In this episode, Alice and Sawyer take a deep dive into one of the most common questions in vegan fitness: how much protein do you really need?
They break down evidence-based ranges for total body weight and lean mass, explain how needs shift during cutting, bulking, maintenance, aging, or recovery, and clear up common misconceptions in the vegan community.
The conversation also covers satiety, muscle retention, metabolic health, and why carbs and resistance training matter just as much as protein.
To wrap up, they share their favorite practical high-protein vegan foods that make it easy to hit your goals without obsession, from seitan and soy curls to protein cereals, tofu hacks, pastas, and homemade staples.
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Okay, hello everybody and thank you so much for joining us on the vegan proteins muscles by brussels radio my name is alice and i’m sawyer and today we’re going to talk about protein so first of all i just wanted to see like how you’re doing sawyer i’m about to be able to hang out with you next week like what’s going on with you and like you’re you’re can you are you
[Sawyer]comfortable talking about um your move yeah yeah so i am moving to spain it looks like uh beginning of next year and uh that is very exciting and also very stress inducing because there’s a lot to do before then and it sounds like a long time that we have but uh you know you break it down and all the things you have to do and you’re like oh man we gotta get moving on this so i’ve kind of been running around like do a little bit of work here then i work on the van a little bit then i do like because we’re gonna sell the van too so it’s just like man i feel like i haven’t sit still for like more than i don’t know a couple hours at a time for i don’t know how long a few weeks now so it’s exciting but i’m also really tired yeah yeah so how do you feel
[Alice]about selling the van i did not know that that was part of the equation yeah yeah it’s kind of
[Sawyer]it’s kind of symbolic for one thing it’s like okay the van era is over we’re moving on to something else but it’s also you know be nice to have the extra money to put into the travels and the potentially buying a place or something like if we if we fall in love with somewhere out there so that’s that’s the whole idea is just like okay like let’s not let’s let’s kind of burn the boats you know what i mean let’s go let’s if we’re gonna do europe we’re gonna do at least a year bare minimum and we’re gonna try to see as much as we can of it but also it’s gonna be our adventure into let’s let’s sit still for a minute and then maybe travel a little bit here and there but like mostly we’re gonna be sitting still which is a new concept for us because we’re usually traveling all over the place it’s a it’s a departure for sure and i’m excited for it so yeah well rent or
[Alice]renting for a year and then figuring out like you know is this forever for us or are you sure that you’re gonna come back at some point or is it just sort of yeah i mean i’m sure we’ll come back to
[Sawyer]visit at the very least but yeah who knows if we fall in love with uh you know we’re going to is the plan first and then if we fall in love with it there maybe we’ll stay there maybe we’ll go you know we’ll travel somewhere else and be like wow that was amazing we want to be there and it’s affordable i don’t really know we’re kind of open-ended on that but the whole getting there and being able to be legal and like you know everything is the is the hard part right now and so once we’re over that hump i’m very excited for what that’s going to mean for us what we can you know actually get up to while we’re there that’s crazy that’s very exciting i’m excited for
[Alice]you and jealous wishing that i could do something i guess i don’t feel like i could be away i don’t i feel like i couldn’t move out of the country because i couldn’t be away from my family i don’t think it would absolutely like result in like long-term happiness for me yeah i understand
[Sawyer]that i totally get that but speaking of being excited for somebody i’m excited for you with your strong woman training can you tell us a bit about that i’d love to hear more yeah so
[Alice]oh my gosh i am it’s it’s exhausting but it’s so good because um i’m going through this long build and gosh building muscle is so freaking slow and it’s kind of discouraging like thinking like i won’t be i’m not gonna be able to compete for a little while uh while i’m going through this process because you know i’m like determined to put on as much as possible so i’m not doing any mini cuts along along the way i’m just trying to keep it clean and keep you know body fat percentage probably between like 20 to 23 percent along the way are you trying to like when it when
[Sawyer]it are you trying to like hit maintenance sometimes are you okay when you maintain for a while or are you trying to constantly push the weight up i’m trying to gain about on average a pound a month okay so very slow but yeah i do build okay so sometimes it feels like you’re
[Alice]re-comping because you know you might see like a jump in the scale and it might be like whoa this is more of a jump in the scale that i really wanted but then making sure that you’re just like consistent with tracking and then your body that’s really what a slow build is i think it’s just like a it’s just like a little bit more of an extreme like body recomp because it’s just like
[Sawyer]yeah it’s hard though it’s it’s actually really hard to not let like bulking brain i guess you could call it take over you’re like i’m bulking i can eat whatever i want you get even if you’re tracking everything but you’re getting a little too liberal with the like party food or something like that i’ve been in that situation many times in fact i think i struggle with bulking the most because i get too aggressive just because i’m like in bulking mode and i let myself eat more than i should so it’s a hard line to toe when you’re bulking but you’re not trying to gain too quickly
[Alice]you know yeah yeah i think i really just like fluctuate between like tracking mentally and then tracking like actually officially because you know i’ll go to like the tracking mentally and then it’s like all right we’re supposed to be gaining right now and so i might be like we can have a little extra of this or a little extra of that i think me along with a lot of a lot of this is more common to sort of like accidentally under eat right and so you know i have to be very mindful of that and be like all right we are eating extra right now and then you know weighing myself every day because that doesn’t that doesn’t i don’t find that very triggering at all after all of the builds and cuts right but yeah you can you get your you get the scale weight up a little bit and say all right let’s start tracking again and things will just like slowly even out and i keep my steps pretty good pretty high and i actually have like a like a what do you call it one of those scales like an embody scale that i know i know that they’re not perfectly accurate but i use that to sort of help along with like my coaching eyes to be like yes body fat is looking appropriate like we can continue pushing and yeah it’s very much like kind of like a tug
[Sawyer]and a push situation you’re kind of managing you’re trying to keep it in the middle like it’s like pong you’re like okay let me make sure it’s staying in the balance do you how many steps a day
[Alice]do you do try to get seven to ten thousand and i mean i guess it also depends on where i’m at like you know in that am i trying to make the scale move a little bit or am i trying to make the scale even
[Sawyer]out okay so it’s it’s more of a constant like managing process where you’re pulling different levers and all that because i think i think my mistakes in the past have been revolved around just being like oh just eat that much and don’t worry about it and then sometimes i get a little too liberal with stuff and then i’m like look back i’m like i did not need to gain that much and then i’m cutting sooner than i’d like to and it’s it’s like not where i want to be so i think it’s good that you are so disciplined even in a bulk because i think that’s when people are not disciplined that’s usually when it comes out it’s easier to be disciplined during a cut because you’re like oh i’m so excited and i’m gonna see more leanness and all that stuff but bulking takes longer it requires more discipline because you’re partaking in some things but not everything so it’s uh that’s a tough path i’m really proud of you though for for chasing it thanks yeah i mean
