in your article on 7 Rules to Optimise Protein Intake, you mention “Every time a large enough dose of protein is ingested, i.e. one that provides enough leucine and EAA’s to push the MPS reaction over the edge, there’s a 3-5 hour refractory period that must transpire before another dose of protein (at a meal/shake/etc) will yield another bout of MPS.”
Do you have a ballpark estimate of the amount of protein required to push the MPS reaction over the edge? For example, would a cup of coffee with 100mg of milk (approximately 3gram protein) trigger it? Or are we talking more in the magnitude of 10+grams?
It’s a bit more complicated than that, but somewhere in the 15-20g protein range- in some cases less or more, depending on EAA content and the individual.
That said, I would not factor this in AT ALL to any nutritional decision you make, as it really doesn’t matter in comparison to total daily calorie and protein intake.
The reason I ask is that today, for example, I had blueberries and a coffee (with 100mg milk) half an hour before lifting. I completed my workout in an hour and a half, after which I ate my post workout meal (5 eggs, more blueberries, another 100mg milk). So my concern concern was that there was only 2 hours between the milk protein from the coffee and the post workout meal containing protein, and I didn’t want my post workout meal protein to “contribute nothing to MPS and then, by definition- it would be stored away as energy -either glycogen or fat depending on other variables.” But it shouldn’t be an issue because it’s far below the 15-20gram range you mentioned.
The refractory period is not 3-5 hours, but rather ~ 2.5-3’ish hours. It would start once the eating has stopped. That being said, none of this really matters and I would strongly, strongly advise against using any of this to make dietary decisions.
Jordan, would it be accurate then to say the important thing is just to hit your protein macro goals (1.6-3.1g/kg) everyday; and when you u get the protein or how many meals you get it in, or the time between meals is unimportant?