I eat on a meal plan that is structured mostly around BBM’s advice. I eat 5 meals a day, with sufficient protein in each meal. High fiber, whole foods, fat at about 90 grams. However, I’ve run into a couple of “paradoxes” or more accurately decision trees I should probably make to make the plan even better.
I eat 5 meals a day, about 3:30 apart from each other. I get 20g+ of animal protein in every meal, and eat quality foods for my carbs/fats (lentils/couscous/peanut butter) putting my protein at ~220 grams. I didn’t even aim for this, I originally aimed for 1g/lb. However, I still don’t get 3 grams of leucine per meal. Would 2 of my meals being closer to 2 grams of leucine be suboptimal at all? Would I be better off adding even MORE protein? Reducing my meals to 4/day to get leucine to 3g+/meal?
I try not to snack on protein in between meals because I read that it messes with the MPS refractory period. Would taking BCAAs right before a workout do this as well? If I eat a meal with ~35g protein and 3.5g leucine 1 hour before I work out, then eat a similar meal 3.5 hours later, is there any benefit to adding BCAAs as well?
Are there any benefits from meat outside of protein content, leucine, and B vitamins? Where I live meat is quite expensive compared to the other things in my diet, so I’m wondering if there is anything else to consider when planning.
I know this stuff is probably minutia but I’ve been following the meal plan pretty religiously for 4-5 months and don’t plan on stopping, so I figure it’s best to optimize or at least put to rest any insecurities I have about it being suboptimal thanks in advance!
Thanks for the post. As an overarching theme, I’d caution against really focusing on the minutiae here outside of research interests. Rather, I’d be perfectly satisfied with a diet that fulfilled calorie needs, hit a correct amount of protein and fiber per day, and consisted of lots of fruits and vegetables. Everything else is kind of a waste of effort IMO.
As far as your q’s:
Don’t worry about it. You’re probably getting close enough and the total EAA dose is high.
I would not recommend supplementing BCAAs outside of very low protein diets or in rehydration situations.
Benefits for what? Health? Nah. Performance? Nah. That said, dietary patterns are complex and there are more moving parts here.
So I’m probably right in my suspicions I’ve been a bit over-obsessed. However, I do get the vibe that meal timing and EAAs/meal is of some importance due to how frequently you mention it. If I wanted to remove 100g of chicken breast from my day, would you prefer me to combine the meal where I’m having a relatively low amount of protein/leucine (13g/1g) into another and reduce to 4 meals a day, or just eat the meal without the chicken as a 5th?
Perhaps it’s the reader and not the message here, but the problem I’ve run into is knowing what is the minutia and what isn’t. Even when reading your stuff which has a very focused message without disregarding the existence of complexity, it can be hard to tell. Is keeping periworkout fats to below 20 grams important? Is eating carbs/protein an hour before a workout important if the alternative is eating right after the workout? What about waiting 3 hours between meals, and eating 3-5 meals per day? I think one would be forgiven for deciding any of these things are very important or are unimportant, as you say regarding the other things, outside of research interests. For me, it’s really no effort to micromanage because I do just eat the same thing out of convenience, so it’s almost a little disheartening to be told that micromanaging is wasted effort. I am glad to hear the truth though, whatever that entails.
Thanks for your responses by the way, I always learn something.
Again, to reiterate I would not worry about any of the questions I’m going to answer below. Rather, I would focus on getting enough total daily protein and correct amount of calories.
However, I do get the vibe that meal timing and EAAs/meal is of some importance due to how frequently you mention it.
Not directly, no. Getting 1.6g of protein per kg bodyweight per day or more is just fine. Don’t worry about anything else.
If I wanted to remove 100g of chicken breast from my day, would you prefer me to combine the meal where I’m having a relatively low amount of protein/leucine (13g/1g) into another and reduce to 4 meals a day, or just eat the meal without the chicken as a 5th?.
It doesn’t matter.
Perhaps it’s the reader and not the message here, but the problem I’ve run into is knowing what is the minutia and what isn’t. Even when reading your stuff which has a very focused message without disregarding the existence of complexity, it can be hard to tell. Is keeping periworkout fats to below 20 grams important?
Important for what? Context is important. Outcomes like daily strength performance or LBM? Meh, probably not directly unless if affects adherence.
Is eating carbs/protein an hour before a workout important if the alternative is eating right after the workout?
Again, context is important. Based on what I’ve written- what do you think?
What about waiting 3 hours between meals, and eating 3-5 meals per day?
As compared to? Again, context is important.
so it’s almost a little disheartening to be told that micromanaging is wasted effort. .
Sure, I get that and I don’t want to discourage you at all. Rather, I want you to be focusing on things that actually have the potential to improve your results: Calories, protein total per day, training, etc. I think meal timing and composition per meal can be adjusted based on an individual’s preferences, their environment, and response…sure. As far as hard rules of thumb? Meh, I’m not sure I feel strongly about that unless the decision impacts calories, protein per day, or training adherence.