[Alice]i’ve been through a lot of the process myself and frankly i feel like that’s now my specialty is helping people like build that’s what i go through with the majority of my clients at some point it might not start out that way but they reach their goals and it’s like what’s the most
[Sawyer]productive thing i can do right now that’s cool yeah i agree i agree i like i love when i get to that point with people um or when we start out doing that but the uh it’s challenging it’s very challenging and i think it’s really important that you’ve been through it yourself uh because otherwise it’s it’s like coaching is more than just logistics right it’s like that’s great and people need to know what to do but they’re gonna feel a lot of different ways on that way on their journey to where they think they want to be and it might not be always super comfortable so it’s nice to have somebody to contextualize it for you and they’ve been through it before so it’s just like mentorship you know so anyways maybe we should get into the topic of the day what do
[Alice]you think yeah i think so so we’re talking about how to set appropriate protein intake yeah and then the end we’ll talk about some more practical considerations so i guess starting out with the question like who needs protein so i mean do you want to try and like come up with some like buckets that like come to mind for you yeah so i mean we could start with the general population
[Sawyer]the rda is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight i think that’s pretty much universally known to be pretty dang low and you’ve got people all over the spectrum i have i work with some medical professionals who get even lower than that like it’s pretty interesting the diversity of opinions but i think if you were to ask most people most medical professionals most health health professionals they would say 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is pretty low and then on the other side of the spectrum you’ve got the strength athletes the resistance training athletes who have for a long time now espoused the 1.6 so double that amount to 2.2 which is about body weight gram per pound of body weight so the 1.6 to 2.2 is a pretty universally accepted in the fitness world for protein and so you’ve got these kind of two worlds lots of people in between some people on the outliers but i think most people are somewhere in between that 0.8 and that 1.6 i would guess there’s people that talk about like sarcopenia later in life and being around that 1.2 mark so somewhere in the middle so there’s there’s a spectrum of opinions and needs but for the most part if we’re looking at where the spectrum is and stops stops and starts it’s about on the low end 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight and on the high end about 2.2 which is about one gram per pound of body weight and i really personally enjoy uh 3dmj’s um you know dr eric helms at least um analyzation of the literature because he talks about a bunch of different protein feeding studies and he tries to extrapolate okay what is it that that we’re really looking for here and so he uses lean body mass and then creates like have you seen that it’s the tiered list of like okay it’s like possibly sufficient probably sufficient and then almost
[Alice]certainly sufficient categories based on lean body yeah i think i’ve seen it just uh well i guess for my research i was pulling up like one of the more recent like uh podcast episodes that they were talking about some some specific studies but yeah i’ve seen i’ve seen some of those but yeah talk about so before you go on these ranges i do want to put a caveat for anyone listening is that um we talk about like you know grams per kilogram or grams per pound i would say that those are really going to be applicable to people who are athletes or people who are like people like moderate body fat percentage to lower body fat percentage numbers right and we can get into like so you’re starting talking about the lean mass and for anyone that doesn’t fall into those you know athlete or lean individuals looking at the lean mass and calculating that way i think is really going to be more applicable to you do you want to talk about that a little bit yeah it’s a good
[Sawyer]point because it’s especially pertinent for those people because if if say you’re 260 but it’s mostly body fat it’s not going to be necessary that you hit you know 1.6 grams per kilogram of your body weight just just body weight right because you’re not going to be utilizing all of that it might help with appetite which we’ll talk a little bit later about but but in terms of like setting astronomically high protein amounts for those kind of people those kind of newer lifters newer newer people on the um fitness journey wouldn’t really help them in fact it’d probably make it harder for them to reach their goals because they’d be eating so much protein so yeah i think the lean body mass is helpful because it’s i guess more universally applicable to people but it also i like how they have that strata laid out of like it’s not just like you know you don’t get this much and you’re you’re screwed it’s like let’s let’s look at like what are the categorizations based on the data that we have so that that possibly sufficient probably sufficient and almost certainly sufficient and when i work with people it’s i’m trying to get people as close to that almost certainly sufficient as possible depending on their preferences their lifestyle their their real like seriousness about building muscle so it’s and and then also i will tend to encourage them to add more if they’re struggling with satiety as well so there’s a couple different you know criteria for what which category i’ll put people in but i’m usually trying to get them towards that almost certainly sufficient i can i have it on all my spreadsheets so let me uh let me just read it off real quick possibly sufficient range is um 1.5 to 1.74 times your kilograms of fat free mass um which if people don’t know that just means that your entire mass minus your fat mass right so it includes bones and organs and all that stuff so say you are i don’t know 60 kilograms lean right like just no fat on you then that would mean you need to multiply that 60 kilograms by 1.5 to 1.74 that’s the possibly sufficient category the probably sufficient category is 1.75 to 1.99 and then the almost certainly sufficient category is 2 to 2.75 they also give a different range a bunch of ranges for people who are like super lean and in the cutting process which is you know as we know is very catabolic and so you’re trying to be as muscle sparing as possible and those numbers are a bit higher but i don’t think that applies to most people so i’m probably not gonna go over that if you guys want to check that out go check out 3dmj check out dr eric helms’s analyzation of the the protein literature but basically when we’re talking about most people 9.9 percent of people it’s going to be in that 1.5 to 2.75 range of um your lean mass in kilograms so i like using that because it’s a little bit more specific i don’t have to guesstimate people’s body fat percentage uh quite as much i mean i do because you have to try to figure out their lean mass but in terms of trying to figure out okay how is this person is 40 percent body fat like what’s a good number for them because if you’re just going off of total mass it’s just it’s just not that helpful see 1.5 to 2.2 was that the was that the range you just 75 is the up is a very high high up range and i’m usually trying to get people into the 2 to 2.75 range per kilogram of lean body mass and if all that’s too complicated i’m sure alice you probably have a different way of doing it uh there’s there’s so many ways to do it that are going to be totally fine it’s just one of the ways i like to do it to make sure that i’m not not accounting for body fat percentage or um you know skipping over anything yeah and then like i said beyond that if they are uh you know you have to consider their preferences and what they’re able to do right now and their satiety but maybe we get into that a little bit later i’d love to know your process for deciding you know the range that you like to be in with clients and yourself yeah um
