Eating Too Much Protein Could Be Killing Your Bulk

Eating a lot of protein could be killing your bulk. All right, let's talk about bulking and a lot of protein. Just refuses to say gains. I know. Well, you know why? It's specific about bulking because, you know, it's funny. So I got, what did I do this? Kill your gains too, no? In bulking, yeah. No, so here's why. I was talking to somebody the other day. I think it was on a pod. Oh no, here's what it was. I was on the NCI group last night with the trainers and coaches. And there was a young lady on there that was talking about having a client that was a hard gainer. It was a female client, really skinny, who feels really full eating anything over 1,200 calories. And she's like, what do I do? It's gonna be, it's really hard for her to eat more than 1,200 calories. She's super full and she's got a super fast, or based on her appetite, her metabolism is faster than what she's eating. We can't get her to gain any muscle. I said, well, how much, what's her protein intake like? And she said, oh, we're aiming for a gram of protein per pound of body weight. And I said, that might be the problem. Yeah, she's eating all protein pretty much. And from natural sources too. Yeah, and so here's the issue with bulking is that she has a high protein diet does help with muscle gains. It's also the most satiating macronutrient. Protein will kill your appetite faster than carbs or fats, much faster. So if you're eating a high calorie diet and you have a fast metabolism, you're trying to put on size, and you're eating a lot of protein can make it very, very challenging. Now, the interesting thing is studies show that high protein or really high protein is more important on a cut than it is on a bulk, right? So when you're bulking, as long as you're eating like 0.6, 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight and your calories are above surplus, you're doing fine. It's when you're cutting that you want the higher protein because it preserves muscle and it of course helps with appetite. But I remember this with myself as a kid, trying to eat more food. If I ate too much protein, it would just kill my appetite. I couldn't eat more. It becomes a chore really fast. And that's where I think supplement companies really peered into that and tried to make it so you'd get as many calories as possible and try to make it palatable so you could consume 1,100 calories in one sitting. But man, you'd pay the price as you're digesting it. Well, I really think there's a fine line here because I also went through the phase where I was eating plenty of calories but I wasn't getting, in a bulk, but I wasn't getting enough protein. Yeah, you're right. I'm not saying low protein. Right, right. So it is like this. That's why it's not that simple, right? I think sometimes the fitness space oversimplifies it. Like, oh, you just got to get your protein. And I remember when we first started the podcast, we would go back and forth on this because it's like, I'm really careful about that message because I know that a majority of my clients didn't get enough protein. But then if I'm talking to a hardcore fitness person who knows protein is like this magical macronutrient that helps you build muscle, they overconsume. And sometimes they overconsume so much that it fucks digestion and then they have a hard time bulking or putting on muscle. So there really is like this sweet spot that you want to be at. And I feel like a lot of people tend to be on the extremes. Either they grossly undereat it, so that's why they're not building any muscle, or they eat so much of it, chasing it, thinking that it's the magical macronutrient, and then their digestion is kind of fucked up and then they can't. Or their appetite just doesn't allow them. Right, because they're so satiated. Yeah, and the example of this young woman that we were talking about, I think she said she was like 109 pounds. And I said, you know, if she eats 75 grams of protein, that would be plenty for her body weight. And then she could eat the rest of the calories in more palatable carbohydrates and fats because those don't hammer your appetite nearly as much. I mean, this is even the case with me. When I'm trying to gain, you know, I weigh right now, I'm maybe closer to 215. 215 grams of protein for me, if it's from food in particular, because I can add shakes, and shakes don't do this as much. But if I eat 215 grams of protein and food, my appetite is shot, and it is really hard. Yeah, so I know we've given the advice in terms of like trying to cut down where we start with protein. Would you reverse that in this situation where you're trying to like go carbs, you know, then fat, and then protein in terms of like the order of it? Yeah, it depends on the person. If it's one of those situations where you're, and you know what, I think it's important to paint the context that I'm talking about people who are challenged with eating enough calories to be in a surplus. Yeah, that's who we're talking about. Yeah, so if it's easy, if a surplus is easy for you, then maybe