12/11/2020
Protein?
PROTEIN DISTRIBUTION MATTERS! ✋🏻
We already know that meal frequency doesn’t really matter much for fat loss, however, protein distribution seems to matter for optimal muscle protein synthesis (MPS)
The anabolic response to protein is not linear, there is a threshold to initiate the response and there is a cap where further increases in protein intake do not elicit further increases in MPS
The minimum threshold is approx ~20g (depending upon the quality of the source) with a cap around 30-50g (also dependent on quality of the protein).
So if you eat 200g of protein per day but you have it all in one meal, you aren’t ‘wasting it’ or not ‘absorbing it’ but you are only getting an anabolic response from the first ~30-50g whereas the last 150-170g ain’t doing much for anabolism in muscle.
Contrast that with someone consuming 5 meals of 40g of protein per day that triggers 5 maximal anabolic responses, that person is likely to gain more muscle than the person who has all their protein into 1 or 2 meals.
Keep in mind some will hear this and think it means we should have 10 meals per day of 40g protein. No. You can still SATURATE the system with the ‘muscle full’ or ‘refractory’ effect which renders muscle insensitive to the anabolic response to protein for a period of time🤷♂️
At the moment it looks like 3-5 meals of 30-50g of high quality protein will maximize MPS response for MOST people.
People with more lean body mass may need more and people who eat poorer quality sources of protein may need more.
I delve deeper into this topic in The Complete Contest Prep Guide where there is a comprehensive section on protein metabolism to maximize anabolism
Link: http://www.biolayne.com/ig
Citations
Schoenfeld et al 2018
Norton et al 2017
Yasuda et al 2020