74. The Ultimate Guide to Protein for Runners

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, sports nutritionist, Master life coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 74 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’ve got a fun topic for us. It is the ultimate guide to protein for runners. Yeah, it’s fun. I said that protein is fun.

Here, here’s the deal. If you’re like most runners, you probably don’t have a good understanding of the importance of protein in your diet, and you probably aren’t getting enough, that’s gonna be my guess most people I talk to are not getting enough protein.

Protein is one of those topics that can actually divide a lot of people, especially in the health and fitness community. So everybody’s got an opinion, right? So I wanted to take a sort of a comprehensive look at protein from a couple of different angles, including some new research on the topic.

So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to be answering questions that I get asked most often about protein, like, how much protein should I be getting? How does protein help promote weight loss? How does protein help with my running? What are the best sources of protein? How long after a workout should I take protein? What about protein supplements? Do you recommend these? Guess what if it has to do with protein?

And if it has to do with any of these questions I just went over, I got you covered. That’s why this episode is titled The Ultimate Guide to protein for runners. But before we get into that, be sure to come and check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook.

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Let’s talk about protein. Okay, are we cool? Everybody ready for this? All right. So what is protein? Protein is a long chain of amino acids. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within the human body including you know, there’s like metabolic reactions that happen with protein, there’s DNA replication.

Protein responds to different stimuli. It provides a structure to cells and organisms within the body. It helps molecules, you know, it helps transport molecules from one location to another in the body. Protein makes up everything in your body basically, right? Everything in your body is made of proteins. Proteins are the building blocks of organs, muscle, skin, hormones, and tissues, your body has to have protein.

To maintain the human body, we have to eat protein, okay, we don’t make protein internally. So protein is considered one of the essential nutrients that we have to have, that our body does not make. Fat and protein are two of the essential nutrients that we need.

Funnily enough, carbohydrate is not an essential protein or a nonessential nutrient. We don’t have to eat carbohydrates, we do need glucose. In order to survive, our brains need a certain amount of glucose, our muscles need a certain amount of glucose, but our liver provides all the glucose that we need.

So technically, we don’t really need to eat carbohydrates are not considered an essential nutrient. I’m not saying don’t eat them, I’m just saying we don’t need them. Okay. But protein is the other part of this is like we have to eat it. We don’t produce that from within our bodies. So we will die if we don’t eat protein or fat, okay?

So we don’t want to die. So we need a protein. Alright. Alright, and a podcast, we’re done. Just eat some protein. Okay, so why is protein important for runners? Well, protein plays a role in improving your running. So if the protein is key to building muscle, and repairing muscle tissue, then if you’re not getting enough protein, you won’t be recovering as well.

After those hard workouts, you won’t be able to repair the muscle damage that you do during those super long runs, or those super tough workouts, okay, you’ll just be continually breaking down muscle and not preparing it not rebuilding it properly. So for runners, protein is key. I mean, it’s key for everyone, but runners probably need more protein than the average person.

And here’s something cool when you train in the fasted state. So I’ve talked about this a lot like when you don’t eat before you go for a long run, this can actually help you to utilize protein more effectively. So training in the fasted state helps to optimize hormones, including growth hormone, and testosterone, which we all need.

But producing these hormones actually promotes protein synthesis, and therefore will help to repair muscles and help to grow muscle. So training fasted actually has this amazing benefit, where it’ll help you to utilize protein better, okay, so as a runner, we absolutely need to get enough protein.

I’ll talk about how much protein we eat and stuff like that in a minute. But just know that we break down muscle more than the average person, the sedentary person. So what about weight loss? Like what’s protein’s role in weight loss? So protein plays many roles in weight loss, not just in building lean muscle, that’s part of it.

Protein helps you to lose weight by actually turning off hunger signals. So researchers at the University of Kansas Medical Center discovered that adding more protein to the trial, the clinical trial, patients’ diets, when they added more protein, especially if they did this at the first meal of the day, literally decreased the signals in the brain that stimulate appetite and stimulate appetite, and lead to overeating.

So people were not eating as much, and they weren’t as hungry, because they were just all they did was increase the amount of protein they were eating. So that’s cool. That helps you to lose weight because you’re not going to be hungry all the time.

Another cool role that protein plays in weight loss is that you actually burn more calories just by digesting protein than you do by digesting carbs or fat. So this is called the thermic effect of food. And when you eat carbohydrates or fat, and protein, when you eat any food at all some of that food Some of the energy from that food goes to digesting that food, okay?

So when you’re eating fat, 0-3% of the calories from fat, go to digesting fat. So in other words you don’t need, you don’t use a lot of calories to digest fat because it can be easily absorbed by your body. Carbohydrates, 5-10% of the calories from the carbohydrates that you eat, go into breaking that down and digesting the carbohydrates.