[Alice]so i mean to to like super super simplify like obviously we’re gonna all our coaches are going to be making something extremely customized to you that’s why we have like this long questionnaire that asks all kinds of things about how you’re eating um if you know if you’re already tracking your macros and we look at basically like 1.2 grams per pound of lean mass is that and that’s sort of where we start at um so for women a lot of times like you know i’m going to start women out like thinking can they make something like 100 grams you know and for men it’s like okay can they start out you know making like 140 150 grams right and you know we’ll customize it from there depending on your goals um and you know some people might not enjoy protein foods right some people um just might not really know what to eat and we’ll talk more about some like protein options later everything’s going to be like on a sliding scale and what would be not only achievable for you but will be like optimal for you so when we look at like it makes it a little like confusing when we talk about lean mass right so i think the easiest way to like figure out someone’s lean mass if you were to actually try and calculate this for yourself um and you can ask one of the coaches or just email us at coachofveganproteins.com if you’re having a hard time like figuring out what is my body fat percentage like a lot of us can sort of eyeball and figure it out now but you can google like female body fat percentage chart or male body fat percentage chart and you can see a lot of different like a scale range of like about what you know this photograph looks like for such and such different numbers and this number does not have to be exact like i think people stress a lot about being like am i you know like a five percent difference it’s not going to make that big of a difference once you like choose one that you think all right i feel pretty good like landing on this picture for my body you know then you’re going to take obviously your scale weight and you’re going to multiply it right times that percentage and then you can literally subtract that subtract that from your from your um from your total weight and there you go that is your approximately mass yeah i like that thank you for
[Sawyer]explaining that and um i also do like that you said well for women it ends up usually being around 100 for men it usually ends up being around 150 that’s typically what it ends up being around so if if we really wanted to that would probably get us where we wanted to go you know 90 95 percent of the time so when we’re when we’re talking practicality yeah we want to make sure that we’re not getting too zeroed in on body fat percentage and making that that too big of a because as as in dr eric helms talks about and a lot of guys at 3dmj talk about is the the protein literature i think it might have been iron bound actually that dr eric helms was on but they were talking about the protein literature and how there is a correlation between increased protein intake and increased muscle protein synthesis right so it’s like okay it is a helpful thing to have protein but the thing is that the order of magnitude is actually not that huge like the difference between eating you know 120 versus 140 grams of protein or 160 grams of protein is not that massive it’s like it’s important to remember that when when we give protein recommendations you know we have these different strata we have these different ways of doing it but at the end of the day if you’re getting enough or sim like close to enough most days it’s going to serve you pretty well if you’re not a professional bodybuilder and you’re trying to gain every gram of muscle that you possibly can then then eating you know 20 or 30 grams less than is ideal or whatever is not going to ruin you so i think it’s really important that we contextualize all this stuff with our recommendations and say hey look you don’t need to be super exact and also even if you were trying to be very precise it’s a guesstimate and and the amounts between you know a higher and lower amount we don’t see that big of a difference in the literature so it’s not like something to get very obsessive over yeah
[Alice]yeah for sure i mean so coming back to like our buckets for just a second um so normal people obviously you’re not gonna need a ton of protein you know but i think in general you know as a fitness coach and someone in nutrition i would say most people need to eat more eat more than what they are currently consuming right yeah and like i would say like for most people like i would say please like if you absolutely if you can if you can like try not to go below like you know 70 80
[Sawyer]grams of protein a day right would you agree with that yeah i think i think like it’s kind of like when you first start lifting and you don’t even need to be doing all that many things perfectly exactly right you’re gonna get the lion’s share of the benefits just by showing up and doing a little bit more than you were so like yeah you can get into the higher amounts and play with that and more training volume and all this stuff later but for now i think if yeah if you hit that like 70 80 gram amount especially uh when you’re first starting you’re gonna notice benefits from that and then you can decide if you want to keep going in that direction but i think that yeah that’s a good starting point for most people to just try to pay attention to am i getting like you know a good decent amount to start and am i noticing a difference in how i feel and how i perform with
[Alice]those yeah yeah yeah so for people who are uh concerned about muscle which i think is most people listening to this podcast right if you’re if you are even if you’re trying even if you’re primarily here to lose weight right i think even if you’re in this audience there’s a little bit of like i would like to have muscle on my physique i’m starting to understand like the health benefits of having muscle right for longevity for health for independence right we want to take all these things into consideration like we can get into a little bit of a nuance like even more so like how much do you need more protein if you’re trying to gain muscle do you need more protein if you’re trying to lose fat and in general if you are you know not in like an elderly bucket i’d say when you when you’re going through a fat loss phase you want your your protein to be on the higher end right because you’re trying to maintain as much muscle as you can throughout that process you know i hate the term skinny fat but it’s a good example to like help sort of people understand what can happen if we’re just sort of dieting without lifting weights without eating protein right our body is actually a lot faster and a lot better at burning our lean tissue our muscle than it is at breaking down like our stored fat cells especially during activity right if we’re if we’re doing if we’re walking if we are running if we are playing sports if we are lifting weights like if we are not adequately fueled with nutrition like the body is actually going to take like a bigger chunk percentage wise of your muscle right so that’s why we say like you would need more protein because it just it plays that protective that protective role and i would also argue like eat carbs with that protein because the carbs are even more protective yeah yeah we don’t want your body going and being like oh we’re going to use this protein that you just gave me for fuel and it’s not actually going to go towards building muscle and you know then we’re walking the spine
