By Sometimes more protein isn’t the answer you are looking for
There is only so much protein one can eat before reaching that threshold. Although protein is a thermogenic food, it can still convert to fat. Our bodies don’t naturally dispel it. Caloric control is your best bet for weight loss, but we also must be aware of what we eat when building muscle. Not all protein is created equal, and we must carefully pick the suitable source in the necessary quantities. Middle-aged people are told to eat more of the good stuff because we make considerable losses in muscle mass as we get older. That is somewhat true, but muscle is built when we train, and a slight preference for protein is vital. In this study, participants between 40–64 years of age were randomised into either high-protein or moderate-protein diet groups. To standardise protein intake, the researchers fed each person freshly cooked minced beef steak and carbohydrate beverages after each training session. In addition, participants were told to drink an isolated protein drink every evening — which they were given to take home with them. This particular study went on for ten weeks.
Here is how much protein each group took in daily:
- The moderate protein group equals 1.2 grams of protein per KG of body weight per day
- High protein group intake equals 1.6 grams of protein per KG of body weight per day.
Caloric intake was generally kept moderate — but not reduced in volume. An exciting part of this study was the gut microbiome analysis that researchers took before and after the intervention. Prior studies have shown that diet on its own and exercise as a stand-alone can alter the composition of your gut microbiome. As a general health message, we’re all told that eating more protein is essential to building muscle and helps us increase our strength. But during middle age, we lose power, and as a result, strength is also lost. So what we middle-aged folks want is to learn how we can maximise strength to protect our bodies better whilst remaining active. Researchers uncovered from this study that getting your protein intake from a source like beef would aid in muscle growth and strength when middle-aged adults used resistance training. At the end of the ten weeks, the team didn’t uncover any significant differences between the groups. Their strength gains, body fat and lean body mass, glucose tolerance, kidney function, and bone density were similar. This analysis’s only potentially harmful result was the participant’s gut microbiome. After a week on this diet, the high protein group saw changes in the abundance of some gut microbiomes that previous studies have linked to adverse health outcomes. Strength training reverses these negative results by reducing the potentially harmful gut microbiomes. So, increasing your protein intake doesn’t increase your gains in muscle and strength. It also didn’t alter your body fat outcomes either. The only negative downfall was the alterations in the gut microbiome. Have you been a slave to the notion that more protein is better too? Tell me about your experience. Please sign up via my link if you want to read more articles like this or start writing your own. I’d love to see you on the other side. 
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