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7 February 12
Trying to Build Muscle? Don’t forget about calories! Building muscle requires some additional protein but not as much as you would think. There are three keys to building muscle: 1.       Additional calories to support an increase in muscle mass. 2.       Additional protein to support an increase in muscle mass. 3.       Adequate resistance training to stimulate an increase in muscle mass. I will leave the strategies for effective resistance training to our guest athletic trainers and exercise physiologists - this post will address calories and protein intake. Protein & Calories Excess protein beyond the maximum that a body can utilize will not get stored as muscle.  Rats!  One’s body appears to max out in terms of how much protein it can use “anabolically” – that is, how much protein can be incorporated into other protein tissues over the course of a day. The RDA for protein for adults is only 0.8 grams of protein/kg body weight (or 0.36 grams/lb body weight).  Maximal anabolic use ranges between 1.2 – 1.7 grams/kg body weight (0.55 – 0.77 grams/lb) depending upon sport, with power/strength training in the upper end of the range.  For instance, a 68 kg (150 lb) person’s estimated maximal use of protein is going to be somewhere between 82 – 116 grams per day.  If that person consumes 200 grams of protein, then up to 84 grams might get used for purposes other than protein synthesis.  Nitrogen gets stripped off the protein building blocks (amino acids), and then those carbon backbones get oxidized for energy or they get shunted into other pathways such as carbohydrate production and fat storage.   If you are in a calories deficit to lose weight, then those molecules are likely to be used for energy.  If you are in a calories surplus, then they are likely to be stored as fat.   If you eat a lot of protein, then you better have good kidneys! The stripped off nitrogen gets converted to ammonia and then to urea, which is then excreted in the urine.  Spread It Out! The information in this post come mostly from “Advanced Sports Nutrition, Second Edition” by Dan Benardot, PhD, RD, LD, FACSM. Benardot recommends avoiding “peaks and valleys” of intake throughout the day if maintenance or growth of muscle mass is desired. Consuming calories and protein throughout the day in meals and snacks readies the body for muscle growth when an appropriate stimulus presents itself. Consuming carbs and some protein after training appears to be particularly helpful in maximizing muscle growth. As well, good quality protein is important.  Whey seems to be particularly helpful – a natural source is milk.   Vegans need to be especially careful to get enough calories and protein for muscle growth. Please see the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics position paper on Vegetarian Diets. If you click on the PDF link, you will see the entire report, which was written by vegetarian dietitians.  What If I Want to Lose Weight? A calories deficit will allow you to lose weight but weight loss will always include both body fat and some amount of lean body mass (e.g. muscle). You can minimize loss of muscle during weight loss by continuing to exercise, including regular resistance training, and not going too low in your calories intake.  When you don’t meet your calories required for basal metabolism, your body accelerates loss of both lean body mass and fat so that your total energy expenditure can drop quickly. You can view your BMR calories in MyNetDiary Details tab on the web, or in My Plan in apps. Are You Choosing the Right Goal?   If you are a competitive athlete, then consider visiting a sports medicine facility so that your body composition (i.e. percentage of body fat and lean body mass) can be tested accurately. You would benefit from having a weight goal based upon a range of body fat percentage in line with your sport.  Contrary to what many athletes assume, sometimes a better goal for performance is not weight loss or gain per se, but a change in body composition. And that may or may not involve a net change in weight. Have questions or comments about this post?  Please feel free to comment on MyNetDiary’s Forum or Facebook page.  I would love to hear from you! Best,Kathy Isacks, MPS, RD Consulting Dietitian for MyNetDiaryMore Resources Benardot, D.  Advanced Sports Nutrition, Second Edition. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 411 p. Clark, N.  Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook, Fourth Edition.  Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 461 p.Position of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Nutrition.  Nutrition & Athletic Performance.  J. Am. Diet. Assoc.  2009;109:509-527.  Access online here. Be sure to click on the PDF link below the abstract for the full report. Disclaimer: Please note that we cannot provide personalized advice and that the information provided does not constitute medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, please visit a medical professional.

Trying to Build Muscle? Don’t forget about calories!

Building muscle requires some additional protein but not as much as you would think. There are three keys to building muscle:
1.       Additional calories to support an increase in muscle mass.
2.       Additional protein to support an increase in muscle mass.
3.       Adequate resistance training to stimulate an increase in muscle mass.

I will leave the strategies for effective resistance training to our guest athletic trainers and exercise physiologists - this post will address calories and protein intake.

Protein & Calories

Excess protein beyond the maximum that a body can utilize will not get stored as muscle.  Rats!  One’s body appears to max out in terms of how much protein it can use “anabolically” – that is, how much protein can be incorporated into other protein tissues over the course of a day.

