Why Protein is Key to Weight Loss, Muscle Building & Healthy Aging (Day 3 of our 7-Day Challenge)

When you start with protein and make sure it's the first thing on your mind and on your plate, some amazing things happen, and I'm gonna go through each of them. So let's start with a quick refresher. Proteins are made of amino acids. Amino acids are what you need to keep your body running. They're sometimes even precursors to hormones. You need protein to repair your body, and it also helps you build muscle, which is mission critical for your metabolism. Now, most people believe that your metabolism slows down as you age, and that's one of the major reasons that you gain weight as you age. But guess what? There was a study in 2021 using data from more than 6,400 people across 29 countries that showed your metabolism doesn't really drop between the ages of 20 and 60. Now, you may feel like it does, But it doesn't. There's something else causing weight gain as we age, and it's not just one thing. What's really happening is a whole toxic soup of things. We have more disrupted sleep, hormonal changes, age-related muscle loss, and on top of that, we just start moving less, right? Now, if you remember what you learned in physics— now I know it was a while ago— it's that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. When you're not active, you're not building muscle. That loss of muscle is called sarcopenia, and it hits our bodies hard. Between age 30 and 60, we lose 3 to 8% of muscle mass each decade. And by the way, after 60, it just speeds up. And of course, that loss can lead to functional decline and increase the risk of disability and fractures. Basically, it just makes you frail. And that means that everything you do, well, it's just harder to do. It's harder to lift those groceries. It's harder going upstairs. It's harder going downstairs. It's harder opening jars. All of these normal things that we take for granted, that we can do with ease, they just get gradually harder. And you know, when they get gradually harder, you're not even aware. Plus, muscle burns more calories than fat. So losing muscle causes us to burn fewer calories. And if we're burning fewer calories and keeping everything the same, we're gaining fat. And by the way, you can't just cut calories to fix that, because when you do that, that makes your body go into the starvation mode that slows down your metabolism to compensate. And it can also make you catabolic, where you lose more muscle and you'll start to gain even more fat. And remember too, talking catabolic, if you're under any stress at all— and who the heck isn't— or you're catabolic from other things, which can happen like if you're overtraining or injured, especially if you're doing loads of cardio like running and cycling because you're trying to lose weight, you can forget about even maintaining muscle. You're actually breaking down muscle. Now if you drop weight quickly, and you're not getting enough protein, then the weight you're losing is likely muscle, little fat, but likely more muscle. And losing muscle works against you in so many ways, including for additional weight loss, because you need muscle revving your metabolism and improving your insulin sensitivity for that. I call muscles our metabolic Spanx because they hold everything in tighter while burning more calories, and they make us look better. So let's not forget that either, right? So with that said, the goal is to have a healthy, stable weight without sacrificing your muscle and bone health. And nutritionally, what do you need to make sure that happens? Well, you gotta have protein. So we're gonna put protein first, literally and figuratively. As far as macros go, protein, fat, and carbs, protein is number one. You know, we can live without carbs, so they bring up the rear, but we can't live without protein or without fat or without water. So when you're building your plate, you wanna prioritize protein and then build everything else around it. If weight loss is your goal, protein helps in a couple of different ways. First, it can help with satiety. It's better at signaling that you're full and satisfied than either fat or carbs are. Studies show that it gives you that feeling of full in a single meal and more fullness over a 24-hour period. So eating more protein helps you control hunger. And another way it helps with weight loss is that it's more thermic. Your body actually burns calories as it breaks down food in a process called thermogenesis, and it burns the most calories breaking down protein. So when you're digesting protein, you're giving your metabolism a little boost too. So how much protein is enough, and is there a thing as too much? Well, yes and yes, although I will tell you I think protein's gotten a really bad rap and people are afraid of protein when they really should be afraid of all of those