448: Stop Choking Down Protein - Your Protein Strategy Needs Essential Amino Acids with Angelo Keely

When you consume a lot of essential amino acids all at once, which would be a high quality protein or protein powder or supplement, and those essential amino acids go into the blood, they communicate to the body to say, hey, let's rebuild that old skin. Let's replace less functioning muscle proteins with better functioning muscle proteins. They're the stimulus. They're the workers that do it.

Welcome to Midlife Conversations. I'm your host, Natalie Jill, and I'm passionate about having amazing conversations that matter to us midlife women. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated health topics and breaking them down simply so that we can optimize aging together. I share actionable steps to help you thrive in what I believe are our best years to come. Join me as I interview the most inspiring people living their best midlife years and dive into essential topics like hormone changes, health optimization, weight management, blood sugar, emotional well being, relationships, beauty, and so much more. What if you could lose fat without losing muscle and actually feel feel stronger as you age? And what if the real secret to boosting your metabolism wasn't just eating less, but getting enough of the right building blocks? And what if you could finally actually have more energy, better workouts and visible results without depending on crazy diets or caffeine or lots and lots of protein shakes? Today, we're diving into the real science behind amino acids, not just protein powders, because those can be somewhat important, we've learned, but more about amino acids specifically. And if they are important, should we be taking them and what to be looking for in them and how does that differ from branched chain amino acids? Today, I can't wait to talk to Angelo. Angelo, thank you so much for being here. Not only are you the founder of Kion, but you are the one known for simplifying protein science. Like, you are really good at taking the science around protein. What's going out there around protein powders, about eating enough protein, even around aminos and really simplifying that so people can fully understand. So thanks for being here today, Natalie.

Thanks for having me. And I just want to say right back to you, while the way that you presented what we could talk about in the show is so well synthesized too and like very I hope, I love it. I'm excited.

I can't wait to dive in. So, okay, first of all, what makes somebody, somebody so interested in protein? Like, where did that even come from? This is, I know it's a trendy topic lately, but why? What made you so interested in that?

Well, honestly, I think protein is hyper relevant. For all of us, any living being, creature. But I did grow up in a family that, that was very into natural health and into Fitness. I'm 41. And so in the 80s, my parents actually had a natural health food store and were really into fitness and they chose to be pescatarians. So that meant that most of our protein came from dairy and from eggs and a little bit from fish, but a lot from plant proteins. But they weren't, they were, I was gonna say they weren't stupid. Like they knew that if you're gonna. Only if you're gonna eat a lot more plant proteins, you have to think a lot more about combining, about how to get a complete protein. And so from a very young age, we talked about essential amino acids getting complete proteins. And I actually got exposed to amino acids as a kid and took them so all the way back. That's how I got into it. And it's just, you know, as you age and go through different stages of life and you realize how important they can be from, you know, trying to build muscle, trying to cut fat, to trying to recover from an injury. Protein, nutrition, and specifically essential amino acids just play this crucial role in all of those. And then as I've started to age and realize that it's a little bit harder to maintain muscle, um, it's become that much more important again. And so from a personal level, you know, it's through all the different stages of my life, it's been this real crucial component to finding, I think, you know, my most ideal health.

Okay, I want to back up to the plant based comment for a minute. So you grew up that way and, and that's interesting because a lot of people that are on plant based diets, they don't really learn about the importance of combining art. First of all, are you still plant based? Is this.

No, I'm not.

You're not?

Yeah, I'm omnivore. Yeah.

But do you believe now that someone that is plant based could get enough protein with what you've learned? I'm curious.

Yeah, I think they can. I think they can. What I would say is it's all, it's nuanced though. Um, I mean, we can get a lot more into this. What I would say is that from a pure protein perspective, animal based proteins are richer in the key nutrients and the proportions of those nutrients, essential amino acids, and they're more digestible and you can get them in forms that are much less calorically dense, meaning you get more of this essential amino acid for less Total calories that it's just, it's. There's many more opportunities to do that with animal protein. So if you choose to be vegetarian, you can still do it pretty well. Like dairy proteins and eggs. If you really want to cut all those out and you're only going plant protein, you just have to be a lot more diligent about your meal planning where, where that protein's coming from. And then as you age, it becomes that much harder because as you age, your requirements for essential amino acids increase. So what I would say is yes, absolutely, it can work. You do need to work harder at it. You need to thoughtful, you need to do more meal planning. It's not, I think it's more challenging. That's what I would say.

I'm going to ask a really weird question. Maybe it's not weird to you and it might sound basic to my listeners, but I really think it's important for us to define this. What is a protein? Like specifically, what's a protein?

Oh, I love. That's a, that's a great, that's a great question. So proteins are this part of life that really, I would say it's like at its most core element, it's like what, what makes us living beings and what, what proteins actually make up all different parts of nature inside of us? A protein is this core building block that makes up most of our solid mass. So over half of our bones, our muscle, our vital organs, but even things like our skin, hair, nails, the enzymes in our body are made up of proteins, hormones are made up of proteins and they are this.

Then they're made up of amino acids that contain this nitrogen. So it's this nitrogen containing element that basically like animates life. So it's is a really cool kind of deep thing that's also like this core science thing that like that makes up who we are. And you know, I think maybe more relevant to us, we oftentimes hear about protein. I imagine the context of like your show and the people trying to get healthy. As a macronutrient, you know about carbohydrates, you know about fat, you know about protein. So fat and carbohydrates are very different from protein. The primary reason why you eat fat and carbohydrates is to be used as energy. And I like to use the metaphor or the analogy of a house. If you, you know, you live in a house and you need to run your dishwasher, turn on your lights, run the vacuum cleaner, watch tv, whatever it is, you need energy for that, and so you get that energy from the grid or from solar panels, or your energy went out. You could connect a generator, maybe have natural gas line for your heating. That's what carbohydrates and fat are for. Our body, both of them are sources of energy that when we consume them, we break em down and they get converted into our natural energy source called ATP, which is like how we actually beat our heart, et cetera. Protein is fundamentally different. Protein's primary role is not for energy. It's. It's not like a fuel, it's not like a gasoline. Instead, it's more like the actual parts that we build our house with. So, you know, I'm looking at you right now via zoom. I'm looking behind you. There's a door, there's hardwood floor, there's paint on the wall. All of those have to be made up of raw materials.

