If you ask if there will be a sunrise tomorrow, we can say absolutely “yes.” If you ask if George Washington is the current President, the answer is absolutely “no.” Some issues clearly are yes or no. But many issues are conditional, and a simple yes or no answer is insufficient.
Even the question, “should I exercise?” is conditional. Almost always the answer is that you should, but there are certain medical conditions or situations where rest is required and exercise would be harmful at the moment. The answer is therefore a conditional yes, not an absolute.
Maybe yes, maybe no
Most of us want to build up our muscles. We admire physically fit individuals even if they aren’t athletes. If we ask most exercising individuals how they’ve changed their diets, they will likely tell us that they are eating more protein. Stores have muscle-building protein supplements which are very popular. The popular belief is that the answer to “should I eat more protein when exercising?” is an absolute yes. Yet even if exercise increases the need for protein, the yes would have to be conditional, not absolute, because you may already be getting more than enough to cover the exercise. And if you look deeper, you might actually find the answer is a conditional no, not yes.
Let’s assume that you are getting exactly the percentage of protein in your diet that you need. Then you add an exercise program. Working your muscles results in breaking down some protein from your muscles into amino acids. It is believed by many that you excrete these amino acids and need more from your diet. That is a major oversimplification. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and if your body frees up aminos and they go back into your bloodstream, they are now available for reuse. Your body has a protein recycling program. Protein breakdown from exercise provides these new building blocks to make more protein. However, the process does not recover 100% of the aminos. If it did, then the answer to whether you need more protein when exercising would be an absolute no. But studies are showing that 50% – 80% of the released amino acids can be utilized for muscle repair and rebuilding. So if you exercise, it is possible that you need to recoup some of the protein loss.
Highs and Lows
Well, most Americans are getting a lot more protein than they need, even with a heavy exercise program. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), most adults consume about 16% of their calories from protein daily. Put another way, for someone consuming 2,000 calories per day, that means 80 grams (2.8 oz) of protein are in the diet. Those 80 grams provide plenty of additional protein, more than a body can use even with lots of exercise. But this is where the controversy comes in, because some believe that you should have even more protein than 16%, and few believe that you should have a lower amount.
The stakes are high. Excess protein is a load on the body. It acidifies the body. Too much can lead to kidney failure and other serious issues. According to research published in Nature Metabolism, “amino-acid-mediated mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signalling in macrophages has been implicated in the pathogenesis of ischaemic cardiovascular disease.“ Put another way, by performing animal studies the researchers determined that diets with protein and leucine content “representative of the general population” was driving atherosclerosis in the animals tested. So we can add cardiovascular disease to the list. And most people get protein from animal sources, which is particularly inflammatory. (1)
Too low a protein level can lead to metabolic disruptions if the body truly can’t get enough. Symptoms of low protein include brittle hair and nails, swelling (edema) in the abdomen and extremities, and of course inability to build or preserve existing muscle mass. If the level is low, it could interfere with muscle rebuilding and thus make it hard to gain strength from exercise. Yet, again drawing from the NHANES study, protein deficiency is quite rare in America. That’s because it is quite difficult to avoid protein to such an extent that you don’t get enough, unless you are starving. Protein, in the form of amino acids, is everywhere, even in pure vegetarian diets. To be protein deficient requires either also being calorie deficient (starving) or eating a mono diet that was unusually low in a certain key amino acid, preventing construction of a complete protein.
It’s important to get this right. So what do we actually know, and what has research shown?
First, consider the issue of exercise leading to some protein loss, even if it’s less loss than popularly believed. As stated, muscular activity causes breakdown of some muscle protein into amino acids. Those amino acids can be reused, burned for fuel, or excreted. Your body will not choose to burn the amino acids unless it is in need of energy. That energy does not have to come from the aminos if energy is supplied from another source. The best case is the metabolism of the coveted “fat burner” whose body turns to fat sources for energy. Fat is a better source of energy than protein, providing about three times the energy per molecule. Bottom line: you don’t need to provide protein to prevent muscle wasting because there are good alternatives. You can consume fat instead. As for excretion, free animo acids only circulate for a day or so before they are either used or processed by the liver. To be used, they must have the other animo acids available to create the target protein. Inability to find the other amino acids needed means the liver will convert the amino into urea which is expelled via urine.
