Part IV: Changing Our Beliefs About Protein
I like to think that, had I believed as a teenager in the importance of nutrition, I might’ve avoided many years of struggle.
Unfortunately though, teenagers aren’t well known for caring about their health, whether they’ve learned to or not! Nonetheless, if I could go back in time and stress one point to my younger self, it would be that eating more high-quality protein each day would make everything else easier to manage.
Furthermore, I would strongly advise my 19-year-old self not to go vegan!
Of course, time travel isn’t possible, so a good alternative is to share new information and hope that I can change the unhelpful beliefs many young women have about protein today.
Our beliefs about the food we eat and the diets we subscribe to will undoubtedly impact our future selves and the health issues we end up navigating later on as women, perhaps negatively if we do not know what our bodies need. Therefore, we ought to examine our beliefs honestly, whether we’re trying to recover from chronic symptoms, avoid future illness, or optimize an otherwise healthy body as we age.
Many women aren’t aware that they want to be a mother until much later in life now. I write about this a lot in my work and I focus on fertility tracking, hormonal balance, and natural conception, even for women moving into their forties. Alongside the need for adequate carbs for overall energy, hormonal, and metabolic health, women absolutely must get adequate quality protein if they wish to remain fertile and experience reproductive success!
We might get away with protein malnourishment for while when we’re younger (especially if we were fed well during our developmental years and inherited strong health from a well-nourished mother), but it will begin to show up more and more in our health as we age if we neglect this vital nutrient.
How did you decide to avoid eating animal protein?
For some of us, the decision arises subconsciously via the guilt that comes up each time we crave a burger or see an animal welfare billboard.
Others more consciously choose to adopt a supposed identity of virtue and health through plant-based. Regardless of the path, millions of people are eschewing animal protein to focus on plant-based foods. I have no doubt that the negative images we’re culturally trained to associate with animal protein prevent many women from learning more about it, eating more of it, feeling good about it, and feeling good because of it.
What if, instead, we valued and prioritized protein each day, given the many essential roles we now know it plays in our bodies and how crucial our health and fertility is to us?
Perhaps we’d discover an incentive to raise our standards and push for better farming practices. If eating more high-quality animal protein were to improve how we feel mentally and physically and reduce our global footprint, wouldn’t we fight for better farming methods, land and animal management, economic incentives for farmers, and local food options?
Think about it.
RDA mis-guidance
Unfortunately, people who are prone to trusting nutritional guidelines may spend the better part of their lives following the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) set forth by the National Institutes of Health to make sure they’re getting enough nutrients. However, the RDA for protein is unreasonably low.
The RDA recommends 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight or 0.36 gram per pound. (8) This amounts to:
- 56 grams per day for an average male
- 46 grams per day for an average female
This is crazy pants, ladies! Although people can live off of this amount of protein, it is barely enough in most of us to support physical exertion beyond a short walk to the fridge from the couch, and back.
Unfortunately, many of my clients have based their diets on the RDA for years, until they’ve developed chronic fatigue, extreme hair loss, binge eating, mental illness, amenorrhea, an inability to gain muscle or recover from exercise, and little or no sex drive. The RDA for protein is slowly killing us, in my opinion!
Contrary to common belief, the RDA doesn’t represent an ideal protein intake.
Instead, it represents the minimum intake needed to prevent illness and… keep us from dying. Go figure. The RDA for protein was determined from nitrogen balance studies, which required participants to eat experimental diets for weeks before the researchers took measurements. In that period of time, the body adapts to low protein intakes by down-regulating processes, such as protein turnover and immune function, that are not necessary for survival but are required for optimal health.
If those nitrogen balance studies typically used experimental diets that were lower in protein, the participants adapted to the levels given and their measurements yielded insufficient results for protein intake.
The truth is that we tend to need a lot more, and most women I work with express relief and excitement that they often feel an immediate difference when they up their protein consumption at each meal, and at breakfast in particular.