Right, right.

Inside of us, it's the same. Like our muscles actually made of something. Our skin is made of something. Our hair is made of something. They're made up.

That's when we say building blocks. That's what it is.

They're actually made up of proteins and similar to our house, but at a way faster rate. Things break down. Yeah, you know, it's like you walk. Your hardwood floor eventually needs to be replaced. Well, actually, in our own body, about 2 to 3% of our muscle tissue every single day, all the proteins get replaced. When you look at more like other parts of our body, it's up to like 20 to 30% of the proteins have to be replaced every day. Meaning the proteins get old and they don't work as well anymore.

Yeah.

And so they have to get replaced. And when that happens, if I just, you know, I like to look down at my arm because it makes it like real for me. I'm looking at my arm and I see it's made up of skin. And I'm like, well, there's actually millions of proteins that make up the skin. Well, each one of those little proteins at some point breaks down. Some right now, today are breaking down. And when they break apart, they actually break apart into the little amino acids that make them up. There's 20. So the proteins are like the building blocks of the skin, and the building blocks of the protein are these little amino acids. Maybe think about it like a brick. Like you have bricks that you build your house out of, and inside of the bricks there's like these little grains of sand. Yeah, the amino acids, like the little grain of sand that make these, these Bricks that are the proteins. And when the, when they break apart, some of the amino acids can't be reused. I just pee them out in via urea. You just pee them out. Some of the amino acids can still be reused. Like they're actually, they can be reused to help build a new protein. So similarly, if we were gonna, you know, remodel your house that I'm looking at right now, you might say like, wow, this hardwood floor is still like really nice. But I wanna like take the trim off and redo that and change the hardware on the door. So similarly, some of these amino acids you can keep and they can get reused while some stuff has to be replaced and rebuilt. That's why we eat protein. When you eat a chicken breast, you digest that chicken breast. The protein goes into your digestive system. You break down the protein into the amino acids, they go into your blood and they help rebuild that skin protein. If you stop eating protein and you don't get enough amino acids, you literally can't build new skin, can't build new hair, can't build new muscle, can't build new tissue for your kidney, and you will die.

So if you, when someone says something's not a complete protein, is that what they're meaning that it doesn't contain the complete profile?

That's a great question. So there's actually like two things going on. And this analogy, the house might be a good one to go back to. So if we're gonna, you know, remodel your house, there's both the workers.

Yep.

That are gonna actually like do the work and then there's like the materials to do it. So when you eat a protein.

When we talk about a complete protein, there's essential amino acids and non essential amino acids. There's nine essential and 11 non essential that make up a protein. The nine essential ones, they're essential because your body can't make them like you, you actually must consume them. Your body can convert the 9 into the non essential ones, but you, you have to eat them. So that's what, that's what defines a complete protein. But more importantly, I mean, maybe not more importantly, but something that's so often overlooked and people just don't understand is those nine essential amino acids are also the workers. They're like the construction guys that actually come and rebuild. When you consume a lot of essential amino acids all at once, which would be a high quality protein or protein powder or supplement, and those essential amino acids go into the blood, they communicate to the body to say, hey, let's rebuild that old skin. Let's rebuild. Let's replace less functioning muscle proteins with better functioning muscle proteins. They're the stimulus. They're the workers that do it. Lots of times people have this idea that it's like, no, you have to do the resi. And I'm not. Obviously you want to do resistance training, but you have to do the resistance training and then you have to eat the protein to help get the gains. You can actually get new protein synthesis directly from your nutrition, really from the nutrition itself. It stimulates a degree of protein synthesis, and it's the essential amino acids are. That are the ones that do that. So when you're talking about a complete protein, what you're getting from that is you're getting a protein source that has all the essential amino acids, the one your bodies can't make. So, yeah, you do want to focus on that. You either want to get a complete protein source on its own, or you need to combine proteins to get that. And you're getting this chemical messenger in the essential amino acids that are actually telling your body to go and replace old proteins with new ones.

Makes total sense. Okay, I want to.

I'm gonna.

I have more questions about that and like, how that compares to BCAAs, but I want to back up for a minute and I'm going to take it a little bit more general here. So we hear a lot for midlife women that as we approach. Approach 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond, it gets more and more important for a protein. It's. It's just absolutely critical. We keep hearing that. What's your take on why that is and what's actually happening that we need be really paying attention to this.

So there's two key things. Uh, the first one is that our ability to digest protein decreases over time. It just. We don't have as many enzymes. We. We're not as good at basically breaking down the proteins and getting the amino acids out of them. But the more important thing is actually that our sensitivity to amino acids in the foods we eat for them to stimulate new protein synthesis, that decreases, which is called anabolic resistance. And that basically increases as we age. And it makes pretty logical sen. You think about it when you're young and youthful and you're, you know, more. Your body is built to go out and to hunt or to bear children or to, like, do these, like, much more intensive activities. Right. It's more important that you're more physically vibrant as you get older. Our body's not prioritizing like I want to make sure my skin is as elastic as possible with like the most, you know, like the most new proteins. I want to make sure I'm like building and maintaining this muscle. And so it just decreases over time. And the good thing is there are ways to overcome it though, and is through being that much more attentive to the quality of the proteins that we eat and eating them in ways that we get the biggest impact from the essential amino acids in them. And it's to looking towards supplementation because there are specific types of supplements that are more effective than protein. And that's not to say that I mean, I'm a big proponent of like eat whole balanced meals, make that's. Make that the core of your life and enjoy it with people you love. But when you're trying to fit in that much more pro.

