Max amount of protein per meal?

[AnnetteW]

Is there a certain amount of protein, eaten at one time, that one's body utilizes best? I'm trying to eat the 1 g per bodyweight, but I some days it's just hard to eat lots of mini-meals.

I'm aiming for 140-160grams at around 1800 calories.

[gobbla]

"Yes" is the answer to the question asked.

The follow up question: What the actual number is, is hard to tell. There's been some evidence that people that eat more protein (over a given period of time...months...years) can utilize more, be it over a day or on a per meal basis. So how much "you" can optimally use per day\per meal could be along a window.

Commentary: Bottom line = Getting "enough" is your first and foremost goal. If it's not practical to eat 6 meals then don't. If you're getting your three square and\(or not) a workout meal then timing shouldn't be a major issue. What's not super duper used...well...that's just the way it works...not a major worry. If that's the worst dieting disaster you get over the course of your day then you'll be OK.

[Traps]

Found an interesting research on this. It's probably not a definite answer but it gives us a basic idea.

Here's a small abstract of the findings incase you don't want to read through the entire study.

The authors found that the 33
grams of whey protein promoted the greatest protein
balance in both young and elderly individuals.
However, it should be noted that this would vary with
bodyweight. For example, the protein intake
mentioned was an average of 33 grams in the high
condition. But in reality the authors prescribed to
each participant 0.48 grams of whey protein per kg of
bodyweight. Therefore, a 200 pound man would have
consumed roughly 43 grams of protein. The above
results suggest that extra cellar EAAs increase
protein synthesis in a curvilinear relationship to their
concentration. While the upper limit is not known,
studies suggest that an increase in protein intake from
22 to 33 grams of whey enhances protein balance.
This level may increase with increasing body mass.

Here is the link to the whole study:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pic...0&blobtype=pdf

So this study suggest that a total intake of 140-160g of protein would be best utilized if each meal contain about 30-35g of protein. This would equate to about 4.5 meals per day that consisted of protein. If I did my math right. I didn't have time to read the whole thing to see if they mentioned the frequency.

[Lost Dog]

If you can't eat that many meals, just divide it up between the meals that you do eat.

It takes many hours to fully digest/process protein. It may not be in your stomach, but it's still available to your body when you get to your next meal, likely.

[cycomiko]

Originally Posted by Traps

So this study suggest that a total intake of 140-160g of protein would be best utilized if each meal contain about 30-35g of protein. This would equate to about 4.5 meals per day that consisted of protein. If I did my math right. I didn't have time to read the whole thing to see if they mentioned the frequency.

Not resitance trained, and not specifically examining the entire benefit of protein. It was a small piece in one of Dangins review papers which is also available online, comparing leucine balance and a full feeding (all macros rather than just protein) situation between leucine matched and protein matched feeds.

Also not really examining maximal intake per meal, something that is completely unknown, but well in excess of the 30gram proposed level, that appears to be a runon from supplment companies out of the mid 80's

The closest we have from research is rate of urea production, as excess amino acids typuically are deaminated nad excreted as urea, and if you cannot form enough urea, you have a build up of nitrogen, ammonia nad end up in a generally shitty state. From memory the max protein for maximal urea synthesis is around 160-280gram area for a 180lb nontraining individual. but the research wasnt the greatest, especially as it did not allow for adaptation to the higher levels, allowing time for the urea synthesis process to be upregulated.

[AnnetteW]

Traps, that article is a good one. I just scanned through it, but I will print and read it in depth later on.

I'm finding it hard to eat as much protein as I was aiming for, I'm pretty much doing 5 meals, as I'm not usually a night time snacker. But perhaps I can figure out how to work in a high protein night snack, the few extra calories won't hurt as I seem to be dropping weight quickly right now.

BTW, if my calculations are right, I've been tracking body weight and body fat for 2 months now, though only hit the protein hard this past week...I put on .5 lb of lean just this past week and lost 2 lbs of fat. Hence being able to add some calories (which would probably be healthy.)

[Cynic]

Originally Posted by cycomiko

From memory the max protein for maximal urea synthesis is around 160-280gram area for a 180lb nontraining individual.

1. Is that on a per feed basis?
2. Does that also indicate how much the body can utilize for protein synthesis and a possible rate? Perhaps assumed by the input vs. output?

[cycomiko]

1) per day

2) From the available IV and smaller bits and pieces from oral work, its around tHe amount for protien synthesis appears to be around 0.2g/kg/hr of good quality protein (from memory, i would have to go and backwards check some figures)

There appears to be a duration effect, so you cant have protien synthesis maxed out all day, only ~2ish hours.