New guidelines for protein intake
An alternative, more reasonable method for determining protein requirements—the Indicator Amino Acid Oxidation (IAAO) technique—overcomes many of the shortcomings of nitrogen balance studies and has compelling research validating its superiority for determining adequate protein intake. Accordingly, if you’re at a healthy weight, don’t lift weights, don’t exercise much, aren’t planning on getting pregnant any time soon, and have a relatively low-stress life, then aiming for 0.8–1.3 grams of protein per kg (0.36–0.6 gram per pound) is a general estimate. This amounts to:
- 56–91 grams per day for an average male
- 46–75 grams per day for an average female
But please tell me what women in your life actually fits into this criterium! None.
If you’re like most health-conscious women I know and you’d like to get stronger, resolve one or more symptoms, recover from injury, lose weight or stop overeating, balance hormones or blood sugar, improve fertility and chances of conception, have a healthy pregnancy, and a stable postpartum, and more, then your protein requirements will increase well beyond these numbers.
For example, I’m currently working on getting stronger, improving my fertility at 40, improving my immune functions and nutrient absorption, increase sleep quality, and regrow hair lost during intense stress. I weigh around 125 pounds, and although I’m not sure what my muscle-to-fat ratio is (nor do I care to measure because seeing and feeling myself getting stronger is enough), I know that I’m currently above average. I have learned that in order to sustain my three workouts per week and keep my mental health, energy, fertility, and immune system functioning well, I need to consume about 1–1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. This means I typically eat about 130 grams of high-quality, bioavailable, animal-sourced protein per day, divided into four to five meals.
As a reminder, rather than just meeting the right number of grams of protein, it’s imperative that we get ALL of the essential amino acids, and that we base our intake on our own unique needs, not some general advice on the internet!
Therefore, I recommend that all of my clients get their protein from various sources, including plants to the degree their bodies respond well. Some clients can tolerate absolutely zero plant proteins, while others and I can add in small amounts of high-quality sprouted proteins from more benign plants, such as hemp. In any case, the bulk of everyone’s protein should ideally come from well-sourced organ and muscle meats, fish, broth, collagen, and gelatin, and eggs and dairy as tolerated. These foods have truly transformed my health and that of many others—I can’t imagine that we would have healed without them!
Pro tip: Grass-fed beef liver is one of the most nutrient-dense protein sources on the planet!
Although I don’t recommend focusing on processed protein powders as substitutes for animal protein in a whole-foods diet, I do encourage it for those who are firmly committed to plant-based eating or are unable or unwilling to invest in more animal foods. Protein powder, especially animal-sourced, is better than nothing, and it can help fill periodic nutritional gaps a busy lifestyle can create for conscious omnivores, like myself.
If you’ve spent years believing misleading headlines derived from healthy-user-biased studies and the RDA guidelines, you’ve been habituated to think around 50 grams of protein per day is normal and healthy. In contrast, my current intake may seem completely excessive or outright dangerous. However, the dangers of higher protein intakes are largely unsupported by reliable scientific literature and should not bar us from attaining our health goals!
Should doubt creep in, re-read this article and remember: my current protein intake is only high relative to the unreasonably low protein intake endorsed by government and plant-based diet proponents.
And again, please keep in mind that there are many different paths to assessing your protein needs and which proteins would serve your unique individual body best. If you want to read a breakdown of how I suggest approaching consuming all three macros, and the what’s, how’s, and why’s of my approach to nutritional health, you can download my FREE reparative eating guide here, to get a sense of how food can help you be your healthiest most fertile self.
And if, after reading all of these articles, feel like an individual health and nutritional assessment might be the next best step for you, please set up a free chat with me to discuss how my work may support you in your nutrition and healthcare moving forward.
Please pass this series along to any women who you think would benefit from nerding out over protein nutrition science and increasing their overall consumption of quality protein. Thanks for reading!