don't, this is not that big of a deal. But if you're somebody who's like, man, I can't eat enough, and it's really hard for me to eat all the calories that I need to in order to gain any additional muscle, in that particular case, I would say, okay, so long as we're getting, you know, about, like I said, 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. After that, go for the more easily digestible, palatable macronutrients, carbohydrates, and even fats, right, fats and carbohydrates, especially when you combine them with, you know, salt or a little bit of sweetness, are very palatable. Protein is just, and we know it's for fat, it's a fat. It will bring down your appetite. I mean, you eat a bunch of chicken, especially lean chicken or lean protein, and you're just like, I can't eat anymore. Well, I also think this is, here's an example, right, of where, and something that we don't advocate for, but where it sometimes makes sense, is eating processed foods and foods that are super palatable. More palatable. Yeah, just because it's, I mean, I did that. When I was trying to hit my, when my calories had to be like 4,000 plus, it was just- That's hard, man. Yeah, it was impossible to do it with all whole foods. I mean, maybe I could do that once in a while, but consistently, to maintain that muscle mass that I'm in, I had to pile on. But the thing that I did was I just, I made it a rule that, okay, I'm gonna get like all of my protein intake that I need through whole foods and natural sources, and then I'll pile the calories on after that. Like, so it was like, okay, I still was eating, a bulk of my nutrition was coming from clean, quote unquote, foods. And then it was like, okay, I just had this dinner, you know, it'd be really tough for me to have another, like, and I hit, let's say I hit all my protein when I need to as far as hitting my protein targets, but I'm like short 1,000 calories. Be really hard for me to have a double or triple serving of the dinner I just had, but I definitely could sit down and have some ice cream. I could definitely sit down and have like magic spoon cereal. I could definitely do something that was super palatable like that, or a process that would help me do it. And I know we don't, for health, it's not the ideal thing for you to do, but for someone who's really struggling with putting weight on or bulking, that was a strategy that I found I had to do in order to break through that struggle. Yeah, for me, it's like, you know, as long as I hit right now 150 to 170 grams of protein through food, then I'll eat the rest and more palatable, you know, macros, you know, like I'll have potatoes and I'll even fry the potatoes sometimes. White rice is good, but I'll add butter to the rice, which makes it more palatable and salt. And then at the end of the day, for me, it's easier to add a shake for the protein. Because if I have a lot of protein from whole natural foods, my appetite's, it's done. I just can't eat anymore. It totally crushes it. So that's what I'll do if I'm still chasing protein. But what would happen sometimes is, you know, when I was, again, back to the 4,000, 5,000 calorie days, I'd hit my 220 grams of protein, you know, at like say 3,000 calorie mark. But then I knew I needed another 1,000 calories. Now you're throwing the other stuff on. Yeah, that's where I would slap on the ice cream or do something like that to keep my calories. You know, I remember I had a client just like this and it was somebody who, and it was a woman who just, I don't know if you guys, and this is not super common, right? It's nine out of 10 times, it's the opposite. It's somebody has an issue with eating too much. But every once in a while you get a challenge where you have somebody who's, and they're being very sincere. It's like, I just don't, I can't eat anymore. Like, I feel like I'm stuffed and, you know, I'm just not hungry. And I remember I had a client like this and I kept pushing the protein. And she's like, Sal, after I eat, you know, the chicken breasts and stuff that you tell me, I can't eat anymore. And then I said, you know, let's try cutting your protein down a little bit and seeing if we can get more calories by doing that. And it totally worked. She was able to eat more food as a result and then gain, you know, some muscle. And again, the studies show this, that the upper limit for most people for gains from protein is around 0.6, 0.7 grams per pound of body weight if you're relatively lean. More than that, and you really don't get any additional benefit. Now, the additional benefit you may get from eating more than that is really good when you're cutting because there seems to be a muscle-preserving effect when your calories are low, and also the appetite-suppressing effect that you get from protein. That's really handy when you're trying to cut. But when you're doing the other side of that, ooh, that can make it really hard. And what's the theory or the science behind that? Is that when you're a low calorie, I mean, your calories is what gets converted over into sugar and energy and fuel. Because you're low calorie, you have minimal amount of that, so then the body starts looking for other resources. I'm assuming that's why a higher protein diet in a calorie deficit is more advantageous than a higher protein diet in a bulk. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna say this very carefully because context matters. You're gonna get somebody who's gonna get all, but I mean, for the general population to get an understanding, that's kind of how I would try and explain it. Yeah, and really, protein, and again, I'm gonna be careful with this because context matters quite a bit and it's not as cut and dry as it's gonna sound right now, but protein has an anabolic effect. High protein has a pro muscle building effect. So it's like you're sending a build muscle signal while you're also cutting calories. And cutting calories generally is a get rid of muscle signal. Catabolic. It's catabolic, right? Because your body's always trying to balance the energy and a great way for it to do it is reduce muscle because muscle is expensive. It burns a lot of calories. So eating high protein in that particular state tends to preserve more muscle. Now, the reason why I'm careful with this is because people will hear this and be like, oh, cool, the more protein, the better, and I'm gonna build more muscle if I just eat a ton of protein. It's not that simple. But yeah, when you're cutting, you have a muscle preserving effect when you do that. And when you're in a bulk, you don't need as many grams of protein to build muscle. It's just because you're already in a surplus, it's not nearly as important. High protein is important, just the super high protein intake doesn't really make that big of a difference. Well, just simply being in a calorie surplus, that we now switch from being, you're in a deficit, you're in a catabolic state. When you're in a surplus, you're in an anabolic state. So just simply being in a surplus, you're already pro-building or pro-adding, right? And so it makes sense, right? And when you're low like that, your body's looking for other resources for fuel and so it would help. Yeah, it's interesting to me too, but just even on the training side of it, like how people don't really attribute or think about the muscle preserving strategies in terms of like when you're on a cut, all they wanna do is like cut down and so they're trying to like reduce calories and then get high intensity movement, almost cardiovascular based type of exercises instead of like focusing more on actual strength training to provide that signal that we still need the muscle. Oh dude, the key to cutting 100% is muscle preservation. That's the key. Focus all your energy on muscle preservation while you're in a deficit and you are more likely to end up leaner from a body fat perspective. But do you guys see that message very often in this space? No. I don't, like ever. No, the message is very much like the scale. How much weight you lost, how much size you lost, are you smaller, that type of deal. Muscle preservation is the most important thing whenever you're trying to get lean because what you don't wanna do is you don't wanna, especially this. That's all your work you're losing. Yeah, and regardless if you're, I don't care if your goal is to look sculpted or not, you don't wanna end up at the end of a weight loss journey with a significantly slower metabolism. Good luck maintaining that, right? So you're eating 2,500 calories a day and you're overweight. You lost 30 pounds, now you're eating 1,200 calories a day and that's what you gotta eat to maintain. That's a big difference and that's forever. That's a tough position to be in. That's usually why we see. You know what was really tough for me and I don't think I've shared this on the show before was after using all those strategies to push calories for as long as I did during the competitive years was now that I'm like my metabolism is so different than what it was then is breaking behaviors, eating behaviors. Like I had to train an example of one. That's a tough one. Like an example of an extreme one, right? I got to a point where for at least four or five years there that if I ordered like a Five Guys, it was always two double double burgers and whatever else on the side, right? And when I'm slamming four or 5,000 calories, that's only like 1,600 calories. It's just a fraction of my day or whatever. It's actually helping you hit your target. Yeah, and it would be high protein and so I would need it for the day where and because I got so used to doing that, that if now like Katrina and I we just ordered Five Guys the other day and it's my natural thing is to order two of those. It's like, I mean, I'm like more like 3,000 calories a day right now but for the longest time I would still do that. I would still go back and still order that and then way over consume but think I need to eat that much. It took me a while to get out of that mindset of I don't need that much anymore and just one of those will satisfy me. It'll give me my caloric intake I need but I trained myself so hard on always