More.

More protein, there's smarter ways of doing it than just trying to, you know, eat one more can of tuna fish or.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you about that. But one thing I want to kind of circle back and complete on is there's something you didn't mention. I just want to get your take on it. A big reason I share with women that I want them to up their protein and their resistance training, honestly, is that we do tend to lose muscle as we age. So we didn't even touch on that. Can. Can adding in protein actually preserve that or is that have to be combined or what are your thought?

Yeah, so the reason why we lose muscle is for those things that I described, because a few things. One is again, our ability to digest protein goes down. Our sensitivity to the amino acids to stimulate new protein synthesis, which ultimately is new muscle synthesis. The same thing actually happens with exercise. The impact of resistance training on our bodies as we age becomes less significant.

And that. So honestly, you need to be that much more thoughtful about resistance training as you get older because you don't get the same benefits when you're 50 that, that you did when you were 25. No, literally your body, it just doesn't respond as robustly. So that's why we start to lose muscle. And so it's that much more important as we age to think. And it really, it starts at age 30. Yeah. But then it becomes progressively more challenging age 40, 50, 60, to be able to maintain that lean muscle because yeah, our bodies just, they're not using protein as well as they did before. So what I would say is it can come through. It's not, it's not gonna just come through like Typical protein diet, I don't think. Yeah, I think it's gonna come through more strategic supplement combined with resistance training, and we can get into why that is.

Yeah, well, let's, let's talk a little about that. So when someone's trying to. This is a definite issue that I see with people. They try to stuff in now all the protein. They're hearing, oh, I've got to eat almost my body weight or what my goal body weight is. And they're like, I, I, they're trying to eat steak for breakfast now. And like, how do I get in enough? And what you're saying is that's not necessarily the focus. It shouldn't be how do I eat enough? It's how I should be supplementing with enough. Is that, Did I hear you correctly?

Well, I think both ways can work. I think you're gonna get. I think it's specifically in the context of a woman over 40. You're gonna get greater impact through thinking about supplementation than you're gonna get from just trying to eat more steak. And I will get very specific about why.

Yeah, help us with why. Help us with why.

So in a young adult. So these are people in their 20s. If I eat 30 grams of beef protein, Okay. I will actually stimulate more muscle protein synthesis than if I ate over twice that amount. 70 grams of beef protein, if I eat it on its own versus eating it as part of a mixed meal.

Wow.

And the reason for that is because, again, going back to this, the. When you, when you eat protein, you're just trying to get these essential amino acids out of the protein and into your blood, the highest concentration as you can get them. That's what tells your body, go rebuild proteins. Take the old ones and rebuild them. Build new muscle, et cetera. And so if you're mixing the protein with broccoli and potatoes and a bunch of other stuff, your body, your body doesn't digest them as quickly, and they don't hit the blood as quickly. And so you don't get as much impact. Okay, so that's. And that's not, that's not an endorsement of then, like, well, now you need to, like, always eat your protein separately. Like, that's not what I would say.

Okay.

Instead, what I would say is, listen to this next fact. Whey protein, which I think is the, it's the most studied protein powder source. And if you go for a whey protein isolate, it's. It's allergic to virtually very, very few people. It doesn't have lactose et cetera it stimulates three times the amount. It increases the EAA plasma levels, the amount of EAAs that go into your blood three times more than beef does, gram for gram. So 20 grams of whey protein powder is not equal to 20 grams of beef. It's a lot.

So this is why I'm assuming, Angela, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming like when you look at like the bodybuilding world or the fitness world, why people would want to eat whey isolate specifically pre and post workout to get that in.

Yes. And it has a lot more impact than just trying to eat more meat. And that doesn't mean like don't eat meat. Right. Because meat has whatever, whatever your diet, you know, choices are around whole foods. Like, but if you choose beef, it has lots of other great minerals and vitamins, it has other good stuff in it. But in of really trying to hit these super high protein intakes, like a gram of protein per pound of body weight, you're going to get more benefit from whey protein shake than you're going to get from more beef. Like three, three times the impact. It's going to be a lot more.

Okay, so then, so, and I want to make sure I'm, I'm ask, I'm following and answering the right things here. So if you're eating. So what you're saying is you're still getting the grams of protein you're just not utilizing. Your body's not utilizing it as well as it would use Something like a whey isolate.

Like, like a whey isolate. Yes.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm talking young adults. So it's going to get really mind blowing once we get to people over 40. So now if you compare that whey protein to essential amino acids.

Okay, Right.

And the difference is a whey protein and we can break down all the proteins, but we'll get too nerdy. A whey protein is already a very high quality like protein supplement.

Right.

It's only about 45%. Essentially 55% is non essential. And that doesn't mean those aren't good, but you really don't need them. And they stimulate zero additional protein synthesis. There's many, many studies that show us there's no additional protein synthesis that gets studied. It's only the essential ones. Right. And they still have to be digested. So when you take an essential amino acid supplement, it's only the essential amino acids, it's none of the non essential and they can be formulated slightly more, ideally for the human body. You can like tweak the leucine and the isoleucine and the valine and I mean, interesting enough for plant based people too. They can be plant based. Like my company, we make plant based ones. So it's like, it's actually fine for vegans or whoever you are. Um, but these are, these stimulate three times the amount as the whey protein.

Wow.

