“Your body can only digest 30 grams of protein.”<\/p>\n
How many times have you heard this?\u00a0 Better yet, how many times have you said this to someone?\u00a0 Now the interesting thing is how often it changes;\u00a0 I’ve heard that you can only process 30 grams per day–\u00a0 More often, though, it’s 30 grams at one time.<\/p>\n
So, where did this thought come from?\u00a0 No one knows, and when you ask someone for evidence to support this, everyone will point to something that a bodybuilder said, or that a mesomorphic gym rat said.\u00a0 The simple truth is. . .\u00a0\u00a0 This is completely untrue, and has led to people not getting enough protein.\u00a0 So, where does this idea stem from?<\/p>\n
My guess would be it comes from how much protein is needed to boost amino acid levels in the blood to kick start muscle building.\u00a0 30 grams is all that’s needed, and by having more, you can’t increase the efficiency of muscle building.\u00a0 At some point, I’m sure someone was trying to convey this to someone who was consuming an obscene amount of protein post workout, and since no one would listen, they decided to add some invalid arguments that somehow stuck.<\/p>\n
Is that how this myth came to be?\u00a0 Who knows, but I can speculate.\u00a0 Either way, this is one of the most widespread myths in health and fitness;\u00a0 Don’t listen to me though.\u00a0 You can read countless essays and articles from Dr. Mike Roussell<\/a>, who got his Ph.D. in Nutrition from Penn State University.\u00a0 In one such article<\/a> that discusses amino acid levels in blood for muscle building, Mike says:<\/p>\n “For whatever reason, people have long assumed that you can only digest 30 grams of protein at a time. Perhaps people thought our intestines contain a magical sensor that stopped absorbing protein once it registered 30 grams. Whatever the logic, your body can certainly digest much more than 30 grams of protein in one sitting.<\/strong>”<\/p>\n Think about it. . .\u00a0 There are sweeteners that your body does not digest, which is why they are both zero carb and zero calorie.\u00a0 If your body wouldn’t absorb the protein at a certain point, that would mean that there are less calories than you are tracking.\u00a0 Today, I’m going to eat a 12 oz. chicken breast, which contains 330 calories and 75 grams of protein.\u00a0 If my body could only absorb 30 grams of the protein (40% of the protein content), that would mean only 132 of those calories would count.\u00a0 Another question I would ask is, there are only 3 macro nutrients that make up calories\u00a0 (Unless you count alcohol, which are empty, non nutritive calories)–\u00a0 If your body isn’t digesting that protein, and there are no carbohydrates nor fat in that chicken. . .\u00a0 Where are those calories coming from?\u00a0 Nothing?<\/p>\n Simply put, your body can digest all of the protein you give it, and you should never use a myth to dictate your diet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Your body can only digest 30 grams of protein.” How many times have you heard this?\u00a0 Better yet, how many times have you said this to someone?\u00a0 Now the interesting thing is how often it changes;\u00a0 I’ve heard that you can only process 30 grams per day–\u00a0 More often, though, it’s 30 grams at one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fitness-myths","category-nutrition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3DfsS-76","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devinephysiques.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}