[Sawyer]line yeah i really like how you said that i think when if you’re ever in a situation where you are at increased risk for muscle loss whether that’s sarcopenia and old age older age if you’re dieting aggressively or even not that aggressively if you want to have like it’s just more of an insurance policy more than anything it’s not like you’re guaranteed to lose muscle if you’re cutting or something like that especially if it’s at a reasonable rate but it’s just nice to have a little bit extra to say okay i’m i’m covering my bases here and then some a little bit and it’s good to have and i like how you also mentioned the carbs too because carbs are also muscle sparing and they’re especially important when you’re cutting because you’re going to be in a depleted state a lot of the time meaning you don’t have glycogen you don’t have as much accessible energy and if you want to have good training sessions which is going to be the really key thing for keeping muscle on your body then you better be carving up before those workouts and so that might mean that fat is taking a back seat for a while dietary fat is taking a back seat for a while while protein and carbs kind of run the show because yeah if you’re if you’re not performing well in the gym and if you’re not eating enough protein you’re going to have a hard time holding on to muscle on the way back on the way down to lower body fat percentages or i guess right i love
[Alice]i love what you mentioned that because i think i think you know a lot of people will talk about oh how important protein is for say elderly right because you touched upon sarcopenia so i think that’s really important thing to talk about because all the science shows that for muscle retention for muscle gaining elderly need higher higher higher like some of the highest amounts of protein as far as our scales that we keep referring to right because there’s so much more at risk for for sarcopenia a lot of times they’re trying to maybe maybe they lived a big chunk of their life to be very sedentary and now they’re trying to catch up right so that’s someone who would definitely be i would say on the higher scale also people who are who are recently injured people who have recently had surgery because you know i think i think a lot of people think oh i’ve i’ve just you know i’m laying around in bed trying to recover from some procedure or some injury and our instinct is like i don’t need to eat as much right meanwhile our body is like fighting for its life trying to find these these freaking nutrients and you’re not fueling it enough like your body is going to take away like your existing proteins your existing lean tissue to fuel that repair so one of the biggest mistakes you can make is under eating when you are trying to recover yes now it’s important you know it’s important that you have that muscle tissue already but like yeah i don’t know if y’all have seen any of like the recent social media posts of people like so before and after surgery before and after cancer even where like oh i had this great physique and then went through you know this recovery phase this surgery and like poof you
[Sawyer]know all that lean tissue’s gone yeah it’s a combo of of not keeping it active like it’s use it or lose it and also that protein amount can can make a big difference too i i have seen i don’t know if you’ve seen uh but for people with sarcopenia i’ve seen recommendations of 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight plus that’s what i’ve seen um which is yeah the rda again is 0.8 for general population but 1.2 for sarcopenia people yeah i think it’s really good that that we kind of keep that in mind for people who are recovering or yeah have more anabolic resistance now they’re that they’re getting older they need to just do more to keep keep maintaining and and maybe building and then on top of that you know protein is also really satiating i don’t know if you’re ready to move on to that yet but i i feel like that’s a really good thing to mention too because for people with higher appetites who have a really hard time getting to lower calorie amounts and staying sane you know i’ve seen or at least anecdotally i’ve i have some colleagues in the medical profession who can test this and they’re like no i don’t think so i don’t and there are some studies to back up what they’re saying but for me in my experience and in my coaching experience i’ve seen increasing protein to be a very satiating variable that we can do oh you know what before we even get on to that i thought it would be really good to talk about quickly that sometimes when when people are older and they have these metabolic diseases like they have cardiovascular disease they have heart disease they can be kind of encouraged to stay away from protein because they’re the only thing they know or at least what medical professionals are assuming that they’re doing is going to be eating animal protein right and so they know and and we know from the literature from you know 100 years now that increasing saturated fat and decreasing fiber or taking up space in the diet of places you know places that could have fiber with you know animal proteins is only going to lead to worse worse outcomes with those kinds of things so you a lot of older people feel like they’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place where they need to you know preserve muscle tissue that’s really important for all the things that they’re trying to do you know insulin resistance not have breaks when they fall like all these things that happen as they get older and they need to have more lean tissue on their on their bodies but on the other side of things they feel like well i can’t eat that much protein because then my saturated fat goes up and then my heart health and everything like that and heart disease as we know is the number one killer so that’s where plant proteins really shine and it becomes very clear that they shine because for most of your life you can get away with eating animal proteins and not having to worry about it it’s only later in life when you’ve done the damage to your artery walls and your insulin resistance and all these things that you start to realize i should have been eating this way the whole time so i hope that that message rings loud and clear for people is that you don’t have to choose between having muscle and having a nice physique and having you know appreciable amount of muscle into older age and your heart health okay you could do both by eating more plant protein which is high in fiber low in saturated fat and is going to help you stay healthy even as you hold on to muscle and one caveat just just uh
[Alice]since we’re talking about people with health conditions the only people that really do need to hold off on the protein are people with chronic kidney disease yeah true listen to your
[Sawyer]doctors definitely definitely listen to that because yeah kidney filtration issues is a whole nother beast but yeah i i like that you mentioned that anyway sorry getting back to what i was going on to which is the satiation anecdotally at the very least i’ve noticed i don’t know if you have too with your clients but when when i do dial up the protein a little bit usually it’s about 15 20 grams i start people like edging people up even if they’re already in the golden rain golden range whatever you want to call it but that range the doctor accounts suggests is the is the probably sufficient amount even if they’re in there but they’re still experiencing hunger and they want to keep dieting that’s when i’ll say all right well we can try it let’s let’s bump up your protein by another 20 grams or so see how you feel if that helps great if not maybe it’s time for a maintenance phase or something like that but it is a tool that i pull out of the tool bag occasionally
[Alice]would you do that same thing so i rarely change my clients protein goals unless their personal goals change saying you were going from a cut to flipping into into a bulk right mainly because you know a lot of people don’t enjoy eating protein food and i’m trying to keep them as happy as possible throughout the process yeah but so your question you’re you’re like for satiating effect you increase people’s protein but yeah okay for satiating effect okay so i found i saw a really really interesting article like literally like last week or the week before that was talking about protein is satiating when for people up to a certain like amount like basically once we get into the like good ranges maybe not this the specifically golden ranges like 3dmj is recommending but once you raise your protein amount to like adequate like meeting your body’s needs then the satiety portion of it that’s diminishing returns so i think this is really really cool like a really awesome finding because because when people go and eat in the wild you know americans right we’re going to be going for those high fat foods those high carb foods and naturally our protein consumption is going to be like rock bottom like much lower especially i’d say for women i’m having a hard time keeping my train of thought for satiety but anything above that right like you’re gonna you’re gonna feel better you’re gonna you’re not i’ve had clients come to me and say that they are that they had reduced cravings that’s the biggest thing that they’ve noticed since they’ve been able to adhere to that higher protein diet yeah and i think it’s because you know that nutritional need is being met of course we also have to think about things like you know our vitamins and minerals and micronutrients as well that could also play a part but i think protein is a really big piece of that puzzle i agree i think and i agree i think the more