So the degrees, it's like you go from like beef as part of a whole meal versus beef on its own versus whey protein powder versus eaas or essential amino acids. The degree of stimulation is so much greater for the free form supplement that when you're trying to eat like these way higher daily levels of protein intake, I'd be like, chill out. Like, eat three good meals.

Okay.

No, that like make you feel good. I'm going to eat like, I mean, I would encourage you to eat animal proteins, vegetables, fiber, maybe your eggs for.

Breakfast and your chicken for lunch and your steak for dinner. But you're saying, but then still eat essential amino acids, then take essential amino.

Acids in between, right? Take them first thing in the morning or take them in the middle of the day, take them before bed and that they're going to have way more impact than you're going to get from just trying to eat more meat. And that's at a young adult level. All right? So in young adults, EAAs are about three times the impact as whey. As you get older, for about every decade over 30, you can, you can just kind of count that it's that many times more so essential. So amino, essential amino acids are about three times the impact of whey if you're 34 times, if you're 45 times, if you're 56 times, if you're 60. The most amount of studies that are published. And these are not like brand studies, these are nih, NASA military studies. They're more focused on young adults and on seniors, like 60. So it's like some of this is a bit more conjecture in between, like exactly how much you're getting at each age group in between. But it's about, you know, whatever. If you're 50 years old, you're gonna get about five times the impact from taking essential amino acids than you're gonna get from taking whey protein. And already that's more impactful than the steak. So, you know, I think if you could generally think, let's say you weigh 150 pounds, okay? If you could eat like a hundred grams of protein per day and then that last 50 grams instead of Trying to, like, you know, cram down another 50 grams of protein, take, you know, approximately.

You know, two servings of essential amino acids during the day.

Okay.

And you're going to get the impact that you would have gotten from trying to eat all that additional protein just.

From two servings of that.

If you're. If you're about 50 years old and.

It'S working with what you already ate. Right. It's, like, almost, like, complete. It's working together with that. I would.

So you can take the. You can take essential amino acids entirely on their own, and they stimulate this protein synthesis to a degree way greater than if you were. Than if you were just eating, you know, meat. Right. You can also combine them with meals, if you prefer, and it will better utilize the protein in those meals.

So the same way that I would tell somebody to take digestive enzymes, for example, with meals, this would almost do the same. Taking aminos with meals.

Yeah. I mean. Yes. Well, it wouldn't do the same thing. It's less.

I mean, it's not going to help break it down, but it helps you utilize more. Because part of what enzymes do is help you utilize more. More.

Yeah. Going back to the. Well, the digestive enzymes really help you break down the proteins to make the amino acids available.

Okay.

This is more like you're hiring more workers to come be in the house to help remodel it. So when the supplies arrive, the supplies can actually get used to redo your bathroom. And they're not just waiting around. It's like you're eating all this protein. You're ordering all these, like, supplies to redo the bathroom. And, like, there's no. There's no workers to do any work.

Right. So it's like, kind of like, what. It's just gonna sit there? It's like, what. It makes sense. It's not gonna get utilized.

And it's not that it. Just to be clear, it's not that it does utilize. It's that it's that it gets utilized to a much greater degree if you consume essential amino acids. What I would say, though, is, like, in terms of actually talking to someone about timing and when and how to take them, I think another component that comes up around, like, protein timing. Protein timing is not that important if you're 20 years old. I don't think, like, how often. I mean, if you're like, a competitive bodybuilder, like, yes. Or if you're, like, a really intense athlete and you're really trying to fuel your workouts. But if you're a young adult, protein timing is not that important. As we get older, it becomes more important. The more times that you can stimulate protein synthesis in your body throughout the day, the better. I would say try to, you know, have three meals and take amino acids two times a day, or like have five, you know, five to six times where you stimulate it.

Sure.

And it does create more cycles of this protein synthesis because they only last like a few hours. But if you're 20, it's like, I don't know that it matters when we're 40, when we're 50, like, it actually does matter when we're 60, 70, it really matters.

So, I mean, I have a lot more questions for you, but I want to share. So the reason I actually am interviewing Angelo, the reason this topic even came about is I discovered Kion on my own. Like, this is I kind of on my own because. And the reason is I, for years, my husband, actually, since I've known him, he's always drank BCAAs all day long. Like he fills his water and I never really understood. When I would ask him, he just. It was like his way of getting in more aminos. So I kind of left it at that. But it was always BCAAs. So I went down initially the road of wanting to add in branched chain amino acids. And I had a really hard time finding one without a lot of artificial junk. And I think it's because the leucine, they try to cover up the flavor. So I found Kion, your brand.

Look.

Looking for one that was more natural. What I didn't understand at the time, and that's a big reason I really wanted to ask you these questions, is what I didn't understand, and I think a lot of people fall in this camp is we don't know the difference between branch chain amino acids and amino. Like, somehow the bodybuilding world talked about branched chain amino acids. And that's what we all got fixated on. And most companies out there, it's bcaas, Right. So help me understand that. And before you answer that, I just wanna share with everyone. Now, granted, I'm doing a lot of things. Like I, I'm definitely. I do hormone replacement. I've shared that on my audience. I definitely do enzymes, I definitely eat a lot of protein. But I have really leaned out in the last year and I do drink these all day long. So I can't say it's just this, but I think it's absolutely helped with muscle for sure. So that being said, and I don't know if you've got others that would say that same experience, but I'm sure.

I mean, they absolutely would have that experience. And like something like essential amino acids like this. It's not just kind of in vitro or like lab studies, it's human outcome studies showing people maintaining lean muscle under significant caloric deficit. Yeah, like literally like people building muscle during caloric deficit, people maintaining muscle while at bed rest for 28 days. Wow. Like, it's, it's, it's very significant human outcome studies that like these things. Essential amino acids like this in this type of formula. The formula really matters, which we can get into later.

Okay.

It will help you. You can lose fat and maintain or build muscle. Wow.

