Is My Protein Intake Supporting My Lifestyle?

Protein. We hear a dozen different recommendations about what we should be eating, how much of it, and exactly when to consume. Let’s keep it simple and demystify some of the questions we often have about protein’s role in supporting an active lifestyle.

Skeletal muscle is more metabolically active than fat. Whether walking around your house or exercising at high intensity, with more muscle comes more metabolic expenditure and energy cost just to exist. Here’s the problem – our bodies are conservationists. It doesn’t want extra muscle on its frame if it can avoid it purely because of the energy cost. However, there are a couple ways we can signal to our brain not to break that muscle down. Full body resistance training and eat enough protein.

The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) is dedicated to synthesizing up-to-date literature pertaining to sports nutrition and supplementation and communicating it to the public in a series of position statements. Let’s take a look.

Minimum Acceptable Protein Intake

ISSN’s minimum recommended dose is .25-1.0 gram per kilogram of bodyweight per day (g/kg/day). Guys, this is for absolute bare minimum life maintenance. This is for a completely sedentary individual not engaging in regular exercise to meet the minimum demands of life.

Minimum Protein Intake to Support an Active Lifestyle

When we take a recreationally active individual who exercises 3-6 days per week, ISSN recommends a minimum of 1.4-2.0 g/kg/day for maintaining and building muscle mass. This means if you are serious about fueling your body to meet the demands of an active lifestyle, getting enough protein is the place to start.

We want to help you remove the barriers to living an active life.