[Sawyer]any with anything the better you get at something and the more you push that up the more diminishing returns you get it’s like volume right you could do a decent amount of volume in the gym and then you do more than that you get a little bit better gains you do more than that like you’re you’re kind of pushing it at some point right you’re you’re gonna be hungry if you’re in a thousand calorie deficit for six months or whatever you know so there it’s not a fix all the other thing is is that yeah it is multifactorial there’s other nutrients that we can use and other things we can do and so when i tell people hey are you getting hungry and a cut um yeah we’ll try to increase the protein but i’m also going to say hey let’s try to increase the fiber as well let’s increase your water intake let’s increase the volume of the foods you eat so let’s start incorporating more leafy greens and berries and cruciferous vegetables because that’s just gonna that combination of all those things is what i’ve noticed to be the most helpful in terms of trying to keep people’s hunger under control especially those who just have a naturally higher appetite than others which i would i would consider myself to probably have a little bit higher than average at least a little bit higher than average appetite and so i have to lean on these things periodically myself to get to stay in the balance like i said i even when i’m bulking i have a hard time keeping the calories under control knowing that those four things the protein water volume and fiber can be very helpful for satiety it’s it’s not just in cuts that you can manage that it’s like turning those dials up or down depending on what you’re trying to do how fast you’re trying to go they can be really helpful tools but yeah the protein is one of them so i thought i would mention
[Alice]that first absolutely coming back just because i don’t want to leave the rest of the elderly conversation like without sort of like the something that’s really important for especially elderly to understand i mean i think young people too but there’s a lot of push there’s a lot of push as someone who is older to eat more protein right and eating more protein can play a protective role in the muscle tissue that you already have but just that caveat real quick just before we move on is in order for you to really be gaining and really like optimally retaining muscle you need to be doing weight training weight training is going to be 90 percent of your ability to build and maintain your muscle the protein by itself is besides some protective effects it’s not going to be like the end-all be-all to this solution yeah yeah when people are bedridden they lose muscle like fast you know right we can’t eat higher protein when you’re bedridden and it can slow it down it can make it less severe right but yeah typically you need both of those things yeah and coming back for let’s flip the other side of the coin for younger people who are just like because i think there’s a lot of debate in the plant-based movement the vegan movement like is protein really that important right like because there’s plenty of research out there that’ll tell you like you just need to lift weights you just need to lift weights don’t worry about your protein don’t worry about your protein and while it’s true that 90 percent of like your ability to build and maintain muscle is going to come from that weight training i would say to those people like you’re going to hit a ceiling pretty darn quick and i would say i would argue that most of you you know if you’re just going about it with with not worrying about your protein and you tend to be falling on the lower side like below sort of like the recommended limits you’re going to be disappointed you’re going to be disappointed in your in your results i think as a lot for a lot of women like your upper body is going to look pretty good but you’re not going to get those glute and those leg gains that you’re really looking for without thinking about protein
[Sawyer]yeah that’s a good way to put it another way of saying that is like the more seriously you take the gym and in your physique and everything i think the more seriously you should think about eating a little bit more protein too because it does help and we see that in the literature so it is something to consider you don’t have to obsess over it but it is something that will help you especially if you’re trying to build more muscle and maintain and another thing i know we’re jumping around a lot but because you’ve made a lot of good points i want to make sure that we add to that which is that maintenance is a heck of a lot easier than it is to build even just moving like i said bedridden you’re losing muscle like crazy fast but just moving around and using your body normally you’ll be able to maintain some muscle because it’s just like that different putting weight bearing exercises and things like that doing body weight things even you can maintain muscle so it’s not that you have this super high bar for maintaining in fact it’s pretty low to even gain when you first start it’s you can almost do anything training wise and build muscle it’s only as you build an appreciate about appreciable amount of muscle that you have to like start designing your life more and more around building muscle if you want to keep going so it’s really like you know the people who say oh i don’t want to get too big or too bulky or whatever and it’s like that’s like saying oh i don’t want to play basketball because i could end up michael jordan you know what i mean it’s it’s like you get to decide at which level you feel like that’s good i’m chilling here right if you if it’s just a health thing for you and you want to have some muscle in your body for that cool then you get your blood checked you check your insulin sensitivity if you have enough muscle and you’re doing fine and you’re eating healthy then you’re probably fine with the amount of muscle you have you don’t need to do a whole bunch more but if you’re trying to build more and more muscle on top of that that’s where you need to get smarter eat some more protein program some more volume that kind of stuff yeah yeah so what about the
[Alice]people who are coming in here because we get these people too who are just eating a ridiculous amount
[Sawyer]of protein sawyer like what’s yeah those are few and far between but they do happen and i think what it comes down to is they have been convinced or led to believe that that protein is like more important than it really is yeah and then to the point where it starts crowding out things that are important like carbs and healthy dietary fats and that’s it’s going to be a problem because then their performance is going to suffer and then the sustainability of the diet is going to be tough too because like i mean try to go on a vacation and eat 200 plus grams of protein without you know without going over 3 000 calories minimum is going to be tough yeah so yeah to those people i would say do you really notice a difference between what you’re eating and like you know two thirds of that on a regular basis and maybe trying to eat less just do as an experiment try to eat less but eat more carbs and see how you feel and see how much more you enjoy your diet