That's like, it's like, it's like a miracle. It's not. To me it sounds like a miracle supplement, but there's like, there's science behind it. So. Okay, let's start behind. Between. With what is BCAA and why did that get such popularity and what's the difference?

I just want to make sure I'm not creating any fights in your, in your home, though.

No, you're not going to create any fights. My husband can probably hear me right now and he's actually, he actually stole my berry flavor.

Oh, good. Okay.

Yeah, he left me with the other flavors. He took the berry. So he's, he's on board drinking it. He just might not understand. But I'm an account.

It won't be a. So basically it's a story like, like many things in life, like there's different interests that are all kind of going at the same time and competing. And so you've got, you've got academic and research studies and you've got marketing and business.

Yes.

And there's a whole academic study, you know, I guess, trajectory of studying protein amino acids. How do they work with athletes, how they work with older people, you know, what's going on. And over the last 40 years, a long time ago, about 40 years ago, we really started to uncover w. The. Of the nine essential amino acids, three of them, these branch chain amino acids or BCAAs, seem really important. And those are leucine, isoleucine and valine. They seem to be really the ones that you actually need. If you, maybe if you just took these three, then you would stimulate this muscle protein synthesis. You'd build and maintain muscle while losing fat. Right. Okay, maybe, maybe that would work. And, and they did studies and basically the degree to which we could measure it at that time made it look like that was the Case like we were taking very small snapshots of muscle growth and, and we thought that it worked. And then over time, what we realized that's actually not what happens. It's like a false signal. You take these branch chain amino acids, it seems like it's kickstarting this, this new muscle protein synthesis and then it just crashes and ends. And what happens is there is 0,0 total additive protein synthesis from taking BCAAs on their own. If anything, it's potentially negative. And this is like, I mean, it's been conclusive for at least 10, 15 years, but even there's a very robust. The International Society of Sports Nutrition has a whole great paper from 2017 and they just like break it down, just show that BCAAs are not anabolic. They don't do anything. If you're just taking them all, it's.

Kind of just, it's based on what you're sharing and the research, you're saying it's just a waste, that you're just, just taking something for flavor at that point.

If he's drinking it all day on its own, it's, it's a total waste. If he was combining it with like plant proteins to make plant proteins that were maybe like almost like a protein. Yeah, it's a total waste of his money. It doesn't do anything. And it's potentially even catabolic because it's basically telling the body, hey, let's, let's replace these proteins. But then there are no amino acids to do it. You don't have the other essential. And actually can stimulate breaking down muscle to supply new amino acids to try to rebuild protein. So BCA is.

Angela. It's wild. I feel like most companies have not caught up. Most companies are still marketing BCAAs.

Well, that's the business thing, right? Like science comes out, businesses come up, they start marketing it. There's money in it, there's demand. People are familiar with it. And lots of businesses are just like that. You know, it's like they, they don't care that it doesn't work.

Right.

There's demand for it and there's a whole marketing thing. And so they keep doing it. And I'm not trying to like, you know, attack or knock on the. But that's what it is because. Because anyone that reviews the literature knows that's not the case. To the degree that even some brands that were originally BCAA pure supplements have since added essential amino acids. But they don't even market it, that it's that they're just covering It. Because they know it won't work otherwise.

Interesting.

Yeah. So, yeah. BCAA supplements on their own, taken on their own, are not anabolic and are a waste of your money.

Okay. How often do you recommend taking aminos? Like, I drink them a few times throughout the day. I usually fill and put them in my water bottle. And can you combine them with things like, for example, when I go to the gym and tell me if I'm doing this wrong. I mean, as soon as I throw it in my bottle, I put creatine, I put my aminos, I put my prebiotics sometimes in there too. Is that okay? Or are you hurting anything by combining?

You're totally fine combining those three things. There's not really something that comes to mind immediately that would be, like, if it's going to interfere with combining with the aminos, I think so it's really about, like, what works for you. So this is what I would say, taking a step back and be like, what's our primary goal? Why are we even taking this thing? We're taking, you know, essential amino acids, ideally because we want to maintain or build lean muscle.

Yep.

And we ideally probably want to keep burning fat. Like, it's a body. There's a. There's a body composition objective in general where it's like, hey, I want to, like, maintain a more ideal body composition. I want to, like, burn fat and maintain lean muscle and maybe even get stronger over time. Right. Like, that's like a core aspect of it. And then in the context of we're aging and it's becoming more challenging for us to do that. So in that, what I would say is, again, I would encourage people to think about trying again. There's people over 40 trying to consume either essential amino acids or protein powder or a protein focused meal every few hours.

Okay.

I think that's the most ideal way to kind of use this. And so what I would say is, when does it work best for you? For me, I don't like to eat first thing in the morning. So I take essential amino acids first thing in the morning with creatine, and I take them every single day. And the benefit of that daily habit is going to way outpace any, like, me trying to time it differently. Like, I need to take it.

Like, it's like, you just know you're getting them in first thing.

I'm taking it every single day. And same thing with creatine. You have to take creatine every single day for it to work. You can't take creatine like Three days a week.

It doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way. Right. And so like that, I would say that's the most important thing then if you really want to get into like, you know, first of all, like when will you do it every single day and how can it fit best in for you? If it's like I like taking it mid afternoon instead of trying to have a snack. Right?

Yeah.

Or I like, you know, whatever that time period, I like taking it right before bed. It's awesome. Right before bed you literally kickstart a whole nother, you know, bout of protein synthesis. You're basically like building muscle, replacing old muscle fibers while you're sleeping. Like that. Right before bed.

Why not just do that? Yeah, that makes total sense.

If you want to time it around exercise. Taking essential amino acids before resistance training is about 50% better than taking them after.

Okay.

