When we think about proteins, we might associate them directly to our muscles. Well, that is wrong! Our muscles are made by only 20% proteins, the rest is water. Tip: by adjusting water intake, we can already work on our shape! Drink, drink, drink.. water, please!
Our body is first made to fulfill main surviving functions and having a nice muscular structure is not a priority! Therefore, the proteins we build up inside are first used to produce hormones, enzymes, skin, hairs, nails etc. So the entire system needs to ensure everything is working properly before to focus on a sexy body shape!
Assuming that all your metabolic processes are working well (you can also check that by doing specific tests including blood test on a regular basis), in order to build muscle as we already said in a previous article, you need to eat! Protein synthesis required a lot of energy therefore it is necessary to increase calorie intake. You will need proteins from animal and vegetable origin. Proteins are made by molecules called amino acids. Some of those amino acids are essentials, that means we can not synthetize them and we have to introduce it with diet. Overall, to stay general, following EFSA recommendation, we shall consume between 0.8 and 1.25 g of proteins per kg of body weight per day for adults (animal and vegetable origin proteins in total). For the one interested in the previously mentioned sexy body shape, 1,5 g proteins per kg of body weight per day is recommended.
And now let’s talk about proteins quality!
Luckily our body is able to use both animal and vegetable proteins, I am glad particularly for the one following a vegetarian or vegan diet. There is a but… while animal origin food is completed with all amino acids we need for protein synthesis, vegetables are not. The biological value, meaning the ratio between utilized and absorbed proteins, of vegetable ones is lower because they are missing amino acids that could be introduced only by combining, for example, vegetables with grains. That is one point in favor for vegetarians and vegan people, right? There is another but.. by doing that, combining vegetables and grains to have all needed amino acids, you will be fine but you will also exceed with carbohydrates intake. You would not have that by consuming animal origin product naturally containing much lower carbohydrates. On the other hands, within animal origin products, we should vary between meat (white and red), eggs, fish and dairy, giving priority to fish, containing healthy fatty acids, white meat and eggs (which has the ideal amino acids distribution and therefore taken as reference when comparing protein quality profiles of other food products). Insects can be also a good source of proteins and we can discuss that topic in another article!
In conclusion, please do not care only about how much proteins you are consuming but think about the right quality and biological value of it.
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