The RDA for protein for adults is only 0.8 grams of protein/kg body weight (or 0.36 grams/lb body weight).  Maximal anabolic use ranges between 1.2 – 1.7 grams/kg body weight (0.55 – 0.77 grams/lb) depending upon sport, with power/strength training in the upper end of the range.  For instance, a 68 kg (150 lb) person’s estimated maximal use of protein is going to be somewhere between 82 – 116 grams per day.  If that person consumes 200 grams of protein, then up to 84 grams might get used for purposes other than protein synthesis.  Nitrogen gets stripped off the protein building blocks (amino acids), and then those carbon backbones get oxidized for energy or they get shunted into other pathways such as carbohydrate production and fat storage.   If you are in a calories deficit to lose weight, then those molecules are likely to be used for energy.  If you are in a calories surplus, then they are likely to be stored as fat.  

If you eat a lot of protein, then you better have good kidneys! The stripped off nitrogen gets converted to ammonia and then to urea, which is then excreted in the urine.  

Spread It Out!

The information in this post come mostly from “Advanced Sports Nutrition, Second Edition” by Dan Benardot, PhD, RD, LD, FACSM. Benardot recommends avoiding “peaks and valleys” of intake throughout the day if maintenance or growth of muscle mass is desired. Consuming calories and protein throughout the day in meals and snacks readies the body for muscle growth when an appropriate stimulus presents itself. Consuming carbs and some protein after training appears to be particularly helpful in maximizing muscle growth. As well, good quality protein is important.  Whey seems to be particularly helpful – a natural source is milk.  

Vegans need to be especially careful to get enough calories and protein for muscle growth. Please see the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics position paper on Vegetarian Diets. If you click on the PDF link, you will see the entire report, which was written by vegetarian dietitians.  

What If I Want to Lose Weight?

A calories deficit will allow you to lose weight but weight loss will always include both body fat and some amount of lean body mass (e.g. muscle). You can minimize loss of muscle during weight loss by continuing to exercise, including regular resistance training, and not going too low in your calories intake.  When you don’t meet your calories required for basal metabolism, your body accelerates loss of both lean body mass and fat so that your total energy expenditure can drop quickly. You can view your BMR calories in MyNetDiary Details tab on the web, or in My Plan in apps.

Are You Choosing the Right Goal?  
If you are a competitive athlete, then consider visiting a sports medicine facility so that your body composition (i.e. percentage of body fat and lean body mass) can be tested accurately. You would benefit from having a weight goal based upon a range of body fat percentage in line with your sport.  Contrary to what many athletes assume, sometimes a better goal for performance is not weight loss or gain per se, but a change in body composition. And that may or may not involve a net change in weight.

Have questions or comments about this post?  Please feel free to comment on MyNetDiary’s Forum or Facebook page.  I would love to hear from you!

Best,
Kathy Isacks, MPS, RD
Consulting Dietitian for MyNetDiary

More Resources
Benardot, D.  Advanced Sports Nutrition, Second Edition. Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 411 p.

Clark, N.  Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook, Fourth Edition.  Human Kinetics, Champaign, IL, 461 p.

Position of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Nutrition.  Nutrition & Athletic Performance.  J. Am. Diet. Assoc.  2009;109:509-527.  Access online here. Be sure to click on the PDF link below the abstract for the full report.

Disclaimer: Please note that we cannot provide personalized advice and that the information provided does not constitute medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, please visit a medical professional.