One person’s trash is the same person’s treasure
So building muscle mass requires a mix of amino acids in the right quantities to build the protein needed, and a sufficient amount of energy so your body doesn’t decide to burn the amino acids for fuel. How about recycling? You might think that recycling is optional. What’s the difference between forcing your body to do an efficient recycling program versus just dumping the aminos and getting new ones to build protein? Well, there’s a big difference. First, recycling doesn’t load the kidneys. Second, through a process called autophagy, your body takes junk proteins out of your body, breaks them down, and uses the amino acids that are otherwise deficient to complete the protein mix. Junk proteins build up over time all throughout your body: misfolded, damaged proteins make for weakened cell structures and are toxic to cells. You want your body to go scavenging for them and breaking them down, but why should it bother doing so when you have a plentiful supply of the amino acids it needs from your diet? Your body will take the easy path. Recycling isn’t a luxury — it’s vital to your long-term health.
Auto what?
Nine of the amino acids the human body uses are considered “essential”, meaning that it cannot manufacture them as it can the other 20 aminos. Missing one of the essential aminos will trigger autophagy when your body needs to build a protein requiring that particular one, so making your body a little “hungry” for amino acids, particularly essential ones, can help get rid of junk proteins while it also finds the aminos that it needs without getting them through your diet. You can overdo this of course, starving yourself of the essentials beyond the ability of your body to find damaged ones to recycle, but this is harder to do than you might think. That’s because the essentials are minimally used in making proteins needed for muscles. The essential amino acids, which are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine, appear in smaller percentages, so less of them is needed. Interestingly, plant amino acid levels tend to follow similar patterns of lower quantities of the essentials. This is why plant proteins get a bad rap for not being complete proteins, but a little variety in leafy greens, nuts, and seeds can easily provide enough of the essentials without being inflammatory.
Let’s look closer at one of the important proteins for exercisers: collagen. Supplements of hydrolyzed collagen peptides are quite popular in health stores for supporting protein needs for muscle builders. Collagen is vital to stimulate muscle connective protein synthesis. Yet research is showing that supplementation is a waste of money. This was determined in a randomized, double-blind study published by the American College of Sports Medicine, where researchers determined, “Collagen peptide supplementation (2 × 15 g daily) does not increase myofibrillar or muscle connective protein synthesis rates during 1 week of intense resistance exercise training in young, recreational athletes.“ (2) Now, for this to be the case, the study participants must have already been getting the necessary collagen building blocks before supplementation. This supports the theory that most people are already getting plenty of protein, enough to cover the additional load posed by exercise. Adding even more didn’t do anything for building more muscle.
In a review study published in Annual Review of Nutrition researchers from the University of Dundee in Scotland along with the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas concluded this after a review of the available data: “There is no evidence that habitual exercise increases protein requirements; indeed protein metabolism may become more efficient as a result of training.” Interesting: faced with a need, the body tends to look for ways to get better at meeting that need. More protein synthesis is needed with exercise, so the exerciser gets more efficient at this synthesis. (3) That could be from better recycling due to higher metabolism, better circulation due to exercise, or other reasons, but the results are clear: the researchers saw no evidence that exercise increases protein requirements — the very opposite of what popular science and so called exercise experts are telling us.
The acid test
So if you are tempted to consume more protein, especially animal protein, think again. Maybe you are an outlier who doesn’t get enough protein — perhaps you eat a very limited diet almost completely devoid of some essential amino acids. Then you might do better with more protein, but you’d do just as well by adding some variety to your diet, which you can do completely in the plant realm if you wish. Here’s the thing: exercise builds acid from the muscle metabolism, and animal protein acidifies your body, so eating more animal protein is a good way to just increase inflammation in your body and invite disease. If you are really concerned that you are not getting enough protein, look up the amino acid profiles of the foods you are eating and compare that with the profiles of the proteins you believe you need for muscle building, then see which amino acids are deficient in your diet. Look for a plant source of those. But that’s a lot of work for something you probably don’t need. Just eat a good variety of dark green leafy greens, nuts, seeds, and plant fat (best source being avocados). In doing so you will lower inflammation, increase alkalinity to offset the acidity from exercise, provide plenty of energy to avoid burning protein for fuel, get all the protein you really need without overload, and even get better at fat burning and protein synthesis as you try to body build. You may even find yourself building faster than your carnivore colifters!
Dr. Nemec’s Review
- Excess Amino Acids = Inflammation
- Inflammation = slower repair, rebuilding, and gains
- Inflammation = dysfunction and disease
According to the American College of sports medicine research: Collagen peptide supplementation does not increase myofibrillar or muscle connective protein synthesis rates during 1 week of intense resistance exercise training.
Why does the collagen supplementation not increase muscle fiber size or muscle synthesis rate? Because they already had enough collagen and protein in their diet to make sufficient muscle fiber and synthesis.
Look at it this way: if I’m eating 80 g of protein a day from a standard American diet, I do an intense muscle workout, and I measure how that increases muscle fiber thickness; then I add 40 more grams of protein a day, I do the same intense muscle workout and the muscle fiber thickness does not increase, then obviously the extra 40 grams of protein isn’t helping me. In fact, it’s hurting me because:
Protein is acidic. Your body works in an alkaline environment. Every time you eat an acidic food, you stress your body, you stress your metabolism, and you stress your liver and kidneys because this acid has to be alkalized. So more protein means more amino acids, and when they are not necessary, this is a major acidic stress to your body — and all disease grows in an acid environment.
The University of Texas research also showed something very important in the understanding of protein metabolism. What you do consistently, you get very good at at the cellular level. The more protein synthesis that is needed with exercise, the more efficient at this synthesis the exerciser becomes. That could be from better recycling (autophagy) due to higher metabolism, better circulation due to exercise, or other reasons, but the results are clear: the researchers saw no evidence that exercise increases protein requirements.
The best choice for protein
First of all, you don’t need a lot of extra because it can cause detrimental effects on your liver, kidneys, and the alkaline-acid balance in your body. Excessive amino acids stimulate growth of not only muscle fibers, but abnormal cells. So you absolutely do not want extra, just the right amount.
The beauty of plant protein
Plants, especially green plants, are highly alkaline which counters the acidic nature of the amino acids and protein — so a plant protein is going to be less overall acidic than an animal protein. This means when you’re eating protein that has an alkaline buffer, it’s the ideal protein, whereas all animal protein is acidic with no alkalinity counter-buffering available.
Most important concept with muscle building
Many scientific research studies have shown the key in muscle building is not excessive amino acids, but very simply more calories.
This is where plant fats come in.
Fat calories have up to three times the energy and caloric content as opposed to protein calories. And when these fat calories are from plants, they are not only alkalized but they are also loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals — which all stimulate regeneration and healing at an accelerated rate.
Bottom line
If you want to grow healthy muscle and a healthy body, then you eat the necessary amount of protein, not excess; and you eat it in a living raw plant form with high plant fats, such as avocados, seeds, and nuts. You absolutely do not want to overeat protein to build muscle; instead eat more plant fat calories with sufficient protein so you don’t over acidify your body and stimulate growth of abnormal cells.
At Revolution Health & Fitness we’ve been helping athletes optimize their performance for 40 years, including professional athletes. The key is doing extensive laboratory work up and nutritional genetic testing, customizing diet for their metabolism and their cellular profile.
This is the smart way to compete. This is the healthy way to win.
There is no guesswork when we’re doing lab workups, metabolic profiling, and nutritional genetic testing along with extensive hormonal panels.
Don’t you think it’s time to step into the future now instead of doing it the way they’ve been doing it for 50+ years? Science and research has given us tremendous tools to optimize every part of our life, including physical fitness and competitive advantage.
A comment from one of the athletes we treat:
“I can’t believe I’m not sore after workouts anymore. Not only do I seem to heal twice as fast, but my gains and strength are going up at a rate that I’ve never seen before. I feel like I’m on steroids (because I’ve used those before in the past) yet I’m not on them, but I’m getting results even better than when I was on them with no side effects, only tremendous gains. I wish I would’ve known about this type of optimization 10 years ago!”
(1) Zhang, X., Kapoor, D., Jeong, SJ. et al. Identification of a leucine-mediated threshold effect governing macrophage mTOR signalling and cardiovascular risk. Nat Metab 6, 359–377 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-024-00984-2, https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-024-00984-2#citeas
(2) Kirmse M, Lottmann TM, Volk NR, DE Marées M, Holwerda AM, VAN Loon LJC, Platen P. Collagen Peptide Supplementation during Training Does Not Further Increase Connective Tissue Protein Synthesis Rates. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2024 Dec 1;56(12):2296-2304. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000003519. Epub 2024 Jul 31. PMID: 39086044. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39086044/
(not used) Atherton PJ, Smith K. Muscle protein synthesis in response to nutrition and exercise. J Physiol. 2012 Mar 1;590(5):1049-57. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2011.225003. Epub 2012 Jan 30. PMID: 22289911; PMCID: PMC3381813. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3381813/
(3) Rennie MJ, Tipton KD. Protein and amino acid metabolism during and after exercise and the effects of nutrition. Annu Rev Nutr. 2000;20:457-83. doi: 10.1146/annurev.nutr.20.1.457. PMID: 10940342.https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10940342/
