Friday Reading Report: Protein

Americans, in general, are obsessed about protein.  Someone we know or love or both, like a friend or kid, goes vegetarian, and we freak out—but how will they get enough protein???

Here’s the deal:  unless you or someone you know happens to be food insecure (i.e., unlikely to get enough food to prevent malnutrition/starving), the odds are very very slim that daily protein needs are not going to be met.

Don’t believe me?  Here is some math to compute Recommended Daily Allowance.  Keep in mind that the RDA is intended to meet the needs of most people, meaning that many of us don’t need even the full RDA.  The RDA for adults ages 19 to 50 is .8 g of protein per kg of body weight.  The average American, according to the internet, weighs 80.7 kg (177.54 pounds).  That Average Jane/Joe would need 64.56 g of protein per day.  If she/they/he is in fact average for an American, actual protein intake is about 100 g per day, or well over the requirement.

What if Jane/Joe is a child?  She/they/he does need slightly more grams of protein per kg of body weight (1.52 g/kg for infants to 6 months old, 1.5 g/kg for babies up to 12 months, 1.1 g/kg for toddlers 1-3 years old, .95 for children 4 to 13, and .85 for teens 14 to 18).  Still, this goal is totally manageable and almost always surpassed by Americans who have sufficient food at all.

If Jane/Joe is an athlete, she/they/he probably still doesn’t need to increase protein intake.  Muscle activity is first fueled by glucose and fatty acids.  Protein is essential for rebuilding the exercise-damaged tissues in their new, stronger iterations after weight work, but again, the overages built into what we already eat take care of any additional needs.  Specifically supplementing for protein often just results in too many calories, which turn into fat, which in turn impedes performance.

The deal is the same if Jane/Joe is pregnant or lactating.  Usual intake covers additional needs.

If Jane/Joe is a vegetarian, the impact on her/their/his protein intake depends on what kind of vegetarian.  Lacto-ovo vegetarians can relax, as can the tofu-lovers:  animal sources of protein and soy are complete proteins.  Vegans have to do a tiny bit more thinking because it’s not enough just to have protein; we need to ensure that we get all the essential amino acids our bodies can’t make.  Plant sources of protein, except for soy, don’t have them all in a single source, so vegans have to choose complementary protein sources (i.e., two or more protein sources that between them contain all the essential amino acids).  The good news is that this isn’t hard.  Remember our friends rice and beans?  They have an important message for us:  combine a grain with a legume and get complete protein.  That means peanut butter on bread works.  Lentil soup with crackers, beans and tortillas, pasta with beans, rice and black-eyed peas, and garbanzos with sesame paste (hey, I call that hummus, myself!) all work.

There is some evidence that older adults (those of us who have passed that half-century mark) can benefit from a slightly higher protein intake (about 1.5 g/kg of body weight) to improve muscle mass, strength, and function, boost immunity, wound healing, and bone health.  The theory is that we are less efficient at digesting and absorbing protein as we age, so we need more to work with.  Again, Jane/Joe probably doesn’t have to worry or even strive to meet that goal.

So yes, we need protein, but no, we don’t need to worry about getting enough unless we are vegans or people with general food insecurity.

Bumps

While I prefer to focus on the positives, we all have negatives and obstacles to deal with when we show up to work out.  Sometimes those things are heavier than the weights we came to lift.  Here are a few ideas for coping:

• If you are afraid to fail:  My new favorite band has a song that explains that fighters never quit because quitters never win.  Doing something is better than doing nothing.  When we set our initial goals, we need to set them with success in mind.  That might mean the first few goals are incredibly easy to check off, like walking through the gym door, remembering to bring a water bottle, or learning how to work the exercise bike.

• If you are afraid to succeed:  This one is a little trickier because it’s harder to recognize.  We get comfy in our problems.  We are used to them.  When all of a sudden we are handling stuff we didn’t know we could, it can be scary because we realize that we have the power to do all kinds of cool stuff.  Some people won’t like our new, more powerful selves.  We will outgrow old patterns. Things will change, and change is scary.  Own it.  We all deserve to be our best selves and to be surrounded by people who support us in that process.

• If you are tired:  Get started.  Even if we do one rep, we are doing what we need to do to increase our energy in the long term.  We’ll sleep better.  We’ll feel better about ourselves.

• If you don’t have time:  I don’t know a single person who does not waste at least five minutes a day, and I know some seriously dedicated and efficient humans.  Five minutes of working out is better than no minutes.  Heck, it counts if we do body weight squats while the coffee is in the microwave or if we balance on one foot while we brush our teeth.  We can be the boss of our time.

• If you just don’t want to:  Seriously?  How many things do we do in a day that we don’t want to do?  Working out is at least good for us and likely to make things better, unlike, say, commuting or trying to get our kids to eat vegetables.  We can bribe ourselves, use our big brains to figure out how to make the workout least bad, or just suck it up.  We have choices.

We can do this.

Every time...

Almost all of the Pilates sessions I do myself or do with clients start with the same handful of exercises.  There are a few reasons for this.

Possibly the most obvious is that those exercises serve as a warm-up.  When I was younger, I was skeptical of the whole concept of warming up.  Reality has set in and I now understand that we don’t go zero to sixty instantly.  The later exercises really do go better when we take the time to ease into them properly.

I tend to put the straight core exercises in that early batch of exercises because then they definitely get done.  When they happen first, they don’t get forgotten.  Our balance and posture and healthy backs thank us when we ensure that the core work gets done.

A more subtle reason for the routine is that it becomes almost a ritual.  When we perform the same motions in the same order, it helps to get our mind in the right space for what comes next.  We get to arrive gradually, shedding the outside world and moving into the Pilates space as we progress down the familiar path.  Mind-body work requires both a mind and a body (no kidding!) and ritual helps both get to the right place.

Let’s do what we need to do to make our workouts go well!