27 October 11
Healthy Proteins on a Budget Healthy eating is possible on a tight budget! You don’t have to be a college student to benefit from cost-saving tips either. Here are three basic tips for cutting costs while still choosing nutritious protein foods (that is, your main entrée foods): choose less processed foods, buy in bulk, and buy store brands over name brands. Eating healthfully on a very tight budget requires time to plan, shop, and cook.     Sometimes, though, it helps to look at cost in a different way to help you make decisions about which foods to purchase. If you consider choosing foods by cost per gram of protein, then you can save a lot of money. Be sure to account for handling and cooking losses when you make your comparisons! A difference of pennies per gram of protein might not seem like much, but if you consume that food consistently for a year, then the savings become dollars. Think about that the next time you feel like you have to choose between paying for your groceries and paying your electric/gas bill. For the sake of comparison, I have used prices from my local King Soopers (Kroger) chain grocery store located in Boulder County, Colorado. King Soopers and Kroger are the “store brands” (that is, no-brand versions). I have chosen less expensive yet nutritious protein choices for comparison.  Eggs.  1 large egg provides about 6 grams of protein regardless of brand. 2.3 cents/g protein for Kroger large white egg (13.5 cents per egg if buying a dozen) 3.4 cents/g protein for Eggland’s Best large white egg (20.1 cents per egg if buying a dozen) Savings over the course of one year if you purchase Kroger vs. Eggland’s Best and eat 1 egg every day = $24.Dried beans/peas (legumes).  Legumes work double duty for you – in addition to protein, you also get high-fiber carbs. For reference: ½ cup of cooked beans is about 4.6 oz and provides about 7 grams of protein. Dry beans expand about 2.5 – 3 times their size, so just under 3 tablespoons of dry beans will make about ½ cup of cooked beans. < 1 cent/g protein for Kroger’s dry bag of kidney beans ($0.99/lb) 6.4 cents/g protein for Kuner’s “No added salt” canned kidney beans ($1.29/15oz can).  Drained weight is 68% of total weight so the true cost is $1.29/10oz drained beans.  Price/g protein accounts for drained bean weight. Savings over the course of one year if you purchase dry beans vs. brand name canned and eat ½ cup of cooked beans every day = $20.Chicken.  Buying a whole chicken and cooking it yourself saves a lot of money compared to buying a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, or even buying raw chicken in pieces (e.g. breast meat or thighs). Buying small packages of raw skinless chicken breasts is the most expensive way to buy chicken, even after accounting for handling and cooking losses. Note that 1 lb is 16 oz (or 454 grams). One ounce of chicken provides about 8 grams of protein. 1.5 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Whole Broiler/Fryer Chicken ($0.98/lb). The yield of edible cooked meat is only half the raw weight of a whole chicken, so the true cost is actually $1.96/lb cooked, deboned, skinless meat. The price/g protein accounts for these losses. 2.3 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Chicken Skinless Breasts Super Value Pack 10 count ($1.99/lb). 1 lb of raw breasts yields about 11 oz of cooked chicken meat, so the true cost of cooked meat is $2.89/lb. Price/g protein accounts for these cooking losses. 4 cents/g protein: King Soopers Colossal Rotisserie Chicken 48oz ($7.99/bird or $2.66/lb). Edible meat is 52% of the total cooked bird weight, so the true cost is $5.12/lb of edible meat. Price/g protein accounts for these losses. 6.8 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Skinless Chicken Breasts 4 count ($5.99/lb). 1 lb raw breasts yields about 11 oz of cooked chicken meat so the true cost is $8.71/lb cooked meat. Price/g protein accounts for these losses. Savings over the course of one year if you eat 6 oz of cooked chicken every week starting with a raw whole chicken vs. buying a small pack of raw skinless chicken breasts = $132.Canned Light Tuna.  Just because the money is tight doesn’t mean you have to go without fish.  You will get a good amount of omega-3 fats (DHA) with less cost and mercury than fancy albacore tuna. One ounce of fish contains about 7 grams of protein. 16.0 cents/g protein:  Kroger Canned Light Tuna in Water $0.69/5oz can (4.3oz drained) 33.2 cents/g protein:  Kroger Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($1.99/6oz pouch) 48.3 cents/g protein:  Starkist Chunk Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($3.09/6.4oz pouch) 71.6 cents/g protein:  Bumble Bee Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($1.79/2.5oz pouch). Savings over the course of one year if you purchase Kroger canned tuna vs. a brand name small pouch of tuna and eat 6 oz every week for one year = $173. Over the course of the year, changing just these 4 food items will save you $349. Imagine how much money you would save if you switched out every food item you purchased with a store-brand, less processed, and in bulk version. The total savings would run well into thousands of dollars. Now that kind of savings would go a long way in paying your utility bills!Have questions or comments about this post? Please feel free to comment on MyNetDiary’s Forum or Facebook page. I would love to hear from you!Best,Kathy Isacks, MPS, RDConsulting Dietitian for MyNetDiaryReferencesAgriculture Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Food Yields: Summarized by Different Stages of Preparation. Agriculture Handbook No. 102.  1975. Barbara Struempler. Alabama Cooperative Extension. 101+ Ways to Save Food Dollars.  HE 757.  2008.Disclaimer: Please note that we cannot provide personalized advice and that the information provided does not constitute medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, please visit a medical professional.

Healthy Proteins on a Budget
 
Healthy eating is possible on a tight budget! You don’t have to be a college student to benefit from cost-saving tips either. Here are three basic tips for cutting costs while still choosing nutritious protein foods (that is, your main entrée foods): choose less processed foods, buy in bulk, and buy store brands over name brands. Eating healthfully on a very tight budget requires time to plan, shop, and cook.    
 
Sometimes, though, it helps to look at cost in a different way to help you make decisions about which foods to purchase. If you consider choosing foods by cost per gram of protein, then you can save a lot of money. Be sure to account for handling and cooking losses when you make your comparisons!
 
A difference of pennies per gram of protein might not seem like much, but if you consume that food consistently for a year, then the savings become dollars. Think about that the next time you feel like you have to choose between paying for your groceries and paying your electric/gas bill.
 
