Now, this is something that I have heard a lot of times, so I thought I’d bash out a good old article about it. Most ‘facts’ that you know about protein is probably wrong. Here are some statements that have been made about protein and you can guess which ones true and which ones are not.
· Meat and other animal-based products are the only foods to contain complete protein.
· On average we are getting less protein that we need daily
· You have to eat meat to get bigger muscles
· You should have protein in every single meal
· You have to have a certain amount of protein per day
· Vegans are not able to get the amount of protein they need in their diets
What did you think?
I hope you answered the same as me, all of these are not true. But let’s go into this a little more so we can get a better understanding of why these are not true. Protein consists of 21 amino acids and these are the building blocks too it, only 9 of those are classed as essential which means that our bodies cannot produce them, so they need to be sourced in the form of food within our diet.
The statement is true that plants have a lower percentage of this essential amino acids that meat-based products, but it still has them as most plant-based foods contain protein. Collectively it is becoming more well known that we need more plant diets in our lives though I am not going to be a person to completely cut off meat but that is my own personal opinion towards the food source.
Now for the statement that said ‘we are not getting enough protein in our diets’ is completely false, because we are getting it from these amino acids which are not always in what we think is protein dense food, it can happen within a bunch of food material. But we are made to believe that we need more meat and dairy in our lives because of the advertising and marketing that goes around it.
How much products have you seen on shelves that say ‘high in protein’ though a whole serving may still only have 3/4 g of protein in it? More protein in your diet isn’t always better, your body will take the amount that it needs to function and grow and then discard the rest in waste, like every other food source. Now this one may shock you so make sure you are sitting down.
Getting extra calories from protein sources is only going to turn into muscles? No, it is not, extra anything that is not going to be used in the body for a certain need will be stored away and made into fat if not used. Our bodies will use it for survival because at the end of the day it doesn’t know why you are eating so much protein, it just knows how much it needs and when that has been met, it will store the rest just in case a meal is not going to happen for a couple of days.
Check out more by reading some other articles I have posted and if you’d ever like to contact me then please head over to my Instagram : @charliejohnsonfitness and DM me!