[Alice]that’s true that’s not fair to everyone because there are some people who just love protein food and if that’s you like i don’t want to rain on your parade if that is just like you literally if you can honestly look at me in the eye and say like i think protein foods taste better i crave protein foods it’s eight o’clock at night and i’m having a craving and i still want pure protein food then i’m like okay you like it yeah well i mean i think it could be
[Sawyer]something that really helps a lot of people who have big appetites too like i think people with big appetites have to be very creative because people who are listening to this probably know like we all know somebody who can just put food away and if they’re not careful they can gain weight pretty dang easily or lose the the results that they’ve achieved pretty easily and if that’s the lever they want to pull to like keep their body fat and their body weight under control then more power to them as long as they can do it in a healthy way not overloading themselves with saturated fat and things like that but yeah i don’t think we should definitely definitely don’t want to shame people for having their strategies it’s just a matter of are you doing it because it really helps you and it feels good or is it because you’re afraid to not get enough protein and that would be like your biggest fear because chances are you’re probably overdoing it if you’re
[Alice]if you’re too focused on protein like that and what what is overdoing it guys like so uh i i’m i’m looking at some of the most recent studies i should have them pulled up that i could actually list the names we can maybe put them in like the notes or something but basically some of the newer like meta-analyses are showing that like your progression is going to like as far as protein intake is concerned it’s going to flatline at about two grams per kilogram of protein right per kilogram of body weight and that equates to about like 0.91 grams per pound so anything above that and it’s like if you had this out on a line chart it’s gonna just flatten out like that’s
[Sawyer]interesting because the thing yeah that’s interesting i think like the 3dmj guys were saying well it seems like it’s there’s no real like flat line it’s very hard to find a point at which but in any case it’s it’s so at that level it’s so minuscule any potential benefits that they would probably be outweighed by the things we’re talking about right like exactly crowding out of other healthier foods having a balanced diet and feeling like you could sustain it like at that point you know over a gram or you know gram per pound of body weight or so i think most people would start seeing or having a little bit more trouble doing it sustainably maybe if you’re a leaner lifter and doing an aggressive dieting phase okay but outside of that yeah i don’t really put people over a gram per pound of body weight i just don’t see that and same with satiety i don’t think it would help all that much at that point either so yeah even the diminishing returns like
[Alice]really start to get greater according to this particular amount analysis like at 0.73 grams per pound so like that’s when it’s like yeah you might still be getting like a little bit of a upward movement but it’s going to be getting closer and closer to flat yeah it’s it’s just
[Sawyer]diminishing it’s just like anything else in life the more you crank on one variable the less effective it’s going to be and so you have to take a holistic approach and just realize okay i’m doing like edging my protein up higher and higher and at first it was it was helping me with satiety and muscle retention and all these things and then at some point if you keep going up and up and up you might notice like okay those benefits aren’t really happening in the same magnitude and maybe it’s a good idea to look elsewhere for the kind of effects that i’m looking for or maybe it’s time that you actually need to take you know a maintenance phase or you need to you know do a bulk or something like that because i think sometimes we try to use these things to override you know the physiological processes that are happening like you cannot stay in a cut forever you know what i mean like as appealing as it is to be lean and shredded year-round your body will stop you at a certain point and there’s nothing you could there’s no amount of protein you could
[Alice]eat to get past that and same with the training rate is just going to continue getting lower and lower and lower guys and basically you’re just going to keep continuing making it harder and harder for you to maintain and or lose weight if you continue living and that calorie deficit i have this conversation with people all the time it is important that you eat a sufficient amount of calories or you’re just going to be shooting yourself in the foot especially as you get older that’s a lot of the client held that come to us right right and your energy is just going to tank
[Sawyer]so your workouts are not going to be anything so yeah if you can’t keep your workout performance decent that usually is a good that that’s pretty much the canary in the coal mine that you’re going to start losing muscle if you cannot keep your training intense and and really good quality and enough volume to really stimulate at least maintenance but you know it’s got that’s going to be a higher bar the deeper you get into a cut you need to keep an eye on your performance and your strength because if those are tanking that is your sign to get out and eat some more
[Alice]calories yeah yeah and oh this brings up an interesting thing carson um just finished competing uh about a month or two ish month and some change ago and uh we were on the way back from his final competition and he’s been talking about wanting to get a dexascan right don’t we don’t we all when we’re like around competition like man it’s so cool to get a dexa yeah well he actually did it we did it on the way back home and we had some really interesting conversations with uh the the technicians at the dexa place because they also can check like your resting metabolic rate and i was like what’s the lowest you have seen and he said he said 900 calories wow yeah wow and of course this was for you know middle age i can’t remember if he said she was perry or post-menopause which might have been terry um but that’s what happens when you have been keeping yourself so so small eating so so little not weight lifting for so long so basically what that means guys in order for her to be in a calorie deficit she would have to eat less than 900 calories a day and i don’t wish that on a single soul like that is miserable so while while there is still such a thing as you know the law of calories in calories out right this is this this is science we do still need to be eating enough like normally day to day to day for that fuel for that muscle maintenance to keep your performance up because otherwise like it’s it’s pretty much you’re basically starving yourself at that point in order to keep your your size
[Sawyer]yeah i mean she she would uh it would depend on her you know movement and how much she’s actually doing at that point but you know yeah 900 is not a very solid base to be built you know adding calories on top of but yeah i think it’s important that people realize like having muscle mass and being active are really important things because it’s going to be very hard especially in this world to keep the calories low enough and feel well enough because yeah how are you going to get all of your vitamin c calcium zinc all that stuff in under a thousand calories a day that’s really hard you have to like that’s like trying to fit i don’t know what’s a good metaphor for that trying to fit all your all your nutrients into one small little bag like that’s really hard to do the reason like living off of multivitamins yeah yeah it’s a good idea it’s a good good way to put it because if you’re not if you don’t have a variety of foods coming in throughout the day you have to be very selective if you only have a very small pouch to fill up and you have to put all your nutrients in there that’s that’s really tough so you could you could accumulate or have nutrient deficiencies you’re gonna have a hard time being energetic at that point that’s just that’s rough so i think that’s why i’ve especially this year put more of an emphasis on activity just through steps in addition to my training and that allows me to eat more calories than i would otherwise even in a cut which is really nice i don’t feel like i am suffering as much with uh with um you know hunger but also i can keep my calories higher i have more carbs before my workouts so my workouts are good are better so being active and having muscle on your frame really does pay dividends