So let’s even on the higher end of that, you know, let’s say 10%. So if you’re eating 100 calories of carbs, then you’re actually only going to absorb 90 calories of that, okay, so that’s cool. But protein, the thermic effect of protein, when you eat it, 20-30% of the total calories from the protein you eat goes into digesting it. This is amazing.

So at the higher end of that, you know, if you’re eating 100 calories of protein, only 70 calories actually get absorbed by your body. So you actually, you know, burn more calories when you’re just eating more protein, which is cool.

Another study they did at the Copenhagen University Hospital and was published in the Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that over the course of a five-year study, no macronutrient reduces the amount of belly fat for study participants more than protein. And that these results were mostly from animal-based sources of protein.

So just looking at a macronutrient, when they increased protein, then these people just lost more belly fat. So this is cool. These are big findings, they’re very important findings, okay, so protein actually, will definitely help you if you’re trying to lose weight. Now, if you’re not getting enough protein, this can lead to all kinds of problems. Okay.

So let’s think about this. Runners who are striving to lose weight, sometimes, they can be working out a lot, and then like really reducing the number of calories they’re eating. So they’re trying to do some sort of calorie-restricted diet. And they can be very protein deficient because they’re just not getting enough calories.

In general, they’re running all the time. And because they’re not eating enough food, basically, they’re not getting enough protein. And this, this can be a problem. Okay, so a couple of reasons.

Number one, when you reduce your calories, too much over a too long period of time, you put your body into this, starvation mode, which will lower your metabolism. And we don’t ever want to do that, right, we don’t want to lower our metabolism, we always want to increase our metabolism, right.

But not only that, you risk cannibalizing muscle, which means your body will start breaking down muscle to be used as energy because you’re not getting enough energy. Right. So that’s, that’s a problem with the calorie-reduced diets. Like we don’t want to go that route for sure.

But insufficient protein intake can also lead to loss of muscle. So you’re going to lose that lean muscle that you want to need for running. But if you’re not getting enough protein, you know you really risk losing muscle. And with that loss of muscle, your increase of injury goes up.

Especially things like stress fractures, stress fractures can be prevented by training properly and not overdoing it. You know, run, build up your base your long miles build that slowly is one way to make sure you prevent stress fractures and shin splints and stuff like that. But the other thing is making sure you get enough protein because you need to support muscle growth and strong muscles will help build you know help to support your skeleton and connective tissues and all that and will help to prevent injuries.

You also risk without enough protein, you risk other micronutrient deficiencies, so you’re not going to be getting enough of the vitamins and minerals that your body actually needs. So what’s the solution? What do we do? Hey, why don’t you just get enough protein?

So this leads me to like how much protein should we be eating or getting in our diet? You know? So if you look at the US Dietary Guidelines or the RDI, the recommended daily intake, suggests .4 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. This is way too low. And this is not just me saying this to you if you do a little research on these doctors, and sports nutritionists.

Anybody in the health and fitness field will tell you that this is not a recommended amount. This is like the minimum that you would want. Okay? So .4 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. So for me, I weigh 170 pounds right now, that would only be 68 grams of protein a day.

For me, this is not going to work for me at all I’m telling you right now. And they’re not taking into account my active lifestyle, or my, my running goals, or the fact that I do a lot of weight training, or that I’m trying to maybe build some muscle and become more muscular. And so this also assumes that a 170-pound sedentary person, like maybe a sedentary woman should be eating the exact same protein amount as me, that just doesn’t make any sense.

Okay, so just know that these, you know, RDI’s, the recommended daily intakes are very low and kind of the minimum. Okay. So the US military did a study on protein, and they published it in the Journal of Nutrition. And they found that higher-protein diets are actually associated with lower BMI, lower levels of visceral fat, and an improved cholesterol profile compared to protein consumed at the RDI levels.

So, you know, even the US military is like, Hey, you guys need to be eating more protein than what the, you know, the US Dietary Guidelines are recommending or whatever, are is not enough. Okay. So there are a lot of different protein recommendations out there.

And what I found, because I wanted to give you guys something that was easy for you to just kind of figure out and a good place for you to start. But like, so the sports nutrition organization that I’m licensed through the National Association of Sports Nutrition, recommends 1-1.5 grams of protein for every pound of lean body mass. So for this, you have to know your body fat percentages.

And it’s very, it’s pretty accurate, I would say this is a good place to go. Other trusted sources say to shoot for .8-1.1 grams of protein for every pound of your ideal body weight. So if you are if you currently weigh 200 pounds, but you want to weigh 150, then aim for.8-1.1 grams of protein for every 150 pounds, okay?

Now, here’s, I’m just throwing these numbers out there, but I got a much simpler formula for you. Okay, a much simpler way of figuring this out. And all of these things come to roughly the same number. But this is just an easier formula, I want you to think of protein as a percentage of your calories.