And the reason for that is because the, the synergistic effect of the resistance exercise, the increased blood flow, you're basically taking the amino acids and then you're, you're, they're being pushed into your muscles so you get that much more muscle protein synthesis. So already the combination of the resistance training plus the EAAs together combined to taking it before you get, you get the greatest impact. That doesn't mean that they're not also great afterwards. You can take em afterwards too and they're still good. But if you're like really trying to figure out the ideal way around exercise, take em before you get more bang for your buck.

Do aminos help improve energy in your opinion?

Yeah, well, so this is, I mean I think energy is an interesting question. It's like what do we even mean? Because I think lots of us drink caffeine and we think that that improves our energy. Right. Like caffeine actually just like blocks certain adenosine receptors in the brain and makes you feel like you don't, you don't feel yourself getting tired. Right, Right. So I think at the most fundamental level, what do we mean by energy? There's a few ways that aminos improve energy. One is that the neurotransmitters in our brain are basically all the metabolites of amino acids. They come from amino acids. Right. So like serotonin comes from 5 HTP, which comes from tryptophan. Like that is an essential amino acid. And so consuming essential amino acids overall are very closely related to improved mood. Like oftentimes people with different types of like mood disorders, emotional issues like just getting in check your protein or in specifically your central amino acid consumption can help fix those types of mood issues.

Yeah, I think so many things that we blame on. We're always looking for, like, this external thing, but I think there's so much that when we are deficient in nutrients in general, we create issues like brain fog or moods or all of that. And I'm not saying there's not other reasons for that, but a lot of the things that we blame externally can be just nutrient deficiency and just by changing that. So, like, to your point, the right amount of aminos makes a big difference with somebody.

Yeah. And it's. And it's complex, right? Yeah. I'm not saying it's gonna solve everyone's problem, but looking for, like, the foundational pieces first. Like, if you try to fix something with some way more complex potential drug solution, like start with, like, protein and amino acids, I think you'll find it can actually there's a lot of things that can help regulate. Secondly, specifically with exercise, when we exercise, we oxidize, burn basically a lot more amino acids, specifically leucine. And the reason for that is because leucine actually in the cell helps facilitate the conversion of things like carbs to ATP in the mitochondria. So while it's not like a fuel source, it actually helps facilitate that and you oxidize a lot more of it. When you oxidize a lot more of that leucine, there's something called the central fatigue hypothesis, which is that basically your leucine levels go up, go down, and your tryptophan levels go up relative to your leucine, and more of that enters your brain and that tryptophan turns into serotonin and it makes you feel sleepy. So one of the reasons that even like endurance athletes can potentially bonk or run out of energy is not just carbs or not just like, fuel source. It's actually like those amino acid levels changing. And again, so whether you're doing res, where you're doing endurance training or resistance training, by maintaining higher levels of essential amino acids, you basically can reduce both muscle fatigue. Like your muscles don't get as tired, but also potentially reduce the impact of like, your neurotransmitter levels changing and you starting to feel sleepy, not from, like, not having, you know, energy, not having, like, energy like a car, but actually like, having this increased level of the sleepy, like, neurotransmitters. So yes, it can absolutely impact energy.

I'm just. You're undoing a lot of misinformation. I've had over the years, like, like, I just remember just from back in my fitness days, really learning that it was branched chain amino acids. Not, you know, not all of them, just branched chain amino acids. And learning it was only for recovery. That's what I was. I remember that for some reason, like, take them for recovery. And I also was remembered being told to take them after workouts. So it's like, it's just as you're talking, I'm realizing all the things that have changed over the years, like, with what I've been told and how this is just like a big reminder that we, we always have to keep up with the science and what, what new information we're getting. Because like you said, you thought one thing too, until you started seeing science and seeing results. Now you already had the benefit of understanding about combining and completeness and all of that. But as things catch up, you're seeing a big difference. And I love that. That that's why you make products that really match that moving forward.

Yeah, I mean, we just always, I think everyone, like, stay open to learning more and seeing, like, what the most contemporary science and the really smart people say about how something works and what the studies are saying. Because, yeah, what you maybe thought was, like, way of doing something, you learn that it wasn't the case. And I think anyone who matures through life learns that. Right.

I would hope so. But it's, it's really interesting because I still, you know, I, I now I work with midlife women and that's mostly who's listening to my podcast here. And there's still this big misconception just around muscle and protein in general. Like, a lot of them are still afraid to actually lift heavier because they're worried they're gonna look like a bodybuilder. Which what I want to say is that's you're not going to accidentally look like a bodybuilder. It doesn't work that way. But also this idea of aminos, I think it's, it's, it's a lot of them never. They thought of it as a bodybuilding thing. They didn't weren't hearing until maybe this episode here that this actually helps you lose fat, that it helps you maintain muscle, it helps you grow, and it actually can help you feel more energy.

Yeah, I mean, what I would say is that, you know, I'm not saying that this is the desire of women, but it's what I hear. Oftentimes they're having these types of conversations. It's like, yeah, I don't want to get bulky. I mean really it's looking for like a tone fit body body. Right. And the ability of something like you know kion aminos basically to help you stimulate new protein synthesis replace these old proteins help you build and maintain lean muscle. Yes. For way less than and way lighter than you would get from this like highly calorically dense meal. Right. Trying to eat one more of those. It's, it's. It's way more like in the lean fit tone thing than getting huge jacked bodybuilder for sure. I mean, I mean bodybuilders can use it too but they would be taking like multiple servings, you know multiple times a day combined with all their egg, you know like yeah, it's just 12 eggs. Yeah.

But if I'm hearing you correctly you're just, you're encouraging eat protein all day long. Like you definitely want people to eat real food it or take you have the protein shake if you want to add that in but use this in conjunction or if you are doing fasting or you're intermittent fat whatever you're not eating later day. This is the perfect thing to supplement with and add in because it's going to help you regardless us.