[Alice]over the course of quality of life your quality of life now as far as weight maintenance is concerned as far as feeling good as far as having the energy to just live a productive active life
[Sawyer]yeah there’s so much totally so yeah i think protein is important in conclusion protein is important it’s not everything but it’s important and um and trying to get a baseline of at least you know 70 80 grams and then seeing from there depending on how intense you want to go with your goals in that direction and how satiating and all that stuff it is then you you can titrate it up from there but i think it’s really important that we just have a baseline amount that’s that’s more than the standard american diet without the astronomical calories of the standard american
[Alice]diet can i talk about maintenance for a second because something really really interesting with regards to protein like if you are eating at maintenance or in a slight calorie surplus you know a lot of people sort of default to being like oh i need to like max out that that protein uh you know grams that i’m eating um that ratio all these recommendations right but here’s the thing as long as you’re eating like you know sort of like at least in that i’d say what do you call the golden range i mean again i’d say for women at least 100 grams men at least 150 grams as long as you’re eating at least that you don’t need to have super high protein in order to continue seeing gains the thing is all of those other you know calories that you’re getting from the carbohydrates and the fats play such a protective role for your muscle that you can still like you can do amazing so don’t feel like you have to like max it out unless you know i would say like a calorie deficit needs higher but if you’re maintenance or literally going through a build phase it does not need to be like all about the protein guys yeah i like that advice i like 100
[Sawyer]and 150 because that’s usually where people land unless you’re exceptionally big or exceptionally small yeah it’s other than that you know most people are going to fall into that’s that’s going to be adequate for them and um and not too crazy over the top and i think you’re right when you say that most people are going to be able to get really good amounts of progress with that and then another thing to mention is that like you’ll probably start liking more you’re finding more protein dense foods that you that you like more along the way and so it’ll probably even get easier to eat more if you wanted to or do it just by default so that is something worth mentioning do we want to talk at all about how we prefer to get our protein like what are our favorite sources
[Alice]to get people i’m sure there’s people on here being like how am i going to get all this protein you guys want so yeah sawyer talk about some of your favorite things and i’ll talk about some of my favorite things and especially things that i know help women yeah no it’s good we’re doing it
[Sawyer]this at the end because then i can eat right after so because i’m gonna get hungry so in a cut it’s different right you have to eat probably leaner sources of protein and and so what i’ve been gravitating towards is things like gluten or like seitan and things like those edamame puffs like those protein puffs oh my gosh are those a hack protein cereals are great too i usually put those right before my workouts because they’re pretty carb heavy as well but low in fat so those kinds of things i’ve been making a homemade seitan that that ben gave me the recipe for basically you just throw gluten flour in a bowl with a little bit of water some spices some seasonings um a couple of sauces little tiny bit of oil and you get to make like a like a holiday roast kind of thing right when you do the math on it i mean eating half of that is like 48 grams of protein and like 300 calories it’s something just like gluten seitan is like the king if you ask me of vegan protein and protein in general because like well you you can’t do that with any other protein source in the world animal or plant-based yeah seitan is is amazing for especially if you’re cutting and then and then those edamame puffs the smart for life edamame puffs oh my gosh so clutch and then yeah for for when i’m feeling a little snackier before a workout and when i want to have some carbs i’ll do like a bowl of protein cereal sometimes i’ll do with the smart edamame puffs with it and then i’ll have like frozen fruit and some soy milk and that’s like i’m good i’m trying to think what else daring chicken’s really good morning star chicken strips are really good obviously tofu is great you can get either extra firm which is like 35 40 grams of protein per block or you can get super firm with like trader joe’s walmart those have like 70 grams of protein per block so it’s it’s crazy and then i guess lastly i would say protein pastas are great red lentil pastas edamame pastas beryllium protein plus is great so yeah you can do a lot with that stuff those are just like ingredients that you can just add to things and you know i love that
[Alice]kind of stuff what about you uh so you know some of these are going to be repeated but you know when you’re in a cut yeah seitan is probably going to be i mean anytime anytime in my opinion being safe having seitan is like the best part about being vegan because i make my own i have so many different recipes person’s playing with a bunch of recipes right now he just made this amazing seitan roast beef and we’re making rubens out of it oh my gosh i’m i’m obsessed i’m obsessed if you are not making seitan then you are missing out but obviously not every single soul can have seitan but right so super firm tofu i think it’s important to talk about because basically if you look if you have been checking your macros and trying to incorporate that you’re going to notice that it’s basically equal parts protein to dietary fats right as far as the how the calories shake okay now people hear that and they’re like what they think i should not eat super firm tofu i should not eat tofu blah blah blah blah i would definitely disagree with that i think that super firm tofu is one of the most satiating foods that you can eat i like to have it around my workouts because i don’t get hungry at all that is when i feel the most the most satisfied i’m the least thinking about food i try to fit in super firm tofu once a day when i am on a cut just for the satiety purpose you know they say beans are one of the most satiating foods and tofu is from edamame from beans yeah so there is science around this guys it’s very important to remember this now uh having it more than once a day gets really hard to fit in right and it has very healthy fats in it and why i add don’t worry about you know thinking it’s like poor quality fats and you’re super firm tofu so you can also include my gosh silken tofus for any kind of like desserts i tell you like people think people think that soy tastes gross i’m like you haven’t tried anything with soy because literally like soy is basically like the perfect substitute for cheese and milk in any kind of situation so like the best cheese sauces are going to come from silken tofu the best desserts kinds of things that you know would be like a milk substitute like making like ice cream from from tofu okay guys so if you don’t have a ninja creamy you are missing out we have a ninja creamy we have protein ice cream with silken tofu and some soy protein isolate every single night the macros are incredible it’s so creamy and so perfect like that sounds amazing wonderful way to cut you don’t feel like you are missing out at all
[Sawyer]like all the ice cream coatings yeah are we gonna be able to have this when i’m in boston by any chance i wanted that they have a creamy i could make it yeah i would just worship you if you were to do it i’d be like alice you are the queen i want to try that dani has some good