For the sake of comparison, I have used prices from my local King Soopers (Kroger) chain grocery store located in Boulder County, Colorado. King Soopers and Kroger are the “store brands” (that is, no-brand versions). I have chosen less expensive yet nutritious protein choices for comparison.
 
Eggs.  1 large egg provides about 6 grams of protein regardless of brand.

  • 2.3 cents/g protein for Kroger large white egg (13.5 cents per egg if buying a dozen)
  • 3.4 cents/g protein for Eggland’s Best large white egg (20.1 cents per egg if buying a dozen)

Savings over the course of one year if you purchase Kroger vs. Eggland’s Best and eat 1 egg every day = $24.

Dried beans/peas (legumes).  Legumes work double duty for you – in addition to protein, you also get high-fiber carbs. For reference: ½ cup of cooked beans is about 4.6 oz and provides about 7 grams of protein. Dry beans expand about 2.5 – 3 times their size, so just under 3 tablespoons of dry beans will make about ½ cup of cooked beans.

  • < 1 cent/g protein for Kroger’s dry bag of kidney beans ($0.99/lb)
  • 6.4 cents/g protein for Kuner’s “No added salt” canned kidney beans ($1.29/15oz can).  Drained weight is 68% of total weight so the true cost is $1.29/10oz drained beans.  Price/g protein accounts for drained bean weight.

Savings over the course of one year if you purchase dry beans vs. brand name canned and eat ½ cup of cooked beans every day = $20.

Chicken.  Buying a whole chicken and cooking it yourself saves a lot of money compared to buying a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, or even buying raw chicken in pieces (e.g. breast meat or thighs). Buying small packages of raw skinless chicken breasts is the most expensive way to buy chicken, even after accounting for handling and cooking losses. Note that 1 lb is 16 oz (or 454 grams). One ounce of chicken provides about 8 grams of protein.

  • 1.5 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Whole Broiler/Fryer Chicken ($0.98/lb). The yield of edible cooked meat is only half the raw weight of a whole chicken, so the true cost is actually $1.96/lb cooked, deboned, skinless meat. The price/g protein accounts for these losses.

  • 2.3 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Chicken Skinless Breasts Super Value Pack 10 count ($1.99/lb). 1 lb of raw breasts yields about 11 oz of cooked chicken meat, so the true cost of cooked meat is $2.89/lb. Price/g protein accounts for these cooking losses.

  • 4 cents/g protein: King Soopers Colossal Rotisserie Chicken 48oz ($7.99/bird or $2.66/lb). Edible meat is 52% of the total cooked bird weight, so the true cost is $5.12/lb of edible meat. Price/g protein accounts for these losses.

  • 6.8 cents/g protein: King Soopers Raw Skinless Chicken Breasts 4 count ($5.99/lb). 1 lb raw breasts yields about 11 oz of cooked chicken meat so the true cost is $8.71/lb cooked meat. Price/g protein accounts for these losses.

Savings over the course of one year if you eat 6 oz of cooked chicken every week starting with a raw whole chicken vs. buying a small pack of raw skinless chicken breasts = $132.

Canned Light Tuna.  Just because the money is tight doesn’t mean you have to go without fish.  You will get a good amount of omega-3 fats (DHA) with less cost and mercury than fancy albacore tuna. One ounce of fish contains about 7 grams of protein.

  • 16.0 cents/g protein:  Kroger Canned Light Tuna in Water $0.69/5oz can (4.3oz drained)
  • 33.2 cents/g protein:  Kroger Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($1.99/6oz pouch)
  • 48.3 cents/g protein:  Starkist Chunk Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($3.09/6.4oz pouch)
  • 71.6 cents/g protein:  Bumble Bee Light Tuna in Water Pouch ($1.79/2.5oz pouch).

Savings over the course of one year if you purchase Kroger canned tuna vs. a brand name small pouch of tuna and eat 6 oz every week for one year = $173.

Over the course of the year, changing just these 4 food items will save you $349. Imagine how much money you would save if you switched out every food item you purchased with a store-brand, less processed, and in bulk version. The total savings would run well into thousands of dollars. Now that kind of savings would go a long way in paying your utility bills!

Have questions or comments about this post? Please feel free to comment on MyNetDiary’s Forum or Facebook page. I would love to hear from you!

Best,
Kathy Isacks, MPS, RD
Consulting Dietitian for MyNetDiary

References

Agriculture Research Service, United States Department of Agriculture. Food Yields: Summarized by Different Stages of Preparation. Agriculture Handbook No. 102.  1975.

Barbara Struempler. Alabama Cooperative Extension. 101+ Ways to Save Food Dollars.  HE 757.  2008.
Disclaimer: Please note that we cannot provide personalized advice and that the information provided does not constitute medical advice. If you are seeking medical advice, please visit a medical professional.

Copyright © 2010, 2011 by MyNetDiary.com
Themed by Hunson. Originally by Josh