But what happens when you want to lose weight??? I firmly believe that the previously suggested intake of up to 2.2 g/kg of body weight may no longer apply, and that protein intake may need to be quite high, depending on the bodybuilder and their approach to contest preparation. The numbers and the science are clear here, too, and largely support my view. There is no getting around it: before a competition, you need to increase your protein intake, even if that means burning some of that protein for energy. It is true that simply adjusting your nutrient ratios can make a considerable difference to your appearance over a long period, but the hard fact is that you cannot get into stage condition without an energy deficit. As explained earlier, the lower your calorie intake (the closer you are to energy balance or the deeper your deficit), the greater your protein needs. Clearly, you need to be in some degree of deficit to maximize fat burning. How deep that deficit should be is, again, an individual matter and a separate question. The problem is that, in a deficit, your body tends to turn to muscle mass for help in meeting its energy needs. The increased protein intake is needed to preserve the muscle mass you have built while you are in a deficit, so that when your body needs extra energy, it can obtain it from the additional protein in your diet. There is no getting around it…no one can tell you exactly how large your deficit should be or how much extra protein you need. It all comes down to experience…experimenting, judging how you feel and assessing how you look. Since we cannot see inside our bodies, it makes more sense to eat a little extra protein than to sacrifice muscle mass. Especially if it delivers results. In fact, throughout bodybuilding’s long history, this is how competition condition has been achieved: by increasing the proportion of protein in the diet before a competition!!! My point is that whatever ratio you use (40/30/30 or 50/30/20 or 50/25/25), you still need to enter some degree of deficit to achieve that final level of definition. How deep you need to go, how deep it makes sense to go and over what period are separate matters. The smaller the deficit, the lower the risk of losing muscle mass and the less you need to increase your protein intake. A small deficit, however, means planning a fairly long contest preparation period, so it makes no sense to let yourself gain too much fat. Otherwise, if you are carrying a lot of fat and want to get into contest condition and become shredded with minimal loss of muscle mass, you will need to spend many consecutive months preparing—perhaps even a year. That is extremely difficult mentally.
Walberg (Walberg et al., 1988) reports that bodybuilders following an energy-restricted diet and consuming 0.8 g/kg/day of protein remained in negative nitrogen balance (- 3.19 g N/day). Positive nitrogen balance was achieved at 1.6 g/kg (4.13 g N/day). Both groups consisted of 7 participants with an average age of 21 years. They had at least 2 years of training experience. They followed a two-day split, training their back, legs and biceps on the first day, and their chest, shoulders and triceps on the second day. Each muscle was trained 2 times a week, for a total of 6 workouts per week. Each workout consisted of 8–10 exercises, with 3 sets per exercise in the 8–10 repetition range. They used loads of 60–80% of their one-repetition maximum, and training sessions lasted an average of 1.5–2 hours per day.
Both groups followed a low-calorie diet providing 18 kcal/kg, which would produce a total calorie deficit of approximately 1400 kcal per day. Nitrogen balance was assessed daily for 7 consecutive days.
The authors concluded that, under calorie restriction, a high-protein diet was considerably more effective at increasing and maintaining nitrogen retention than a low-protein diet. They recommended this type of diet as useful and effective before a competition when the aim is to lose weight without losing muscle mass (Walberg et al., 1988).
At the elite level, a bodybuilder’s total daily training volume can reach 4–6 hours, which is likely to have a very substantial effect on their protein needs. Yet research to date has not actually established the protein requirements of strength athletes who train for a total of 4–6 hours a day, combine strength and endurance training, and are also in an energy deficit. The studies have been relatively short overall, ranging from 1–2 weeks to 2–3 months, which may not be long enough to establish the true effects of training.
It is possible that training under the conditions described above could easily increase protein requirements to 2.5 grams per kg of body weight, possibly even more. Given the nature of elite athletes’ training regimens, we therefore cannot condemn protein intakes above the recommended 2.2 grams per kg of body weight. Clearly, protein needs are greater at this level.
To sum up: for a typical gym-goer who is building muscle mass and adds a few short cardio sessions each week, I would confidently recommend a protein intake of 2.2 g/kg of body weight. Anything above that may indeed be a waste. This applies to the average person doing strength training.
At competition level, things are more complicated, and protein needs depend on many factors. Protein requirements in athletes, including bodybuilders, are extremely complex and variable, depending on the following factors: total dietary energy intake; the proportion of carbohydrate in the diet; training intensity, duration and focus; the relative amounts of different types of training and how they are combined in the athlete’s training routine; the quality of the protein consumed; training experience; the athlete’s age and sex; and nutrient timing.
The article “Protein and amino acids for athletes” (2004) states the following:
Given all the considerations mentioned above—the many factors that influence protein requirements—there is currently no generally accepted, scientifically based criterion for determining a bodybuilder’s optimal protein needs at different stages of training. The practical guidance offered to athletes by leading experts in the field is therefore very approximate: dietary protein should account for no more than 40% of an athlete’s total energy intake. This position is a recent development, reached only in the early 2000s.
That is quite a range. Personally, I would venture to suggest that, in terms of grams, elite athletes following certain strict regimens might even need around 2.5–3.0 g/kg of body weight.
For the average person, consuming such excessive amounts of protein really is like burning expensive furniture in a stove, but at the elite level, such “wasteful” behavior may even be necessary!!!
References
1. Phillips SM (2004) Protein requirements and supplementation in strength sports. Nutrition. Jul-Aug; 20(7-8):689-95. Review
2. Kreider R (1999) Effects of protein and amino acid supplementation on athletic performance. Sportscience, 3: sportsci.org/jour/9901/rbk.html
3. Lemon PW, Proctor DN (1991) Protein intake and athletic performance. Sports Med. 12:313-25
4. Lemon PW (1991) Protein requirements of strength athletes. In Sports Supplements. Edited by Antonio, J., Stout, J. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott, Williams, & Wilkins Publishing Co
5. Wolfe RR (2000) Protein supplements and exercise. Am J Clin Nutr. 72 (Suppl):551S-7S
6. Phillips SM, Hartman JW, Wilkinson SB (2005) Dietary protein to support anabolism with resistance exercise in young men. J Am Coll Nutr. 24:134S-139S
7. Wilson J, Wilson GJ (2006) Contemporary Issues in Protein Requirements and Consumption for Resistance Trained Athletes. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 3(1):7-27
8. Lemon PW (2000) Beyond the zone: protein needs of active individuals. J Am Coll Nutr 19(Suppl):513S-521S
9. Lemon PWR, Mullin JP (1980) Effect of initial muscle glycogen levels on protein catabolism during exercise. J Appl Physiol 48:624629
10. Millward DJ (2004) Macronutrient intakes as determinants of dietary protein and amino acid adequacy. Nutr 134 (Suppl):1588S-1596S
11. Tipton KD, Wolfe RR (2004) Protein and amino acids for athletes. J Sports Sci 22(1):65-79
12. Walberg J, Leedy L, Sturgill MK, Hinkle DJ, Ritchey DE, Sebolt DR (1988) Macronutrient content of a hypoenergy diet affects nitrogen retention and muscle function in weightlifters. Int J Sports Med 9:261-266
NB!!! My apologies…the references are not in alphabetical order!!!
Author: Janar Rückenberg
Come and work out! ArtGym