I’m always happy to get new information, but the problem I have is that based off barbell medicine articles I’ve been led to believe these things do have the potential to improve my results. Notably, no matter what I’m doing I’m controlling calories and protein can be adjusted based off what I am led to believe is best. I focus on training probably more than I do dieting, but I don’t think swapping to a more relaxed diet changes anything- like I said I already eat the same thing every day, so changing that is as simple as adjusting the amount of each food I use. Obviously if I were eating 2k calories a day because I thought I couldn’t possibly eat less than 3 hours apart it might be a problem, but I’m not doing that.
There are 2 things you’ve said/written which have led me to what I believe was, at the time with the information given, a logical conclusion that these micromanagement do matter. I understand opinions and data change, and meaning isn’t always conveyed super easily on the internet. But maybe this can help you clear up information for people in the future, or maybe I’m missing something entirely and you can elucidate me.
Step 1: On a podcast about cutting with Alan Thrall I believe, and others, you talked about “layering” complexity. The easiest intervention is the first, so you’ll treat someone who has never dieted successfully different than someone who can show you their myfitnesspal/cronometer results from the past 6 months for example. For the former you’ll not worry about nuances, but for the latter you do start to get into the more complex stuff. I’ve never had trouble with diet adherence in my adult life and I’ve dieted for ~6 months 3 times, dealing with relative extremes. The last 2 times I “quit” were due to factors like moving to where a gym just wasn’t available, so I put myself in the box of someone that should worry about nuances.
Step 2: So given how I don’t have trouble and am OK putting in effort I want to find nuances to give me an edge. I read “To be a beast” and “7 rules to Optimize Protein intake”. To me these, especially the former, seem like practical advice to use for fitness goals, not research interests. So, I apply the recommendations. In the TBAB chart it recommends 1.1g/lb bodyweight protein, to eat 3-5 times a day with 3-5 hours in between. It also says periworkout fats should ideally be lowered. So I go ahead and do this. The 7 rules article tells me to eat 3-4 grams of leucine a day, and that I probably need more protein because a big chunk of my protein comes from “low quality proteins” (lentils/rice/wheat are all specifically mentioned there). It also says if you eat at 8AM and again at 10AM, the second meal won’t trigger MPS at all. Seems like a REALLY big deal, could effectively half MPS. I avoid this like the plague, because I’ve put my trust in BBM due to generally believing the advice in sensible and well-founded in both practical experience and research and a BBM article is telling me this.
To my understanding these recommendations were fairly general, and not because they increase adherence, so I followed them. They didn’t change how I trained or my calorie intakes.
I don’t mean for this to be scathing but I have gotten the impression you’re able to take criticism and questions like this and I’d feel a lot better continuing to use BBM as a source of guidance with a better understanding of how I was led to believe these things.
Yep. I wouldn’t necessarily focus on EAA or BCAA content per meal for the more advanced person either though.
One way to look at this is that there are likely to be periods of time where it’s more important to be a bit more strict, where other times it’s important not to be.
Yes and I would still support those recommendations. That said, I draw the line at worrying about MPS outside of total protein intake per day. People seem to want background information as to how this all works and I’m happy to provide that and your initial questions were also answered :_
I am not even taking this as criticism to be honest. I don’t see a disconnect. If someone is going to ask me about a topic like meal frequency or protein dosing, I think there are a few lines of evidence that can give us clues as to better or worse choices. That said, if someone is going to take that a step further and make something important that I don’t think is important- I’ll just answer the question and clarify that I don’t think it’s important (if it’s not). Hopefully that makes sense.
Worrying about MPS outside of daily protein intake is something I have done because of a line in “7 Rules to Optimize Protein intake”
"if you ate a protein rich breakfast at 8am, then ate again at 10am, the meal at 10 am would contribute nothing to MPS"
To me this indicates if you had 6 meals @ 20g protein each (120g total) at 8am, 10am, 2pm, 4pm, 8pm and 10pm you would be “missing out” on 60g of protein for the benefit of MPS (the 10am, 4pm, and 10pm meals respectively).
Similarly you said you still support those recommendations but you just told me that:
-1.6g/kg (.73g/lb) protein is enough contrasted to 1.1-1.25/lb in TBAB. I would achieve the former if I eliminated ALL animal products out of my diet, contrasted with the latter which requires about 1 serving of whey/meat per meal.
-Meal frequency doesn’t really matter within a reasonable range (contrasted with the impression I get from the first quote which makes it seem like the 10am meal is wasted while an 11am meal would be fine.
And others. So what I’m not understanding is how you can support those recommendations while telling me not to worry about any of those same recommendations just a couple posts up. We might just be talking about 2 separate things, or I might just be missing something you think is obvious, I’m not entirely sure.
