Before we get into the meat of this blog series, let's be clear on the definition of a recreational athlete. A recreational athlete can be defined as a physically active person (e.g. those exercising 45–90 minutes, 2–3 times per week) but does not train for competition at the same intensity and focus as a competitive athlete.
I've recently been digging into the research on protein intake requirements for recreational athletes. I want to write a series of useful blog posts that I can share with my health coaching clients. However, I realise that only hardcore fitness geeks (like myself) want to read a blog post that dives into a plethora of scientific studies analysing protein requirements per kilogram of body weight to improve lean muscle mass and sports performance. Everyone else might find a meta-analysis of protein research a useful sleep aid. Zzzzzzzzzz.
WAKE UP, STAY WITH ME!
My goal in this blog series is to try and make protein intake a little more digestible for the non-fitness-geeks and give fitness geeks a different perspective.
I'm going to do my best to explain why you should focus on your protein intake before you start cutting calories or worrying about the number of carbs and fats you're eating.
Why should you focus on protein first?
The linguistic origins of the word protein come from the Greek proteios, meaning “first place” or “primary.”
Proteins are made up of building blocks called amino acids. There are about 20 different amino acids; nine of these are essential amino acids (EAA) that your body cannot make. You need to include enough of these EAA's in your diet so that your body can function optimally.
Protein (amino acids) build muscles, cause chemical reactions in the body, transport nutrients, prevent illness, and carry out other functions.
A protein deficiency can result in:
Lower mental alertness
Slowed growth in children
and many other health issues
Decreased immunity
Digestive problems
Depression
Fertility issues
Without argument, protein is an essential macronutrient, and without it, your healthspan is decreased (healthspan is more important than lifespan).
Is Fat-Free-Mass good or bad?
When reading the protein intake research, the term "fat-free-mass" is often referred to. Statements like, "the high-protein group had a greater increase of fat-free-mass compared to the low-protein group."
Is that a good thing?
Fat-free-mass includes internal organs, bone, muscle, water, and connective tissue. Fat-free body mass includes most of your body's vital tissues and cells. Increasing or maintaining fat-free-mass is a healthy outcome; you want to have strong bones, healthy organs, more lean muscle, and healthy cells. When your fat-free-mass increases, the weight on the scales increases; this is a healthy thing.
Stop and think about this for a moment, how many people are going to the gym or cutting calories to lose weight? Do you really want to be losing fat-free-mass, or is the real goal to lose body fat? They are two very different things and most people are focusing on the wrong one.
If you value your health, the goal should be to increase fat-free-mass and decrease body fat. As you age, it becomes harder to build and maintain your fat-free-mass, so you want to try to build and maintain and much of it as you can for as long as you can.
The weight on the scales is not important. The ratio of fat-free-mass to body fat (i.e. your body composition) is far more important when it comes to health, performance, looking toned, avoiding chronic disease, and increasing your healthspan. Throw away your scales because they fail to measure anything important. If you're serious about "toning up" or "losing body fat" you need to do an InBody Scan or a DEXA Body Scan to measure your fat-free mass, body fat mass and body composition.
Why is fat-free-mass important for recreational athletes?
To unlock your athletic potential, you need to be a healthy person first. A concept of “Human First” has emerged recently in athletic circles, highlighting how recreational athletes must first be healthy to achieve their performance goals. In other words, if you’re too sick, too tired, or too rundown to train, you’ll never achieve your health and fitness-related goals.
Building and maintaining fat-free-mass and keeping body fat low can dramatically increase performance levels. Having strong bones, muscles, organs and connective tissue will increase your force production, speed, power, endurance, recovery, power to weight ratio, decrease the chance of injury and more. Carrying too much body fat will make you heavier, slow you down, and reduce your overall performance.
Improve your athletic performance and body composition by building a bigger furnace.
The next point I want to talk about is your furnace.
Yes, you have a furnace.
Your furnace is responsible for managing your energy levels by taking the carbohydrates and fats you eat and turning them into the fuel you burn to function. The furnace prefers not to use amino acids (protein) for energy, but it can.
"I thought this blog series was about protein?"
STAY WITH ME.
Your fat-free-mass dictates the size of your furnace and, you guessed it, protein is the key ingredient to building the components that make up your furnace. It's important to note that your body prefers to use carbohydrates and fats as the fuel that burns inside the furnace. The body preferentially breaks down carbohydrates first, and then fats and finally proteins only if the other two fuels are depleted. This is important as proteins are generally less efficient at generating energy. In addition, proteins perform several important functions so if they were broken down several systems could fail.
The bigger your furnace, the more fuel you will need to keep the furnace running hot, especially if your training intensity, frequency and volumes are high.