pushing the calories for such a consistent period of time that you get these habits of certain dishes that you eat or what that and the serving size that you would do it in. Totally and the reverse is true. Right. Yeah, like right now, right? I've been trying to bulk. It's been really hard. Now my metabolism's way faster than it's been a long time especially ever since starting TRT. So I've gained some muscle, metabolism's really fast. My gut health has always been the limiting factor or should I say for the last maybe eight to 10 years it's been a limiting factor and there's been some stuff that I've done over the last year or so. My gut health seems to be really good. So I'm pushing calories and it's really weird and really hard because my eating habits were the way they were for so long where I didn't eat all the time. I didn't have to worry about eating all the time. It was better for my gut health and that's what it was and my metabolism. Now it's like, holy cow, man. I got to really, my goal was let's see if I can go from 210 to 220 or so, gain 10 pounds. And I'm sitting at 215 right now and there's no way. There's no way. No way, I don't want to. It's way too much food. You know what's been happening? I'm snoring now. I'm snoring at night now. On my side, I'll sleep on my side. Last night I wake up in the middle of the night, my wife's not in bed. I'm like, where'd she go? She went in my daughter's room to go to sleep because I was snoring. We used to get ---- all the time on the podcast because you would hear me breathing back in the early days when we first started the podcast. That was one of the, we get criticized for that all the time because I'd be like, I remember when we had, who do we have here? Jordan Shallow. Oh, Shallow. I'd roll him under the bus, but he's a heavy breather. Shallow is like that. You're just sitting there. He's a big guy though. I feel like everybody has a different threshold too. Like, I don't think my body is like, getting over 210 for me is really hard, right? Some people over 210, no problem. And they feel comfortable. For me, I'm like forcing my body. I don't think it's that good. Oh, watching, I mean, watching you right now so reminds me of, you know, show years, like because the way you have to eat just to maintain your size right now. It's like having a whole nother job on top of the- It's expensive. It's silly. It takes up a lot of time and- It looks cool though. It's fun for a second. Dude, I- Yeah, but you never show it off, so come on, guy. I had a, no, I got a- Why don't you use that for marketing reasons so we can make some money, man? Dude, I had a pump today that was, I had- Give the fans what they want. This hasn't happened to me in years. Give the fans what they want, dude. Shut your face, stupid. No, listen, I had a- You need to start a hashtag. I had a pump today where I couldn't- I couldn't change my shirt. Remember that? I haven't had that in years, where you get such a pump that you're like trying to do your shirt and you can't do it. But you know what I've been doing that's helped a lot is at the end of the day, I add protein if I need it. And the only one that I can do that doesn't really make me feel like, oh my God, I'm so stuffed, is the bone broth protein. Yeah, from Paleo. I can throw, I can have, you know, 60 gram serving of protein with that, and it's like water. It's super smooth. Easy, it's just because there's nothing in it. There's no flavor, there's no color. Oh, so you use it too. So I haven't used it. I'm so terrible, right? Yeah, I haven't tried it. But I know you both get a little more upset with the way, although I do notice things when I've had, I've told you before, I've had multiple things a day of whey, but I haven't messed with that yet. Do you say it's like water? It doesn't taste like a protein broth? No, no, no, you taste it. You taste like bone broth. There's no flavor, there's no nothing in it. It's literally just- Have you thought of making it like in like a soup or a stew or something like that? You would just- You can. It's like something you would use like a normal broth. We tried that with like a chicken soup. Oh, you guys have? So yeah, I'm wondering if you've tried something. I haven't, I just, you know, mix it up. It was all right. Yeah, it wasn't bad. Was it good? Yeah. No, I just mix it with water, but I could have literally a 60 gram shake, drink it, and 10 minutes later, it's like I drank water. Wow. Versus if I do other proteins, 40 grams is where I'm at. If I go like 60, it doesn't matter what the source is. Well, don't you, do you pour it in your rice, right? Oh, if I do, yeah, if I make it into hot broth, yeah, then you can use that instead of water. I've done that before, but not with the Palo Valley protein powder. I did that back when we were working with Kettle and Fire. That would make the protein rice that you talked about. That I really liked. I thought it actually tasted really good though. Hey, if you enjoyed that clip, you can find the full episode here, or you can find other clips over here. And be sure to subscribe.