In this video, Tyrone Bray emphasizes that increasing protein is essential for body transformation, weight loss, and muscle maintenance, but warns that a sudden jump—especially when hydration is low—can cause constipation. He explains that many people lack sufficient digestive enzymes and stomach hydrochloric acid to break down larger protein loads, leading to gut backup. To prevent this, he recommends a staged approach: start with roughly one palm‑sized portion of high‑quality protein per main meal and increase by half a palm every 7–10 days (up to 14 days for some) until reaching 2–2.5 palm‑sized portions per meal. This gradual increase allows the body to adapt by producing more proteases and acid, while maintaining proper hydration. He advises monitoring bowel habits and adjusting the pace accordingly, and offers to provide recipes or further guidance for those seeking more support.
Chapters
So one of the key things that many of us have to do in order to reach our health and our body transformation goals is to increase our protein. Now, I bang on about this all the time. You've probably seen it in my previous videos that protein— or that I recommend that protein is one of the first things that you focus on. Now, this hasn't changed. That still remains the case when it comes to nutrition. Protein is king. Okay, so that's the first thing that we focus on. But the catch that some people have, particularly if their hydration is low at the same time, if they suddenly increase their protein intake, what tends to happen is quite often they'll get backed up, end up constipated, and quite uncomfortable. Now, this isn't just simply because, oh, well, protein's harder to break down and it just sits in the gut like some people think. There's this weird kind of idea that, oh, well, you know, when I have meat, it just sort of sits around and things like that. That's not necessarily the case. But what is going on for a lot of people is they have had a, a deficient amount of protein in their diet, whether from animal food or other sources. And because of that, they don't necessarily have the digestive enzyme profile to help break down that protein. And along with that, where they maybe aren't so healthy and a lot of stress and stuff going on in their life, what often also happens is they have lowered levels of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Now, of course, if you've got a lack of enzymes required to break down protein, plus you've got lowered hydrochloric acid, then of course it does make it harder for the body to break down that protein. And as a result, we can quite often get backed up, particularly if hydration is low at the same time. So of course the recommendation is, well, increase your protein intake, make sure you're getting a high enough, um, amount of high-quality protein in each meal. But when we're kind of moving from this place of not enough to ensuring we've got adequate amounts, we sometimes need to stage it and do it gradually. So let's say, for example, at the moment, between or during each of your 3 main meals a day, so your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner, let's say you're doing roughly 1 palm of protein per main meal. Now for some people, if they're not very active, this might be enough. But for the average person, when we're looking to get quick and sustainable weight loss results and improve our health and maintain muscle mass and so on, we're going to need more than that. We're gonna probably need 2, sometimes even 2.5 portions of protein per main meal. Now rather than just leap up to that and double or quadruple or triple your current protein intake, what you would do is gradually step it up. And I recommend you step it up by half a palm size per 7 to 10 days. Some people need to push it to 14, but what that does, so let's say I am just having at the moment one palm-sized portion, so that's the size and thickness of my palm, and my plan is, right, well, from tomorrow I'm gonna have one and a half palm size. That's what I would do. So I would just have one and a half palm-sized portions per main meal, let my body get used to that, go through any changes or discomfort that my digestive system may experience, It's a good chance it won't, but for some people it does if our digestive enzyme capacity is low or if hydrochloric acid is low and so on. And what we're doing by staging this increase is giving the body time to adapt and obviously get used to this new dietary intake that we're, we're now consuming. So now that protein's gone up, the body needs to produce more digestive enzymes to help break down that protein. And I mean, obviously the ones specific for breaking down protein. Such as protease and so on, but we also need hydrochloric acid to increase slightly to help with that as well. Now, as I say, every 7 to 10 days we will want to have that increase. So don't feel like, oh, Ty or someone else, my coach or whoever, said I've got to increase my protein, therefore I need to have this massive jump overnight. No different from hydration. What tends to happen with hydration, if we double that or quadruple that overnight, we just end up running back and forth to the loo all day. Well, with protein, what can happen if you up it too quick is you just end up backed up and feeling quite uncomfortable in the gut, maybe a bit constipated and so on. So in order to avoid that and prevent that, we just make sure that we step our protein up incrementally. So as I say, we would increase by roughly one half of a portion size, which is half the size of our palm. So if one portion is the size of the palm and the thickness, We just go for half of that, increase that each main meal for 7 to 10 days. After that 7 to 10 day period, if your digestion is all back to normal, your bowel habits and stool movements, etc., are back to normal, then we can now increase again. So some people can get away with doing it straight away, but for most of us, it's better to do it gradually because our body gets used to it. We get used to eating that increased amount, and we get to see or experience any changes that may be happening without us feeling too far out, out of norm, which then can sometimes put us off and make us feel, oh well, this doesn't work for me, and so on, which isn't often the case. It's just the fact that we've gone in too deep, we've jumped in too far too quickly, and sometimes we just need to stage it. So that's all I'll leave you guys with today. So if you are looking to, over the coming weeks and so on, which often happens with people as they move into the new year, they look to improve their diet, their exercise, and so on, When it comes to increasing your protein, make sure that you increase it incrementally and you do that by adding one half of a portion size per main meal. And as I mentioned, just to recap once more, that portion size is the size of your palm, the size and the thickness. So go up by one half every 7 to 10 days and then that way that will give your digestive system plenty of time to adapt and get used to that. So Thanks for watching, people. As always, if you have any questions, if you want me to dig into this any deeper, or if you want specific meals, recipes, and those types of things to help you as you move into the new year, let me know so I can hook you guys up. And if not, I look forward to chatting with you guys in my next video. Take it easy, people, and I shall chat to you soon.
