What happens if you don't eat 1 g/per pound of body weight of protein daily

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

I’m curious do yourselves (Dr. Jordan Feigenbaum and Dr. Austin Baraki) eat 200 grams of protein a day? I know you both weigh around there.

What exactly would happen if you both ate 130 grams a day, would progress slow or would you actually have negative medical side effects?

And also, do you have any tricks to squeeze in extra protein intake?

Thanks

2

I usually eat a little over 200g/day, as my target is 220g/day currently.

What would happen immediately? Probably nothing. Long term? Decreased hypertrophic responses to training perhaps even if calories were kept the same.

My tricks for increasing protein intake are to eat more protein per meal.

4 Likes
3

By tricks I mean do you eat x amount of protein every x amount of hours to maximize MPS?

For example, do you try to eat around 20 g of protein every 3 hours?

4

I also eat 230g a day . Currently break it up between 4-5 meals spaced out as far as i can from 6am-10:30pm. Typically looks like (for just protein ) 2 scoops whey/ 10oz meat/ greek yogurt/10z meat and then odd number for eggs, dairy or another meat to meet 230g. If i over eat carb or fats ill add in another 2 scoops of whey or egg whites to reduce additional carb and fat calories

5

No, I try and eat ~50 every 4-5 hours mostly.

6

So if you were to optimize for leucine content, such that you’re triggering MPS at each feeding, could you theoretically get by with less than 1g/lb? Is that recommendation just a way to hedge your bets in the case of a suboptimal amino acid makeup?

What I’m getting at is, if leucine ingestion were perfect, would that free up more calories for carbs?

7

In your experience, would you say most people you train who aren’t competitive don’t each enough protein?

If someone is tired, is lack of sleep and appropriate training stress usually the culprit compared to lack of protein in diet (or other nutritional deficiencies)?

8

Doubtful at my calorie level, as there are trace proteins in my carbohydrates and fats AND I don’t eat low quality protein.

9

Nah, I wouldn’t say that. I think that non-nutritional sources of training effect attenuation are more common.