Chances are that if we work together on nutrition, whether your focus is on quality macronutrients or food quality alone, you have heard me talk about the importance of eating enough protein. In fact, although I think it is important to hit all of your macronutrient and micronutrient goals, protein is the most important of all. There are many reasons why you should eat enough protein, too many to fit into one blog. That being said, if I condense all of the reasons down, I end up with three main categories of why I feel so strongly about the subject. Conveniently, these reasons happen to perfectly coincide with the three goals I discuss with my clients before and while working together.
Aesthetics.
Or, as I commonly refer to it, Looking Good Naked (LGN). There’s no two ways about it, if you prioritize LGN in any way (which you do because you’re human and we all have egos, whether we like to admit it or not), you need to eat your protein. Eating enough protein will help you gain more muscle, as we will address in the next paragraph, but gaining more muscle is an important piece of aesthetics, too. Curls for the girls, tris for the guys, squats for… Well, you get the idea. Not only do we look and feel more attractive with some muscle definition (how much is your personal preference), but muscle burns more calories than fat. Although the exact number might vary, research studies show that in general, 10 pounds of muscle will burn 50 calories in a day spent at rest, while 10 pounds of fat would burn 20 calories. This means that even when you’re not working out, you’re burning about 2.5 times more calories for every pound of fat turned into muscle. Burning more calories, as you know, helps keep you leaner. So eating enough protein leads to being more muscular and lean, which leads to LGN.
Athletics.
This one probably speaks for itself. As you train for your physical passion, whether that be ballet or powerlifting or anything in between, the stronger you are the easier it will be to progress and feel good. It is true that there are some sports where being bulky does not work to your advantage - long-distance running and rock climbing are two great examples - but there is a major difference between being bulky and being strong. The length and shape of your muscle fibers is greatly influenced by your type of training, much more so than the actual strength of your muscles. Furthermore, while some amino acid profiles will build muscle, others will support joint and tendon strength instead. Not only are strong and healthy joints and tendons crucial for overall strength, but without them, an athlete is a ticking time bomb for injury (both chronic and acute).
Health.
Despite what most mainstream media reports, animals - especially those of the grass-fed, free-range, and wild-caught variety - are some of the healthiest foods you can eat. This topic can and does get very nuanced, but as far as nutrition goes the basic facts are relatively simple. Essential nutrients like B12 can only be found in animal products, such as meats, eggs, and organ meats. Other nutrients like iron, zinc, calcium, and long-chain fatty acids may be found in plant foods, however, they are much more bioavailable (absorbable by the human body) in animal foods. Furthermore, supplements often don’t come in the same form as what you would get if you ate the nutrient in real food, and thus similarly become unabsorbable to varying degrees. What this means is that when you make the effort to eat adequate protein, or when you receive yet another email from me telling you we need to get your protein up higher, it is with the understanding that most of your protein should be coming from animals sources.
There is a ton of research out there on this subject, some of which is quality and a lot of which is not. Ultimately, the best I can do is advise you to try it and find out for yourself. Spend at least a month making sure you’re eating enough animal protein, and afterward ask yourself, “how do I look, feel, and perform now?” This N=1 experiment will sufficiently resolve any of your doubts, and also make you one of my favorite clients.
P.S. I happen to already know the answers to the aforementioned questions (hot, amazing, and spectacularly), should you want to just take my word for it.