Protein for Performance

This is episode 215 of the Empowered Team podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life.

And now your host, executive coach and.

Life strategist, Kari Schneider. Okay, welcome to Performance Power. We're diving in to our five minute facts to start and it is our topic of protein today. So the way we do this format is that we dive into our five minute facts. These are science based, research based facts on a specific topic and then we open up the questions for anything related to nutrition, health, training, performance, injury, rehab, you name it, we dive in. So to start with our five minute facts, our fact number one is proteins are good for proper digestion. Not only are they good for proper digestion, here's the key. Digestive enzymes are proteins. So if we don't have enough protein, we're actually affecting our own digestion. So they're key to break down and absorb nutrients properly within that digestive process. That's fact number one. Fact number two, proteins are incredible for your brain. Who doesn't want an amazing performing brain? So what's key about proteins is that neurotransmitters are proteins and these neurotransmitters are working very hard to carry any of our signals. This is key for our focus, our concentration and especially our problem solving. One of the things that we used to recommend for our university level athletes who are performing was the type of meal to eat prior to taking their big exams. These are student athletes and the type of meal so that they can have the focus, the concentration and perform well in their exams would be a protein based meal that had some carbs but it still had a good amount of protein for focus and concentration Number three, five minute facts. Proteins are vital for our immune system. So our adequate protein consumption is needed in order to produce antibodies. So our antibodies are going to be there to fight any viruses. I wonder if that's a thing or, or pathogens. Anything that's coming our way that our body needs to deal with, we need protein for. So our immune system is key, needs protein, it's key for our immune system. And fact number four, how much is this not the question of the day? Especially with all kinds of keto diets out there with everything that's coming our way about what's healthy, what's not, what's good for you, what's not. So how much protein do we need? Well, as long as I've been in school, so we're talking 30 years, there is this one amount that has not changed all that much, but it's not really useful for our purposes. And it's this. It's 0.86 grams per kilogram of body weight. I've known this for many, many years. That 0.86 grams per kilogram of body weight is what we need in order to just have an average life. That is for someone who's basically sedentary. Now you, anyone who's listening in on this is typically not a sedentary person. So 0.86 grams per kilogram is not enough. So what that turns into as a recommendation is 1.2 to 1.8 grams grams per kilogram for anyone who is active. So 1.2 to 1.8grams per kilogram for anyone who's active. Now, I've tended to round that up for athletes. So I make it really easy and go with two. So I'm a tiny human. If I'm 50 kilograms, then that means I need 100 grams of protein per day. All right, so that would be the. How much. That is fact number four. How much? If you are an athlete, if you are very active, 2 grams per kilogram of body weight is what you are going to need. So that is going to bring us to fact number five. When. When are we going to have this? 2 grams per kilogram of protein? Is this all in one meal? I'm sure you've heard of omad. Omad, that stands for one meal a day. Well, if a person has one meal a day, then guess what? They're consuming all that protein in one meal. That's something to consider for someone who's looking at intermittent fasting or one meal a day, then all of that amount of protein. For me, that would be 100 grams of protein I'd have to have in one sitting, which personally for me, I can't imagine that. I can't imagine that level of fullness or that amount of protein in one sitting. So what that comes down to is when. When do we consume this? With each meal is important, and here's why. Protein isn't something we're typically storing other than our muscle mass. So we're storing it in such a limited amount that unless we're consuming it with every meal that we have, we're usually not going to be able to tap into it as well. This is one of the reasons why we recommend for athletes to consume branched chain amino acids while they're working out. Because what it does is it gives readily available protein building blocks while training. So that can be a key opportunity for the body to be able to uptake those amino acids while it's in a really absorptive state from training. So we'd like protein to be roughly with every meal. And we want about, and this is going to be very individual to somebody's size, to somebody's weight, but somewhere in that range of 20 to 30 gram of protein with each meal. So that can look like all sorts of different things. If you do a half of a boneless, skinless chicken breast, so half of a boneless, skinless chicken breast, that's typically about 25 grams of protein right there. And that's not including any of the other vegetables or things that also contain some protein as well. So here are as a bonus, some protein suggestions in order to just support this conversation. So things like poultry, meats, fish, those are the easiest, easiest ways to get protein is from animals. But not everybody wants to consume their protein from animals. And that's perfectly fine. Just have to get a little more aware and creative in order to do that. So beans and rice, putting the two together, make a complete protein. So it has the profile of all the amino acids necessary to make a complete protein. Lentils have one cup of lentils has eight grams of protein. Quinoa, one cup has about nine grams of protein. Two tablespoons, just two tablespoons of hemp seeds, so easy to add on to granola cereals anything. Two tablespoons of hemp seeds have 10 grams of protein right there. Great sources of plant based proteins are going to be steam spirulina. It's by weight. One of the most protein rich plant foods is spirulina. You can get that in a powdered packaged form. Soy. Soy. You can get 15 grams of protein out of a half a cup of soy. So tofu, chia seeds, quinoa, these are examples of plant proteins that are more like a complete profile, like a meat would be. So chia seeds, quinoa, hemp, buckwheat, tempeh, those end up making a really well rounded protein. So I'm going to review those five minute facts really quickly. Amazing for digestion, amazing for your brain, your neurotransmitters sending the signals, your focus that you need and vital for our immune system. These are three key things for our optimal performance in life. Number four, how much? The bare minimum for a sedentary person is 0.86 grams per kilogram of body weight. We recommend 1.2 to 1.8. However, I like to recommend two for anyone who's very active and athletic. Then you've got 2 grams of protein per kilogram. When we want this with each meal, we want a protein with each meal. So that or some sort of amount of protein that's around that 20 to 30 grams of protein because we have limited stores, so we want that available to us. And then we've got some of those suggestions that I've already mentioned. So as we carry on, pop your questions. You can unmute yourself or you can pop it in your chat, in the chat about protein as a number one starting point. And then we'll pop into any other questions you have about your health, your wellness, anything that you have. So pop the questions in there. And in the meantime, or unmute yourself. And in the meantime, I have a couple questions here that people have brought in as well. Okay, here's one question. Oh, go ahead.

Hello. Hi. So I enjoy like the pulses like chickpeas and lentils and stuff, but they come with a lot of like, bloating. Any tips to combat that?

Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So chickpeas, lentils. This is a common household joke that goes. We, we had a salad that we loved and it was a combination of quinoa and lentils and kind of a curry flavor to it. It was so good. And inevitably, if we had it several days in a row, we'd all be so gassy. So gassy. So what seems to help a lot of people, and I don't want to make blanket statements because this comes down to our individual biome, our individual digestive enzymes, and this may not be as convenient for some people, but it's soaking your beans. If you take your beans and you use the dry beans themselves. So say you've got black beans, chickpeas, lentils, and you pre soak them. That. And I'm going to blank out here, I'm going by memory here, but there's a shift and change of just the hull of it by soaking it. And that allows for us to be able to not produce as much of the off gassing when we go to digest it. So soaking the dry beans does make a difference. Oh, I might have frozen there for a second. So soaking the dry beans does make a difference for gassiness. And then the other thing that makes a difference for a lot of people is taking a digestive enzyme before eating it. So one, we use a brand, Doterra brand, and it is called Terrazyme. And it's one that helps a lot of people, especially with the key things that cause a lot of gas for them. That's Going to be milk products. And again that's a great source of protein for a lot of people, whether it's Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, other yogurts. But some people really have a hard time with having a sensitivity to the lactose. So the digestive enzyme helps there. It helps with the chickpeas, the lentils, the plant products. And the other thing that I find too is that when somebody's looking for a lot of protein that's plant based, then oftentimes they're intaking so much more fiber as well. And just the fact that they're taking in more fiber, they may not be insensitive to anything. It's just that they have more fiber in order to get the same amount of protein. The amount of food that you have to eat if it's plant based is so much more than, than if it's animal based. And that's where you know, some people who want to go more plant based but still consume something like fish or still consume eggs or certain animal based proteins, they've got this kind of almost ability to get more protein in without having it be as bulky and fibrous and then have some of the gut distension and some of the gas that comes with extra fiber and some of the beans as well. So is that what you find as well? Just takes more food to get the same amount of calories and the amount of protein that you're looking for?

Yeah, for sure. And I mostly just struggle kind of in the, in the morning to get like I do eat eggs but other than that like to get protein in in the morning and even sometimes like for a quick lunch. So I do like to throw chickpeas and stuff in salads. But yeah, do find, you know, you have to eat a bit more of them to get the protein amount and then yeah, it's sometimes fun for the office in the afternoon.

Yeah, yeah. You're like, do I work with people or am I alone? That's going to dictate what I'm eating earlier. Now have you tried, have you tried like a breakfast bowl, like a smoothie bowl? So what I would suggest there and this can be. Now I will make smoothies occasionally but I don't like drinking a lot of my calories. So I like to have substance, I like to chew, I like to have my body break it down versus pre blending it. But that doesn't mean we will still do a smoothie occasionally, especially if it's just me and my daughter. But that said, if you make it with less Liquid and very little blending, then there's still chunks in it. And what you can do is add. Vega is a great brand for vegan protein powder. So if you consume whey protein, whey is an excellent source as well. But you can throw some protein in there, then you've got anywhere from 10 to 20 grams just from the protein powder alone. And you throw some chia seeds, some hemp seeds, and then whatever other fruit or blend that you have in there, make it kind of thick and then you've got something that's still chewable, has the consistency with the seeds and that kind of fibrous bit. And then you've got this kind of protein source that's not just, you know, like, I don't recommend clients having a bowl of oatmeal in the morning anymore because there's just not enough protein. There's just if it's not a steel cut oats, then it's too refined, it'll spike their blood sugar. So I want something that's got a good source of protein first thing in the morning. Otherwise for most of us, we end up starting to crave carbs if we start with carbs in the day. So I'm even careful about a protein pancake if it's got too many oats in it. I like those for later in the day when I'm not as susceptible to start craving something like that. And there's another question here, go ahead. Yeah, well, breakfast is when I have the most problem too. And actually I have oatmeal every morning, so I just bring that up. Right. I would like to start. Can you make the smoothie bowls like the night before? Yeah, you can. Here's what I find. If I do things ahead of time, for most smoothies or most bowls, there's often a base of banana or pear. If you don't have a banana or a pear and you try with other fruit, sometimes it just doesn't quite taste right. So a banana or a pear, after it sits it tends to just change in flavor. And so that's where I would tend to go with not as ripe of a banana or not as ripe of a pear. And then I find that it's a little better. Like I can store it for a few hours, maybe overnight if you are doing. If you still do want oatmeal in the mornings, what I would do is add nuts to it, go steel cut oats so it's as little processed as possible. And then you can add other sorts of protein sources. You can add some protein Powder, you can add like a fat protein source, like a chia seed or a hemp seed. So those seeds and nuts and then just having it not be too sweet, then you could still have your oatmeal and still have the protein and not be carb craving. Because it's usually if it's refined oats, so more of a quick oat or even a whole flake oat. And if there's a lot of sugar added. So those things are really the difference versus a packet of oatmeal that's already got so much sugar in it that you're just. It's like eating a dessert. Well, I did just buy some quinoa flakes and I do have buckwheat once in a while. Like are those better choices? Those are incredible choices as a protein, but almost feeling like you're getting that carb as well. So buckwheat, quinoa, those are fantastic choices for protein. And getting that as an option in for sure. Yeah. Okay, other questions. Any other questions on this topic? There's another question that I had come in and it's this. How much is too much protein? Can I be intaking too much protein? And this is a hot topic right now. I currently have a client who's on a very intense keto diet right now and it is all protein and fat. So that's one of those things that is there too much. So the answer is yes, you can be intaking too much protein. But what that looks like in the real world is that it's usually only too much. As in, is it going to harm your body? It's usually only too much. If you have some sort of stress on your kidneys, part of our digestion of protein, we have to filter it out, we have to process it and that sends a little demand on our kidneys. But if you're healthy, that's no problem at all. If you intake extra protein, your kidneys will deal with it, your body will deal with it, no problem. Oh my Internet. There we go. However, if you have a situation where you've got kidney disease, then too much protein, you do not want a high protein diet. That would be the situation. The second part of that question is, but if I'm consuming too much protein, it's protein. It's not going to actually have me gain weight. I can't gain weight on eating too much protein. That's not true. If you eat too much protein, it's not easy for your body to turn it into fat, but it will. So if we've just taken in way too much and we're not consuming it. Your body will still convert it to fat, especially if the demand isn't there. So if you're not working out but you're just eating a lot of protein, it will still convert to fat. And that is typically not what people want when they're consuming more protein. So that's one question I had come in and that may bring up more questions for you. So if it does bring up another question for you, please unmute or pop it in the chat. That's the too much protein. And then the other question I had come in was if I'm consuming more protein, will that build muscles faster? The answer to that is pretty complex and it's such that a, the demand has to be there, you have to be putting the work in. The demand on the muscle has to be there for it to build. You could be consuming a lot of protein and it's just not going to turn into muscle unless the muscle is being demanded upon. However, if you want to build that muscle, the protein being there is going to make it more likely. So having that excess protein is what really makes a huge difference for building muscle mass. So that is one thing that for myself I've toyed with going on vegetable based diets only vegan or mostly plant based. I would say I'm a flexitarian, I try to eat mostly plant. However, I run into the problem of being so small that if I'm eating most of my protein from plants, I get full really quickly and then I don't get enough calories and protein. So when I get so full then I'm not getting enough food overall and I'm not getting enough protein overall. So I find it really challenging for me personally to maintain my muscle mass and not lose weight. If I'm going plant based only because I don't eat a lot of junk food. I don't eat a lot of the, you know, I eat nuts, but I don't eat a lot of junk food. Not the nuts of junk food at all. So those were a couple more questions that came in from people who couldn't make it on last questions. I can take a couple more questions here. What else do you have that doesn't. It can be protein related but it can be anything else. It can be injury, exercise, other nutrition. What else do you have there?