Yeah, I would say, I mean everyone I would advise like basic health is going to be move your body and eat whole foods. Right. It's like so like definitely eat whole food proteins multiple times a day. That said when you're as you're getting older and you're trying to maintain this fit body and it's harder to do that rather than trying to eat that much more protein in between supplementing with something like aminos is going to. It's just more effective. It is, it's more effective and it's easier in many ways. And so rather than TR like not never used to replace meals but when you're trying to fit in that much more like rather than trying to have another like protein bar or have you know that much more whey protein powder like this, this is more effective.

So one thing we haven't really touched on yet is the person that is not trying to necessarily maintain yet. They don't, they haven't had the facilities they wanted. Maybe they're not even thinking building muscle yet but they're really focused on fat loss. Would this be something good for them to add in?

It would be ideal. And I think the way you phrase it is perfect by specifically saying fat loss and not weight loss because some women may look at the scale and be like I just want to lose 10 pounds. Right. Or I just want to lose 20 pounds. But I think if you look a little bit deeper, you want to lose 10 pounds of fat. Fat. Or you want to lose 20 pounds of fat, it'd be great if you maintain some of the lean muscle because I'm going to lose the fat and then you're actually going to see some of my toneness in my arms. Right. Or in my legs, et cetera. And so that's really the goal. And so here's what basically happens. And I assume you've covered this with, you know, with your audience and clients, et cetera. But with fat loss, there is a fundamental element that does come down to calories. That we have a certain amount of energy that we burn every day in whatever we do. And if we consume the exact same amount of energy via our food that we burn in a day, we're going to stay just as we are.

Yeah.

If we consume less energy via food than, than what we currently need in a day, then the fat stores in our body are going to start to be converted into energy for us to live off of. Like, that's, that's how it works. But the other thing that happens is that when we don't consume enough protein in our diet.

Diet.

And we don't have enough amino acids, how does our heart rebuild its proteins?

Because our heart, my heart right now, there's proteins in my heart right now that are breaking down and being replaced with new proteins. Where does it get those amino acids from muscle.

Yeah.

When you don't consume enough protein or amino acids in the similar way that you break down fat stores, you actually break down muscle stores to then be converted into amino acids so that you can keep having hair, skin, hormones inside.

Put you in more important survival mode first.

Survival mode. Right. It starts to utilize, it starts to act. Because your muscle is not only this thing that helps move your body, it's actually the reservoir of supplementary amino acids for proteins for the rest of your body. Yeah. So how so then, so what typically happens if you do a really aggressive kind of short term diet? You want to lose 10 pounds, about 6 pounds will be fat and about 4 pounds will be muscle. If you just do it aggressive right off the bat, fast. I don't think that is what most women, anyone who's listening to this in their audience, like, that's what they're looking for. Instead they'd be like, how can I just lose 10 pounds of fat?

Exactly.

Is there a way to do that? And it is possible.

Yeah.

Okay.

You know, you Know what's coming up for me around this is the, the trend with GLPs, and I'm not against GLPs at all for people that are taking them, whether they're microdosing them or doing them for fat loss. But what's coming up is there is that big risk, especially at higher doses, of people losing muscle. So to me, this is like a critical component that you've gotta be taking aminos with that.

Yeah, well, and so here's the thing with GLP1s. I mean it's a complex subject and drug, but fundamentally you're consuming way less calories. Like.

Gastric emptying is slowed, your appetite goes down.

Even at microdoses. You are.

Yeah, if I'm like supposed to be, you know, if I could eat 2000 calories and now I'm eating a thousand calories a day. A thousand calorie deficit per day times seven days, like that's £2 a week easy. Like that's, you know, that's like. And so, and if we get into.

More than two pounds, we're definitely tapping in a muscle.

I mean even at £2, at £2 you're going to be. And so here's what the science shows in the last few years. And these are actually a series of studies sponsored by the US military and trying to understand what happens to people when they, when they're in a caloric deficit, a 30% caloric deficit. So let's just say that I should eat 2000 calories a day to maintain my current weight. 30% caloric deficit would be 600 calories less per day. That amount of caloric deficit would help you lose approximately like a little, like a pound and a quarter in a week or something. Right, right. But in order to not lose any muscle, to basically have net protein balance, meaning that, yeah, you don't burn any muscle. At the same time, they showed that you had to, they had to have a 300% increase in essential amino acids. Whoa.

300%.

Huge increase in essential amino acids to ensure that no muscle was lost in the core deficit. It's a lot. Lot. Right. So that, that's a, that's a lot.

It's really important. Yeah. It's not as simple as just eat more. Like you've got to really be thinking about it.

You got to eat a lot more protein and high quality protein or supplement. So what I would say is if you're trying to do already in this delicate balance of. I'm trying to cut calories.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, let's say it's 500 calories a week you're trying to cut. Right. Which would be about a pound a week. Which I think over the long term, like that's sustainable. You can do that like through really thoughtful.

I always, I say one to two pounds. Like two pounds. I'm up to one to two pounds is any more than that. I'm very concerned people on that.

But you could do, you could do two pounds. But two pounds, I mean that's, that's that, you know, that that is about a thousand calories, you know, deficit that, that could be combined through only diet or through exercising that much more, et cetera. Right. If you really want that to only be fat and to be no muscle and you're already. That's quite a bit less, you know, calories food. And maybe it's not less food, it's like, you know, if you cut out, you cut out empty a bunch of like.

But most of the time it's going to be like, yeah, it's going to be changing but it's going to be less calories over overall it is going to be.

