Protein in Your Diet
Protein is the main component used for building and repairing your muscles. Protein is used just as a source for energy when there are no carbohydrates in your system available to perform the normal metabolic process. If you take away water from the equation, protein adds up to ¾ of your body and there is protein found in every single cell.
All of our muscles and organs, some of our hormones, antibodies and enzymes all are built with protein. Protein is even named by a Greek word which means “of first importance” and this is definitely true and is ‘of first importance’ to most bodybuilders.
After protein is put into your body, your digestive system will proceed to chop it up into its amino acids. After this occurs, the amino acids will go into so called “bank” which holds onto all of your consumed amino acids until they are needed to be used. If there is not enough of a certain type of amino acid in the ‘bank’ when your body needs it, your body will then result to breaking down your body tissues.
Protein in your diet can come from two different supplies – animal products or plant products.
Examples:
Animal products – milk, cheese, chicken, fish, tuna, eggs
Plant products – beans, nuts, whole grains, legumes
These two sources of proteins hold a different value. Animal products hold what is referred to as ‘complete proteins’ which only one protein source that is from an animal product can supply you with the nine needed amino acids. Plant products hold what is referred to as ‘incomplete proteins’ as they do not make up for the nine essential amino acids. However, soy protein is an exception to that statement.
For you to get all of the protein that you need on your diet from just plant products, you would need to result to combining two or more products that are capable of totaling up to get all the essential amino acids.
Examples:
Beans and rice, peanut butter on whole wheat bread, tofu and rice
You could also use plant products as a main source of protein and compliment it with a little bit of protein from animal products. An example would be Kraft Dinner or cereal with milk in it. However, you don’t need to combine the two. You could just have milk at breakfast and rice at supper to fill your needs.
So how much protein do you need every day? Your body is not capable of banking amino acids for a long period of time so you have to make sure that you consume just enough but not too much nor too little. It is recommended that you refer to the concept of 1 gram of protein per kilogram of weight on your body.
Therefore, someone who is 80kg will consume 80g of protein a day but those who work out my want to up it to 1 gram of protein per 1 gram of weight. There is nothing beneficial of overusing protein and there are some problems that are a result of consuming too much protein.
Consuming protein from just animal products can result in you possibly ending up having problems with your heart and blood vessels because animal products typically have too much fat and cholesterol. As well, if you take in a high amount of protein, you will be letting out calcium and will need to get more calcium in your diet somehow – however this may not be a problem if you are consuming enough milk products.
As well, consuming too much protein can result in dehydration because water is taken from your system to dilute the nitrogen waste that is caused by protein. What is left when your body destroys the unneeded nitrogen is a source of calories. For every gram of protein is 4 calories and the additional calories will be put away and stowed as fat.
You should attempt to get the majority of your protein intake from plant products so you can minimize the possibilities of consuming too much fat and cholesterol and to increase your consumption of dietary fibres and other essential vitamins.
Just remember what protein is for – building and repairing your muscles and used for energy when carbohydrates are not available to perform your normal metabolic process.
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