If your furnace is running hot, it means that the carbohydrates and fats that you eat will be quickly utilised. If your furnace is running slow the additional energy you consume from carbohydrates and fats will be stored as excess body fat. It makes sense to have a bigger furnace that effectively burns the fuel that you consume.
Your furnace has wear and tear. Your body services the furnace by replacing the worn-out cells (organs, muscle, connective tissue, etc.) with new cells.
Where do these cells come from?
Protein is the primary building block for these new cells. You need to make sure you're eating enough quality protein to keep the furnace in working order. A well oiled and serviced furnace will burn fuel more efficiently and effectively and give you the energy to perform at your best while keeping body fat stores at a minimum.
I'm not just talking about the energy you need to exercise, your body also uses this energy for:
growth and repair (grow new cells for hair, nails, skin, muscle, organs, connective tissues, etc.)
respiration (to breathe)
circulation (to pump blood and carry nutrients around the body)
to fuel the brain (focus and concentration)
to digest the food you eat
to increase immunity and fight of illness
to produce hormones (sex hormones, sleep hormones, growth hormones, etc.)
to produce enzymes
and more
What happens if you don't eat enough food?
It's not hard to figure out what will happen if you don't eat enough food to fuel your body. Low energy levels are the most predictable outcome, but low food intake also leads to:
a compromised immune system
increased chance of injury
digestive complaints
poor concentration and focus
poor circulation, cold hands and feet
hair loss, brittle nails and dry skin
decreased production of hormones that affect
fertility
recovery
sleep
mood
and metabolism. (Yes, low energy input and high energy output can slow down your metabolism and cause you to store more body fat). It's not as simple as "energy in and energy out" despite what we're often told in the health and fitness industry.
Are you still convinced that you should be "eating less and moving more?"
HOLD YOUR HORSES, I'M NOT GIVING YOU PERMISSION TO EAT JUNK CALORIES.
If you eat too many of the wrong calories, you will get fat. Gary Taubes, author of Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It, sums this up by saying "the science itself makes clear that hormones, enzymes, and growth factors regulate our fat tissue, just as they do everything else in the human body, and that we do not get fat because we overeat." He goes on to say "the science tells us that obesity is ultimately the result of a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one."
Increasing the size of your furnace allows you to burn more carbohydrates and fats to produce more energy. Your body needs the energy to survive, grow new cells, breathe, pump blood around your body, etc. Yes, this means you need to eat more to move more, not eat less as we are often told.
By following a calorie deficit diet, we decrease available fuel for the furnace, decreasing energy production. If you're cutting calories, "eating less and moving more”, how are you fueling your body? If there is not enough fuel to fuel the furnace, your body will decrease the furnace's size. Yes, your body will start to break down your fat-free-mass, which will slow down your metabolism and energy production and lead to the symptoms above. This is not healthy!
Be aware that recreational athletes often struggle to achieve optimal health and performance by following mainstream health and fitness advice.
How big is your furnace?
Your furnace is your fat-free-mass. The more fat-free-mass you have, the bigger your furnace. The bigger your furnace the most energy you can produce and burn.
Having a large furnace gives you the ability to increase your workout intensity, frequency, and volume.
High-intensity workouts require a high level of energy for a short period of time.
High volume workouts require a moderate amount of energy over a longer period of time.
Low-intensity workouts require low levels of energy for the longest period of time.
Side note: The energy demands of high-intensity training (anaerobic environment) compared to low-intensity (aerobic environment) come from different energy pathways. High-intensity training is fuelled best by carbohydrates, while low-intensity training is fulled predominantly by fat and oxygen. An individual's metabolic flexibility dictates that type of fuel and the amount of available fuel burned in the furnace to meet the energy demands.
Try not to read into this too much because this does not mean that low-intensity training is better for fat loss; I'll explain this in more detail in a later post.
Having a furnace that can produce the required energy levels is essential to your health and athletic performance. The more efficient your furnace, the better! Instead of "eating less and moving more" and focusing on "calories in and calories out," recreational athletes should be focusing on building and maintaining their fat-free-mass (building and maintaining a strong and health furnace).
In my next post, I will write about the need for recreational athletes to increase and maintain their fat-free-mass—how they can build and maintain their furnace.
Are you carrying unwanted body fat, experiencing fatigue, plagued with immunity issues, having trouble sleeping, noticing anxiety, struggling with digestive complaints, and not performing or recovering like you know you can?
Have you ever considered working with a health coach?
A coach who empowers you to take ownership of your health, nutrition, training, recovery, and mindset. To enhance your physical and psychological performance, you need to build sustainable habits and routines to manage stress, improve sleep, balance hormones, promote a healthy body composition, and fuel your energy demands.
If this sounds like something that might help you take your health and performance to the next level: