Protein Metabolism Energy, Nutrients - Food and Health

Protein Metabolism

How protein metabolism works in our body so I'm going to intentionally glaze over some of the more detail-oriented aspects and just focus on the larger picture first thing is what are proteins and proteins in your body do a lot of things including make your muscles go they're composed of basic units called amino acids there are 20 total and just like the alphabet if you put those amino acids in different order you can make different proteins there are proteins that are specific to every organ in your body protein intake is essential and there are obviously many dietary sources of it and you may also hear that another term called polypeptide and that's a technically it's different but it's basically a fancy word for a chain of amino acids linked together and as far as we're concerned that just means protein so how does your body metabolize protein well protein metabolism consists of breaking down proteins you ingest well protein your body doesn't need into amino acids and then putting them back together in a different order for new protein protein breakdown is called proteolysis and is a catabolic process and protein synthesis is an anabolic process in general the process of skeletal muscle metabolism is moderated by two hormones insulin and glucagon and jested protein is partially broken down and absorbed in the small intestine where it travels to the liver here it is used to make many proteins skeletal muscle protein synthesis and repair actually occurs locally at the muscle and that's generally true for the other organ systems as well previously when you workout or exercise your muscles are damaged with micro-tears in order to rebuild those and we're going to get bigger and stronger to hypertrophy your muscles need protein they are essential while you're trying to lose weight maintain where you are or gain strength any exercise routine is dependent on a good protein intake and just as a general rule of thumb for working out eating your body weight in grams of protein per day should provide sufficient protein for muscle growth and we'll discuss that more I also quickly want to touch on hypertrophy technically hypertrophy is an increase in volume of organ or cell due to enlargement of cellular components from biological and medical point of view

We're talking about as an increase in the size of individual cells hypertrophy canna does occur all over the human body and certainly not just in the muscles but most people talked about hypertrophy dough they are referring to an increase in skeletal muscle mass this is essentially a summation of cellular hypertrophy over millions of muscle cells all the cells get bigger so the muscle physically appears bigger as results and if you've heard the term atrophy this is literally the opposite where the skeletal muscle fibers actually shrink and so it happens if you increase your protein intake in general there are no negative consequences to eating too much protein for fitness exercise and weightlifting point of view may really be challenging yourself to eat too much your body is so protein dependent I can almost always find a place to use it and it has a sophisticated mechanism of utilizing it and getting rid of excess in your urine if you need to the one caveat here is if you do have kidney problems because your body is unable to properly filter out the protein and it can cause your body to start retaining excess fluid so if you do have problems your kidneys please talk to your doctor before you start dramatically increasing your protein intake one study did look at amino acid toxicity and it found that people who consume more than 2.2 grams of protein per pound per day are at risk for this so that's literally more than double your body weight in grams of protein per day very difficult to achieve and you really shouldn't have much to worry about there what happens to protein metabolism if I decrease my total calories or carbohydrate intake so when you start dieting either by decreasing calories or carbs or both in general your blood sugar is going to go down as a consequence your body will try to raise your blood sugar by several mechanisms one of these is breaking down muscle proteins back into amino acids these amino acids can then be converted into sugar your body specifically targets muscle protein when you're fasting or dieting because compared to most other organs it is expendable would you rather break down protein in your skeletal muscle or in your brain or your heart hopefully you said skeletal muscle because that is your body being smart about where it takes protein from after you have depleted your glycogen stores and have had really no oral intake for 1224 hours your body shifts from what we fasting to more of a starvation State and that's where you begin to mobilize more fat this process is called ketogenesis and that's a lecture for another day so can you prevent your body from breaking down skeletal muscle protein so how do you prevent or at least minimize that you basically have to increase your protein intake this is important to mitigate more damage to skeletal muscle provide your body excess amino acids to rebuild the muscle that you may have worked out it also provides excess amino acids that can be turned into glucose and to help prevent your body from targeting your skeletal muscle that's why most diets include a lot of protein even for people who aren't approaching it from a fitness perspective this excess protein will blunt or minimize the effects of protein breakdown while you were dieting and then just some recommendations

These are taken from an article in examine calm that if you're an athlete or highly active person currently attempting to lose body fat while preserving lean muscle mass a daily intake of 1.5 - 2 point 2 grams per kilo or 0.6 8 to 1 grams per pound would be a good target if you're an athlete or highly active person or you're attempting to lose body fat while preserving lean mass then a daily intake of 1 to 1.5 grams per kilo or 0.45 2.6 grams per pound would be a good target if you're more sedentary and not looking to make any changes to your body composition a target of 0.8 grams per kilo or 0.36 grams per pound and upwards would be a good target you may also be wondering what percentage of your diet should be protein based the 2010 American dietary guidelines recommend adult diet consists of 45 to 65% carbs 10 to 35 percent protein and 20 to 35% fat that's certainly not etched in stone and I'm going to suggest that you deviate from that a little bit and don't let your carbs make up more than 40% of your total daily calories and then protein and fat should make up the other sixty to eighty percent just go your protein intake up based on the recommendations above and then just briefly there are a lot of great sources of protein a quick list includes turkey chicken breast fish cheese pork lean beef and veal tofu soy eggs yogurt milk nuts and seeds there's obviously more and powdered protein is also a great supplemental source in summary protein is very important it is composed of basic building blocks called amino acids hypertrophy is an increase in the size of skeletal muscle cells and this growth is partially dependent on the availability of excess protein amino Bassett's it is very difficult to consume toxic levels of protein so don't worry too much about it if you decrease your total calories or carbs your body will be forced to maintain a blood glucose through other means including breaking down skeletal muscle you can minimize this breakdown by increasing your total protein intake and although there are target intakes for an individual depending on your specific goals approximately one gram per pound of body weight per day is an easy number to remember you...