[Alice]recipes too i haven’t had hers yet but oh my gosh i’m obsessed the way you’re talking about it i need to try this i need to try this yeah yeah soy ice cream similarly so the macros are very similar to firm to super firm tofu but uh butler soy curls guys in my opinion is the best swap for like a taste yeah um it’s amazing and oh my gosh butler’s it has to be butler’s brand in my opinion that’s like the og brand and i just cannot find anything else that like is is at that level now you do have to make sure you make it right when you’re rehydrating it it doesn’t say on the instructions that you actually have to wring out like physically like with your hands wring out the soy curls before you go and cook them if you just rehydrate them and throw them in the skillet like that they’re gonna be soggy and gross make sure you’re you wring those things out guys yeah but amazing amazing is very similar to tbp is not a good one so yeah tbp textured vegetable protein which is typically made from soy there’s also a lot of textured pea proteins available now i’m using outdoor herbivore which is not a vegan brand but randomly enough they have a really good pea protein on their website it’s like a camping website and it’s pretty affordable sometimes pea protein in general things made from pea protein can still be expensive for not good reasons it’s because they used to be expensive and they’re just still like keep hanging on to that high price wow yeah yeah like when pea protein first came out like really it was it was considered rare and hard to get and yeah they it was pricey right yeah um that’s actually what danny and akuma like used to focus on selling a lot of the time before they did coaching when the company was vegan proteins because they sold vegan proteins yeah that’s cool such extra protein you mentioned the freaking protein pastas ladies this is going to be a game changer for you um he mentioned the good brands barilla protein plus pasta that does have gluten in it if you mean free then i recommend explore red lentil pasta oh my gosh it’s just got the consistency the best mouthfeel some of these protein pastas they kind of fall apart and crumble apart when you cook them and they just don’t have like they don’t feel like pasta like when you’re chewing on them yeah but the explore is very good the barilla the barilla protein plus you wouldn’t even know that you’re having a normal yeah it’s exactly the same yeah um and there’s lots and lots of options for that and then cooking with vital wheat gluten ladies vital wheat gluten is the ingredient that you make uh seitan out of so you can buy this as a flour and you can put it into all kinds of anything that’s bread like anything that’s pancake waffle bread dessert cake cookie you can fit it in there and you can bump up the protein intake to that and it is a game changer
[Sawyer]there are lots of good recipes online yeah i’ve been making like a banana bread recipe with that and it’s been awesome it’s like instead of flour i just use blended oats and gluten flour and put those together one to one it’s very dense but it’s it’s filling i get my sweet tooth fix while i’m cutting it’s perfect yeah basically if if you guys have the ability to make your own food and you have the time and energy for that it’s gonna serve you just so well in your fitness journey because it’s just like you can start tweaking things and then that just becomes the way you do things you don’t even have to think about it after a while you just get enough protein because the way you make things has enough protein you know yeah yeah so no i i agree we cook all of our food we
[Alice]cook oh my gosh thank goodness for person because he cooks a lot i cook i cook for myself a lot but he will he likes he actually enjoys like playing in the kitchen so he will just like he’s like i’m just gonna go make blah blah blah and it turns out great big mountain tofu guys fava bean tofu that’s a huge huge game changer if you’re in a cut um what else some other kind of mop meats that we didn’t discuss that are still very clean and things like tofurkey oh my goodness just making yourself a regular like deli sandwich those are good if you can’t see i’m air quoting deli sandwich because obviously it’s vegan well you mentioned morningstar you mentioned daring i like morningstar there’s lots of good morningstar products and there’s some of the more affordable ones i find that they are you know the the easiest for me to digest i love the morningstar sausage patties make sure you get the vegan ones because there are sneaky sneaky vegetarian ones that look almost the same
[Sawyer]oh my gosh yeah i got mad the other day i was like gonna get some i was like oh these are on sale i was like what the heck like they fit like egg whites in there or something like yeah i know
[Alice]i’m like what the hell so they do have some vegetarian products so just watch out for that but they’re the most widely available morningstar and some of the most affordable i would say um i also like the morningstar steakhouse style burgers very very good if you can’t sign and if you can still find them shoot i had it not gardein boca boca boca burgers i do like you can find the green box those are really good really easy on macros are you thinking of any other
[Sawyer]mock meats that that you like yeah they’re kind of they’re kind of pricey but beyond steak is
[Alice]really good oh yeah the the steak tips they come in a bag guys when he says beyond steak don’t think like steak think like crumbles almost yeah the macros are phenomenal so good like i love with
[Sawyer]those and the morningstar chicken strips my favorite meat substitutes i make tacos with those i’ll put them on you know anything pastas you know buddha bowls any of that yeah beyond
[Alice]just came out with just like beyond chicken that aren’t fried chicken they’re they aren’t like um you know when we call them not like tenders they’re just like plain chicken pieces chicken um and they don’t have any breading on them it’s delicious um and you know a lot of people like to hate on beyond and impossible but let me tell you guys over the past many years i’d say probably five years beyond and impossible have been working very hard to reduce their saturated fats and make their ingredients lists shorter and take off the ingredients that people do not like to see on ingredients lists yeah they have really really been cleaning house on their products because you know let’s just say it a lot of the curiosity about beyond and impossible is sort of fading because they’ve been around for a little while so now they’re trying to appeal to vegan customers so they are literally trying to make you happier guys and so pay attention to that and don’t just say beyond and impossible no way don’t lump them into this unhealthy category it’s not fair it’s
[Sawyer]amazing things they’ve been doing yeah i think they got some some good products now i think definitely i avoided them the burger patties and the sausages i didn’t really do too much of that because of the saturated fat content but the yeah a lot of the stuff beyond steak tips man that is that’s like probably my favorite between it’s between that and the trader joe’s beefless bulgogi
[Alice]those are like i do twitter joe’s um also trader joe’s has a ground that gosh it has like a picture of a bell pepper on the front it’s very very good it’s soy based and that is one of the best grounds
[Sawyer]in my opinion guys yeah i’ve had that one i’m not a huge fan but it’s their own it’s their own that’s cool yeah i think we’ve listed quite a few so that’s cool hopefully people have some stuff to go
[Alice]now yeah um also one last thing about impossible and beyond as long as you don’t get something that is breaded like chicken tenders chicken nuggets or whatever they’re all gluten-free guys i bet
[Sawyer]you didn’t know that yeah i didn’t know that actually that’s cool cool all right well that was a lot of fun i think we covered a lot of ground there and hopefully people walk away from this conversation thinking okay i’m gonna get this amount and not stress about getting astronomical amounts of protein and and then they have some options for how they’re going to do that
[Alice]you know so thank you guys again uh for tuning in to another episode of being vegan proteins muscles by brussels radio my name is alice and i’m sawyer and we’ll see you guys later bye