To me, TBAB doesn’t read like an article saying “these things are interesting possibilities for the sake of research”. It sounds like “these are the steps you should take to optimally get to your goals of strength/body comp”. Especially because I’d consider myself on the end of the bell curve as far as diet compliance to pretty much anything,
I think a few things have been made clear at this point: There is a MPS refractory period and eating additional protein during this refractory period does not contribute to MPS. Also, that there is some evidence that meal timing does not affect longterm muscular hypertrophy (even when total protein is matched and one group is consuming some of their protein within the refractory period and the other group isn’t).
I am curious (though it won’t affect anything I do) about why this is. Does protein intake that won’t contribute to MPS possibly still inhibit muscle breakdown? Are there ways to mess with the MPS refractory period (such as resistance training)?
Sure, in the short term unless there were other mitigating factors like training. The importance of this is what I’ve been trying to convey to you…that it’s not important enough to worry about.
Our current protein rec’s are 1.6-3.1g/kg/day. That encompasses the recommendation in TBAB. There is no contradiction.
I don’t see how these are contradictory. The accurate answer about MPS gives us some clues about meal frequency, but when taking a step back and looking at how this influences overall outcomes- I’m telling you to not make a big deal about it. I stand by both of those.
I think you’re missing the practical recommendations I’m trying to give you. You’re free to ignore these as well
The article is a practical piece towards making recommendations for those who are ready for that level of dietary management. That said, when someone asks me about leucine content per meal or some non-important meal component, I’m going to tell them that it’s not important.
I’m sorry there aren’t concrete answer here, but such is the case with biology.
Not measurably in the short term, no. Long-term…maybe, but it’d be hard to study that. Resistance training tends to shorten the refractory period, but again I would not recommend spending too much time worry about the refractory period in general.
This topic of MPS refractory period seems to rear its head on this board regularly…it’s like Dr. J’s own personal GOMAD…the gift that keeps on giving:)
After reading most of the articles on this board, watching Dr J’s videos, I would summarize it as follows: MUST DO, IMPORTANT, AND MEH?
MUST DO
Eat your target macros
Eat your 1.6-3.1g/kg/day protein
Get the right approx ratio of remaining calories thru carb/fat
Sleep 7+hrs / night
Lift like you’re possessed** on training days
Enjoy the fact that you’re making Gainzz IMPORTANT
Protein from high-quality sources
80% of your foods from single source
Eat big major meals, which by definition means at least a good hunk of protein in each meal
Eat 10 servings of fruit / veg
Min conditioning/cardio to keep your heart and other bits functioning properly MEH
Wait 3hrs before eating anything after you’ve had your protein hit from major meal
Measure your BCAA and Leucine per meal
Maybe the MEH stuff actually does matter but combo of a) firm research-based evidence; b) ability of trainee to practically sustain these actions over a long period; and c) likelihood of non-compliance with something in MUST DO or IMPORTANT category (including training properly)…makes focus on those top two categories most important for most people.
If that’s a practical piece than you assumed I wasn’t ready for that level of dietary management myself. But because I indicated I had no problem making these changes, I assumed we were both discussing a trainee who is ready for that level of dietary management.
I’m not ignoring your practical recommendations, I’m questioning how what could be impractical for me could be impractical for someone else (as we’re discussing without understanding individual reactions). I’m saying I’m OK making dietary changes to get the last 1% out of it, because the way I eat makes it no issue. If someone who has zero problem manipulating their diet in way imaginable isn’t a practical case for those recommendations, then who is?
That is not what I was getting at. You misunderstand. The article includes practical strategies for dietary management. If someone asks for further clarification about a TWOUD, I’ll provide the answer but also give them some insight on how little that actually matters.
You seem to be taking this as a personal affront. It’s not.
And I’m telling you it’s not going to matter. I wish you’d be more okay with this
So TBAB (and 7 rules) offers practical recommendations, but the recommendations don’t help or help so little that it’s negligible. I wouldn’t call those practical then. Or if the stuff about calories/protein being the only practical components is written somewhere in there, I’m not gathering that from either article.
-Reducing periworkout fat to 20g or lower
-Spacing meals 3-5 hours apart
-Increasing protein above 1.6g/kg
-Aiming for 3-4g leucine per meal
I guess everything I’ve said can really be summarized as that. If no to all, then I personally believe the article(s) place undue emphasis on them. If yes to any, then I’m confused why you told me not to worry about them. That’s the dissonance I’ve identified and have been so pestering about.
Outside of adherence and personal preference, meh. I don’t think this is very important.
Yes.
Our recommendation is 1.6-3.1g/kg/day, so…yes
Sure, though I wouldn’t have someone calculate their leucine intake.
Your first questions were based on extrapolating the importance of general recommendations. I appropriately pushed back and suggested micromanaging these things are not important, which is still the case.
In short, I would recommend folks eating 1.6-3.1g/kg/day of protein in meals spaced 3-5 hours a part- each containing a good dose of leucine. However, I wouldn’t worry about the differences between 1.6 and 1.8 g/kg/day, a few meals being eaten within 3 hours or more than 5 hours, or a few milligrams of leucine dose per meal missing with respect to outcomes like strength and hypertrophy.
thanks in advance!