MPS timing clarifications

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hey guys,
I have a few quick questions regarding MPS timing.

1.) How long do I have after I end a meal to "add’ to it and it be considered the same meal? Let’s say I have 35g of protein at lunch and then want to add a scoop of whey but have to wait 30 minutes. Would that whey be considered the same meal or a new one?

2.) I assume if I have a small amount of protein, not enough to trigger an MPS response, that’s included in the previous meal? E.g., I have a glass of milk an hour after lunch, that just adds 8g of protein to the previous meal, but now do I need to wait 3 hours after the milk or just after the lunch still?

3.) If I’m eating dinner and know I won’t have another opportunity for a meal before going to bed, is it useful to eat a large amount of protein at dinner so I still hit my protein goal for the day? This happened the other day, so I had 100g of protein at dinner (goal is 195g). If I understand your “Optimize Protein Intake” article correctly, eating 100g of protein at once is better than eating 50g now and 50g 2 hours later in terms of MPS.

Thanks!

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2

Keith,

Thanks for the post and for joining us here. Let me first state that in general, I do not find that micromanaging MPS is useful and rather we should find general principles to live (eat?) by.

  1. No one knows to be sure, but ideally you’d eat your calories for each meal in one bolus and not spread them out over a long period of time.

  2. Snacking can certainly compromise MPS, yes. I recommend against it.

  3. Depends on the context and I would argue that it’s not better to eat 100g now vs 50 now and 50 in 2 hours- it just doesn’t matter. I would probably eat the big dose of protein if all other things were equal and try to eat more protein earlier in the next day’s meals to avoid the problem again.

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3

So would you say then that the most important part is to hit your daily protein goal, even if you don’t do it in an “optimal” way?

I normally try not to get lost in the details, but while on vacation last week I didn’t necessarily control when I was able to eat all the time so I wasn’t sure what the best route was, or if it mattered. At home I can stick to the 3-5 hour windows pretty easily.

4

Is this true even if there is very little protein in the snack. For example, if i was to eat an apple, or drink a glass of orange juice in between meals would that still compromise MPS?

Thanks!

5

I would say the most important thing to do is to hit your daily calories, then protein, then everything else.

6

No one knows for sure, but possibly. I still am against snacking for the normal fasting-fed cycle to occur.

7

Perfect, thanks!