dirty, ultra-processed, refined carbs. Okay, said my piece. Let's go back to protein. The floor, that's the minimum amount that you should be getting, is 1 gram per pound of ideal lean body mass every day. I'll talk about what that is in a moment. And then the ceiling is 1.5 grams per pound of ideal body weight. That's not just your lean body mass. Okay, so what is lean body mass anyway? So your body is made up of two things: fat and everything else. And everything else is called lean body mass. Now, if you're a woman, you want your body fat range to be in the 18 to 25% range of your total weight. And really, I'd love to see it more in the 18 to 22% range. If you're athletic as a female, it's going to be more in the 15 to 20% range. For men, your body fat should be somewhere in the 10 to 18% range of your total weight. And if you're athletic, 5 to 15%, especially if you're a super athlete. Now, you might want to go to that ceiling of 1.5 grams per pound of ideal body weight if the demands on your body are high, like if you're under stress, if you're trying to put on muscle, if you're injured or you're ill. But if none of that is the case, then you're probably fine doing about 1 gram per pound of lean body mass, or 1 gram per pound of ideal body weight. Okay, so you don't need to go crazy here, but honestly, I find most people are not getting enough protein in. So you're going to figure out how much protein you should be getting by first measuring your body mass, and the best way to do that is with a body composition scale. So if you don't have one of those, I highly recommend that you get one. It's an awesome tool and it does all of these calculations for you, besides the fact it is so cool to see your progress in these numbers right in front of your eyes. Now, my favorite one of all is a segmental scale, because first of all, when you're looking at a body composition scale, it's not just what you weigh, it's what that weight is made up of, right? And that's where the body composition scale is going to help you segment that. But a segmental scale takes it a step further where it shows you actually how much fat is on your arms, your legs, your trunk. It's super important because visceral adiposity, that belly fat, is the worst fat at all. So we want to make sure that as you're losing weight, you're losing fat, you're building muscle, and you're losing your waist. Two brands that I really love: InBody and Tanita. Now beyond that, I also want to make sure you're doing a waist and hip measurement weekly, because again, that's another way to look at that visceral fat, because this is the fat that's creating the problems. It's more inflammatory, right? If you're losing weight, you're not losing your waist, you're making yourself worse, not better. Okay, let's go back to protein. So you start with counting protein grams. Now you know how to look at this for yourself. So if you're eating animal protein, the good news is it's going to give you all of the essential amino acids your body needs. But remember, you are what you eat ate, meaning it's not just you eating that cow or that chicken, it's what that cow or chicken was fed. So you've got to choose wisely. Factory cows, factory chickens are junk food. It's, it's like eating Twinkies. You got to choose pastured beef, not corn-fed cows. I want you to think of corn-fed cows as like the white bread of beef. All right. Wild salmon rather than farm-raised. Again, I want you to think of farm-raised salmon like the Twinkies of the fish family. How's that for a visual? Okay. So again, you don't want to do the factory-styled animals. This is junk food because when they do this, they shift their fatty acid profile into a pro-inflammatory one. Now, when you're eating animal protein, you're also likely going to get a little bit of fat with it. Most of the animal protein is 7 grams per ounce of protein. If you're eating a fattier cut like wild salmon, it might be a little bit lower in protein, higher in fat. If you're eating leaner like turkey or chicken, it'll be a little higher in protein, lower in fat. If you're eating foods like, say, maybe a fatty ribeye grass— fed and finished, or wild salmon, you're gonna count those fat servings in with your protein, right? And again, remember, if you're eating shellfish, chicken breast, turkey, there's not much to count. The fat's really gonna be pretty negligible there. And in general, you don't wanna go too heavy on like one massive single animal protein. You really want to rotate your diet. By the way, this counts for everything. Important things to think about in your diet is rotating, eating different types of things, right? So getting that variety, eating seasonal, eating local whenever possible, and eating organic— super important. So we're going to rotate the grass-fed beef and bison, lamb, with pasture chicken or turkey or wild fish. Okay.