Thread: how much protein can you really utilize/day

Need... for what?

• For health? No.
• For muscle-gain while running a caloric surplus? No need to consume more than a gram per pound lean mass; you might even need less.
• To retain muscle while cutting - this is more interesting. Depending on the deficit, you need increasing amounts of protein to ensure a nitrogen-positive state.
• To control appetite - LOTS. If you're a dieted-down fatty, you know what I'm saying.

As an aside, it's very difficult to gain fat from "excess" protein.

^ true. You gain fat from excess calories, not excess protein, or excess fat, or excess carbs. If you ate all protein all day, you'd probably lose weight unless you ate a ton of it, equalling more than your caloric maintenance. You might feel like crap, etc., but you'd lose weight. I mean eat that and brocolli or salad all day and you're in ketosis running a protein spared modified fast and still probably gonna lose some muscle unless you're pounding it away. That's science, Bro science, and experience speaking.

I guess I'm not really talking about "need" but moreso how much can we actually utilize.

Yes, excess calories cause weight/fat gain but excess protein can lead you to a surplus of calories causing the weight gain. This is obviously the cause with carbs and fats as well and more likely with these two macro's but just because it is less likely ther case with protein doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

I asked this because in school, and in every other bit of research that I've come across I've never seen proof that we can utilize much more that 1.8gr/kg of bodyweight(obviously lean bodymass plays a role). I shared the exact same mindset and belief as both of you for a long time, but now I'm starting to wonder if the extra calories from protein would be better used as carbs or fats.

This would be a long discussion to get into right now because different goals require different approaches(as Built mentioned). I was just wondering if anyone did have something backed by science (not a supplement company) that shows that we can utilize more than 1gr/lb. I'm assuming the answer is no.

It's a complicated issue.
Some of the information is addressed in an article in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 2006, 16, 129-152 by Shane Bilsborough and Neil Mann.

Basically it's three parts:
How much protein (amino acids) can the muscles and other organs utilize directly
What is the liver's capacity to deaminate protein and produce urea to eliminate excess nitrogen
And most important, at what rate can the GI tract absorb protein?

In a nutshell, 250 grams of protein appears to be a general limit for an average male (175 lbs). Bigger guys with bigger guts can absorb more. It also depends on the type of protein. Most cooked foods *appear* to have their protein absorbed at from 2.5 to 4.0 grams per hour. Whey protein runs around 10 grams/hr, and an oddball test done using pork tenderloin blood amino acid level rise compared to intravenous infusion of AAs indicates meat protein might be absorbed at somewhere near 10 grams/hr.

Oddly, there really aren't any studies that have looked at maximum protein uptake in humans. Most information about it comes from meta-studies... studies of other studies.

But, if you stop and think about it, muscle is about 20 to 25% protein by weight. That would mean that, in a perfect world, if you ate 100 grams of protein above what your body needs for maintenance, you'd gain 400 to 500 grams of muscle. If the RDA for our theoretical 175 pound average guy is 65 grams (high side... 95th percentile), then if he ate 165 grams (an additional 100 grams) he'd gain almost a pound of muscle a day. But we know that doesn't happen. Hell, a lot of guys are happy with a pound a week in the long term.

So yeah... figure 250 grams, quite a bit of which will be deaminated and used for energy instead of muscle building, especially if you don't have your protein intake timed or designed to match with or create an insulin rise.

I don't think so that how much protein i utilize daily because i don't know that how to measure the protein....