Any tips for how to get protein in our older adult population better? Like supplements that are better geared towards that demographic or just recommending, I mean, protein supplement. The healthcare industry seems to be big on, like, things like Ensure. But I don't know. But I'm. I don't always feel like that's great.

Oh, if you read the ingredient list on an insure or a boost, it is. It's painful that that's being marketed to older populations. My father, I walk into his house in his cupboard and there he's got. He's like, oh, they're good for me. I can just drink them. He likes it because it tastes like chocolate milk. It tastes like a milkshake. So then he'll drink it. So the key really is the ingredients, what's there. And it just goes right back to those smoothies if you're going to get the nutrients into them. And you can put in some fruits and vegetables that are frozen, along with a banana and maybe a pear or some frozen avocado. And you've thrown in a bit of whey protein powder. If they tolerate that, or soy or pea protein powder, whatever they tolerate best, then right there you've done them. You've given them more nutrition in that one meal than they've probably been able to absorb most of the day. Because they're going with toast. And that's what I see with. It's like toast. It's a can of whatever. But it's the same concept as what we've used with children. It's sneaking it in. It's sneaking in the vegetables, it's sneaking in the protein. And those things that I mentioned earlier, the chia seeds and the hemp seeds. So such an easy. They've got healthy fats and they are great sources of protein and it's a really easy way to sneak in that protein. Another great one that I love is chia pudding. So we've got coconut. You can use light coconut milk. And then you've put in some blueberries and some mango and some fruit and blended it in. And you've got your chia seeds in there and they've got this excellent source of some. It's a treat, but it's not filled with hydrogenated fats and too much sugar. It's just coming from some fruit and. And some chia seeds. You've got some proteins and fats and great stuff in there. So just sneak it in like you would with kids. That's why I like to make those types of desserts. And I'm. It's. Sometimes the education works, but a lot of times they're like, oh, this is good. And they'll never read the ingredient list. They don't Understand how many crappy ingredients are in there. They don't understand that it's not working for them, it's actually working against them. So, yeah, I would say that the smoothies and then other little ways, hemp seeds, sprinkle things in. Ideas to get protein into an athlete who will not eat in the morning and sometimes not until school is over. Yeah, I think that comes down to. I think that comes down to an overall schedule because the problem isn't the protein, the problem is the timing. Because if at first, if they're not eating all day long, they may get into a habit. And I would see this in athletes a lot, that after school they'd be showing up and I banned this after a while they'd be showing up to my gym and these are higher level athletes, provincial level, some are sniffing at the national team and they'd be showing up at my gym with a massive Starbucks Frappa, something with Cool Whip or whipped cream or whatever all over it. And there's no nutrient value there. There's a massive amount of sugar, a massive amount of caffeine, some really awful fats in it. And they would be consuming that pre training because they were teenagers and they loved it and they were bulletproof. So I would really start with the education process and start with the performance side of things. Because if they're an athlete, they probably want to perform really well. And when they start to understand that they're hurting themselves, they're hurting their performance, performance, then sometimes that'll make the shift. What I personally did in this kind of scenario, as I said, don't consume this prior to coming to see me. Otherwise I don't want to work with you. And they knew that I wouldn't work with them if they weren't. I was pretty hardcore. So I just, I was like, don't eat this before you come and see me. I don't want to. I don't want this. And it's not entering this building and I'm not, I'm not entertaining. If you're going to sabotage what I'm building with you, then we need to reconsider this relationship. That's how hardcore I'd be about it. But I know that, you know, those are people that were paying me and I was willing to lose the client because I was so committed to their progress. But I know that's. Maybe that's a behavioral thing that might be a little beyond what you're willing to do. But in terms of. It goes back to the same things that we said already. Which is the smoothies. If they like it, that's the way to go. If they like it and you can go, hey, I made the smoothie for breakfast, or influence a parent to make the smoothie for breakfast, then they might want to start shifting how they eat. And it's not as heavy of eating at 11 or 12 at night, but instead they start to consume something in the morning and stop eating a little bit earlier in the evening. And then it just starts to shift the timing. You can get some great protein powders that are really healthy into the smoothie and then it just starts a different pattern. So that might be a way to go with that scenario. Okay, we're going to end today. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for such great, insightful questions. Because with your questions, what I'm hearing is that you're not just serving you and your needs, you're also listening and looking for ways to serve the people that you work with. So whether it is your families, whether it is your clients, your athletes, and that really makes a big difference. So way to ask those questions for yourself and for others. Have a beautiful rest of your day. Consume that protein for your brain, your immune system, your digestion and your overall performance and we will see you next time on Performance Power. Bye, everyone. If you enjoy listening to the important welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our empowered leadership coaching for business, our customers, online physical training plans, and of course, the Empowered Team group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.theempowered.ca Empowered learn more. Sam.