulin than carbs alone, even more fuel partitioned toward fat tissue, and an even bigger catabolic effect on lean tissue

But maybe it doesn't happen like that in practice. But then, maybe that's due to a very low fat intake, not necessarily due to higher protein intake. Basically, we're facing semi-starvation, because fat is what feeds us.

I have an idea. Ketones stimulate chaperone-mediated autophagy, the recycling of glycated protein inside cells. If you want more protein available inside cells, eat more fat. This will lower the hypothetical protein target. If you believe protein is used to make new glucose, eat more fat for that too. This will lower that hypothetical protein target further. We're discussing this fatty acids/glucose topic here: http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=455122

And if you believe insulin gets lower when you eat less protein, eat more fat for that too.

So basically, that hypothetical protein target is useless for us low-carbers, and is made so much lower anyway just by eating more fat.