Yeah, it's going to be significant less calories. I guess on a food perspective you can still eat a lot of vegetables and fruits probably. Yeah, you're just not getting to eat, you know, super calorie dense carbs and fats and stuff. But saying that you're doing that if you want to, if you want that to be all fat and no muscle, I would say I would be looking at trying to take something like kion aminos two to three times a day, taking probably two servings at a time. You could actually take up to three servings at a time to get to have linearly improved benefit.

Do you do that, Angela? Like how much do you.

I take, I take three servings every morning.

So. And is that the only time and.

Then more times you have to do. I also like own the comp. I own a company and like I have as much as I want and.

You know, do you do it at multiple times throughout the day or is just that three times in the morning? Like that.

I do it three times in the morning and then if I, if I don't feel like I want to have breakfast around 9 or 10, I do it again then.

Okay.

You know, it's like any. I try to have protein, I try to have essential amino acids or I take kion aminos. I mean I also have a protein powder or my whey protein isolate or I eat a meal with Protein in it every three to four hours. Makes sense. So depending on what's going on in my day, it could be more or less. And if I'm training in the afternoon, like if I'm gonna go to Muay Thai or something, I'm definitely taking aminos before I do that, and I'm drinking it while I'm doing the exercise. So for me personally, yeah, I mean, I could be taking three servings, sometimes three times a day.

That makes sense.

You don't need to do that.

Yes.

What I would say, though is, like, if you are trying to. If. If you feel that you're overweight and you specifically want to lose fat and you're trying to lose like two pounds, you know, one to two pounds a week, taking something like kion aminos and one to two servings a couple times or two to three times a day, you do have the potential. And I've seen this again and again and again. A guy in my office lost 25 pounds of fat with zero net muscle loss.

Wow.

Yeah. By taking aminos two to three times a day. Because in it, you're stimulating this protein synthesis and you're overcoming the fact that your body wants to use the protein because it's hungry. Right. It wants to use the protein inefficiently, convert it to sugar, and use it more like a carb to just fuel your body. And your body is just wanting to break down the existing muscle to fuel the rest of the. To fuel your other organs, which. With amino acids to rebuild proteins. Like, you gotta do something to overcome that. And it's either eat like way more protein or supplement like this, which I think is just much easier for people in that. That type of context.

Well, this is making sense to me on. In a lot of different levels. Like, I think about where I lost my gosh, I've like, I'm down like £19 in the last two years. And mine was mostly from inflammation. I had, like. And my listeners know I had an explant I had was living in a house with moles. But even not intentionally trying to lose weight. Right. Like not being on a caloric restriction diet, I became less hungry. I became. Because you're. When you're. Not living in all those toxins, there's a lot of reasons for that. Your gut's changing. But it seems like anytime you are changing up your behavior, your patterns, if you notice that you are less hungry, no matter what that is, whether that's your GLPs or your toxins or how you're eating Different. It seems to me it's becoming common sense as you're explaining this, that we have to add these in. Because if you don't add them in, you're at that risk. Because anytime you're losing, like you said, you're going to be tapping into muscle stores. So it's just like an insurance policy. Why would you not add these? To make sure that you don't have.

That happen, especially during weight loss. I mean, I think when you think about, like the most kind of obvious clinically indicated use cases, it is if I'm trying to lose fat and maintain my muscle. Yep. And if I'm over 40 and my ability to just get what I'm trying to get out of protein and eat all this more protein and my appetite's not as high. Like, they're just kind of like that. It's really becomes insurance policy there. It's like the weight loss thing. I think it's even more than insurance policy. I think it's like make it to where you can lose 10 pounds of fat.

Yeah.

Muscle. Not 6 pounds of fat. And 4 pounds of muscle. Like, it's kind of seems like an obvious win. There's. Or for the aging thing. It's like just building the daily habit of it. Like, you. You're the person who's potentially going to.

It's actually interesting. I was just talking to one of the lead research scientists who's done tons of this work, and he personally has done DEXA scans. He's like in his. You know, he's like 70 now. He's been doing DEXA scans for like 30 years. He's had like net muscle increase over the last 30 years from just taking essential aminos every single day and doing his resistance training three days a week. And he's not doing as much. Like, that can be you and like that. That's the insurance policy.

Yeah, that's. I love that. And ladies, listen, if you are not bought into, like, you've gotta be eating more protein and adding muscle and keeping muscle. Like you've got to. Because when we lose muscle, not only are we slowing our metabolism down at rest, which is gonna be. We're gonna. I mean, we're. We're. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest. So the less muscle you have, you're gonna slow your metabolism down. You're not gonna burn calories. Burn rest. Second, if we're not adding muscle and we're losing muscle, we are going to risk more bone loss. So bone loss comes from a number of things, hormone decline being one. But also losing muscle, not adding muscle. We're going to be at risk for bone loss. Bone loss and not adding muscle also could lead to more injuries. So this is how we start getting fractures and falls and all of that. So all of this is super critical. And also another component component we didn't really touch on but is the whole pain thing now. Now, even though this is more something that helps with recovery versus pain, when we don't have an optimal body with the right muscle and we're not fully functional, we also will feel more pain. So all of this ties together. So this to me is a must add. This is one I'm probably a customer for life now. Angela, like I love this and now you've convinced me I need to have even more of them. You all by the way, if you're listening and you want to try this, if you go to getkion getkion K-I-O-N.com Nataliejill you do get 20% off for trying it. So it's getkion.com forward slash Nataliejill my favorite flavor that my husband stole from me is the berry one. They're all good, but he stole my berry. That was my favorite. But they've got some cool ones like cool lime and mango so you can mix them and and I mix mine with creatine and with my prebiotics too. That's how I love it.

Yeah, it's a great. That's a great daily stack.

Yeah. Angelo, thank you so much for this conversation today. I'm probably gonna have more questions for you, but I think you've covered the majority of them. Thank you so much.

Yeah, anytime.

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