Protein Intake

[Buzz]

I was reading an article on a fitness site and ran across this...

"There is a widely held myth that weight lifters and body builders need more protein in their diet; the truth is that long distance runners need to increase their protein consumption more than weight lifters. This myth addresses an important issue in nutrition; nutritional concerns need to be addressed not only to type of activity but body weight. Body builders weigh more, usually, than distance runners therefore, consume more protein in terms of serving size. Distance runners, weighing less than weight lifters, will consume smaller portions however, the ration of grams of protein to body weight should be higher for runners.

An athlete should consume 0.5 to 0.75 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. Runners should be in the high end of the recommendation due to the amount of protein wasting caused by long distance running."

On the surface this makes sense but I'm skeptical about everything I read (especially on the Internet).

Being a long distance runner this has me wondering. Is there any truth to this? Does anyone agree with it?

[Lost Dog]

I'd even go higher than that. .91 per lb is the TAP recommendation. That's for weightlifting, too.

I'd agree that runners need more protein, but I don't know about the comparison to weight lifters. Most weight lifters already eat a lot of protein, compared to the average person. Do they mean that they don't need as much or the don't need to increase it anymore? Depends on how they wrote it out.

Here's a good take on the whole protein controversy.

Protein Prejudice

There are a lot of other good nutrition articles on his site, too.

http://johnberardi.com/article s/nutrition

[Buzz]

Whoa! Tons of great articles there. Thanks for the link LD!

[gobbla]

I don't think blanket statements really work well. Running does cause a certain amount of wasting...IF it's hard enough and long enough. Running under 10 miles a week PROBIBLY isn't going to affect anything. Lifting causes a certain amount of wasting\damage...IF it's hard enough and long enough. Crossfit type stuff is proven to destroy muscles.

It makes sense that most people that are (truly) physically active would require more protein than someone that isn't. CB recomments 1g per lbs up to 200lbs...which ought to be more than the average warrior would need.

[emartin10]

I have increased my intake of protein as I train more for my triathlons. For me, it has helped preserve some of the hard earned muscle mass I spent so much time working towards. Now I've lost a lot of weight, and I'm sure a bunch of it has been muscle, but my body fat % has plummeted as well, so it has worked for me.

Gobbla is right though, you just have to figure out what works for you. I've experimented a ton with pre and post workout and race nutrition, and found that just a slight tweak to my weight lifting shakes worked very well for me in a cardio sense.

I would tend to agree with the original post, simply in terms of muscle preservation.

E