Is there a limit to protein absorption per meal?

There is no fixed limit to how much protein your body can absorb per meal. Your body can adapt its digestion to take advantage of all the protein you consume, whether it's 20, 30 or more grams at a time.The “20-30g limit per meal” is often taken out of context. The issue is based largely on studies of protein synthesis that do not reflect what happens in real life – outside the lab.Your body doesn’t waste extra protein. In addition to building muscle, protein is used for hundreds of bodily functions. Breaking down or converting protein into fat isn’t at the top of our body’s priority list.Total protein intake is more important. Aim for at least 1.6g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day (we're talking minimum), distributing it throughout the day in whatever way you find most Why is protein intake essential?

When it comes to bodybuilding, when you train with weights, small injuries occur in the muscle fibers and start a cascade of reactions that can result in bigger and stronger muscles.

This is the process we know as muscle hypertrophy .

Protein is an important variable in this process because it provides the amino acids needed to rebuild these fibers damaged during training

Without enough protein, the body will not have the “raw material” (amino acids) to rebuild muscles, which can limit results.

Adequate protein intake also helps prevent muscle loss that can occur when the body turns to muscle protein for energy.

Going beyond bodybuilding, protein intake is essential for vital body functions, such as repairing tissues, producing enzymes, hormones and supporting the immune system.

Basically, regardless of whether your goal is to change your body or maintain your health, protein intake is essential.

For example, one study suggests that consuming more than 20 grams of protein at one time does not provide any extra benefits for building muscle mass (1).

Another study suggests that ingesting 90 grams of protein did not result in greater anabolism than ingesting 30 grams (2).

These and other studies are important to understand more about protein synthesis, but most of them are done under conditions that do not apply outside the laboratory environment.

When we consume protein, we are generally not ingesting a rapidly digestible liquid meal on an empty stomach — a common model in laboratory experiments.

It takes time for the body to transform that ground duck into amino acids and put it into the bloodstream.

Additionally, the body tends to adjust the digestive process in response to protein intake (3).

This is partly due to the digestive hormone cholecystokinin or CCK, which can slow down intestinal contractions and increase intestinal transit time when protein is consumed (4).

The type of protein also influences the speed of digestion, as does the presence of fat and fiber in the diet.

All of these factors make it difficult to determine whether the amino acids from, say, the 100-plus grams of protein in a steak you ate for dinner will ever challenge some theoretical “limit” of protein utilization at the cellular level.

Ultimately, your body doesn't just use the protein you eat to build muscle, it uses it for hundreds of other processes that have a much higher priority than getting big arms.

Trying to establish such a precise limit on how much protein the body can use in a meal is much more complex when we are talking about practice, outside the laboratory.

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