So around 30% of your calories from protein is what is recommended. For most people, this is the optimal number to optimize fat burning. So if you’re an extreme endurance athlete, or you’re a weightlifter bodybuilder, you might want more, you might want to go to like 35%, but like 30%, I think is a really great place for most people, especially runners. To begin, like, start there, you can, you know, adjust that up or down.

But let’s go with 30%. Okay, so, to figure 30% of your calories, this is an easy formula for you to do, all you have to do is multiply the total number of calories you eat each day by .075. Okay, so here’s how this works. If you’re somebody who eats about 1500 calories a day, times .075, that equals 112 grams of protein.

All right, now we’re getting somewhere as this seems much more normal, like where you should probably be. If you have a 2000 calorie diet, times .075 equals 150 grams of protein. Now, for me, I eat a lot. I work out a lot. I’m trying to build some muscle here. I’ve actually put on five pounds of muscle over the last 10-12 weeks, so I’m feeling good about that.

But for me, I eat around 2800 calories. So times .075 equals 210 grams of protein a day. Oh my gosh, that’s way different than the 68 grams of protein that the recommended daily intake suggests for somebody like me, right?

And some people say, well, what can’t you eat? You know, isn’t it a problem, like isn’t too much protein a problem? Is this something we need to be concerned about? And the short answer is no. You really don’t need to be concerned about it. You would have to be eating way, way more protein than I just mentioned, for a very long period of time.

And listen, I just did it as an experiment where I was eating basically nothing but protein, I was eating a very high protein, all carnivorous diet basically for about 40 days. And I was probably in the 200 to 220 grams of protein a day, and I didn’t have any issues at all. Honestly, I couldn’t eat more than that.

It’s just too much food, like, it’s really hard, it’s hard to overdo it with a protein, okay. But yes, there is also a concern, that too, eating too much protein will force your body to turn some of that excess protein, the protein that you’re not utilizing, it’ll turn some of that excess protein into glucose.

So there is this process that there’s your body does, it’s called gluconeogenesis. And this is a metabolic process that creates glucose from noncarbohydrate sources, namely fat and protein. This happens in your liver. So glucose gets created from fats and proteins. Now, here’s something interesting. Glucose can get created from fats. So the triglycerides that are floating around in your bloodstream can actually be used to create glucose that your muscles need that your brain needs.

And the way it works is a triglyceride is literally three fatty acids. That’s the tri part of it. And three fatty acids on a glycerol backbone. That’s what a triglyceride is. The glycerol part of it, it sounds like glucose, glycogen, that kind of thing, right? It’s very similar. So your liver can actually take a triglyceride and turn it into glucose that your body can use as fuel, which is totally cool.

Your liver will only use protein to make glucose as a last resort. So it’s going to use fat from your system first. And that can be turned into energy. This is one of the pathways that becoming fat-adapted really takes advantage of right because you’re you can create energy from fat.

So and then here’s something I think is fascinating. Glucose created from a triglyceride cannot turn back into a triglyceride. In other words, when your liver takes the triglyceride and turns it into glucose, it can’t then be stored as fat again, it has to be either burned as fuel or excreted in you know, urine or stool or whatever. So this is kind of a cool thing.

So your body will actually produce all the glucose that you need. And that extra glucose since has been created from a triglyceride can’t go back to becoming a triglyceride, so it won’t be stored as fat. Again, I think this is totally cool.

So because of this process, you know, your liver can use protein and turn some of that protein into glucose, which will raise your blood sugar, but this is the last resort, this is not going to happen until after it’s kind of used up the triglycerides that it needs. Okay, so it’s not something you really need to worry about too much, you would have to be eating way, way, way excess protein for you know, long periods of time.

Okay, so let’s talk about some high-protein foods. So foods that I would definitely recommend to get enough protein in your diet, okay. So there are basically there’s like two types of proteins out there. There are complete proteins and incomplete proteins. And you can kind of bulk these into like two different camps.

One is like, most animal proteins are considered complete proteins. And then most plant-based proteins are considered incomplete proteins. Okay. So I’m just going to say you know that animal protein are favored as a more high-quality source of protein, okay. So most plant proteins are what are considered incomplete. They don’t contain all the essential amino acids required for protein synthesis.

Okay, complete proteins have all the essential amino acids that our bodies need. So animal-based proteins like meat, poultry, fish, eggs, milk, and cheese, are all considered complete proteins. There are a couple of sources of plant proteins that are considered complete proteins, although they’re not as high quality or as easily absorbable.

Quinoa and soy would be the two key no’s – very, very high in carbohydrate though that’s something to be careful of. But soy is actually a really good quality, complete plant-based protein. So if you can tolerate soy, some people are allergic to soy, but if you can tolerate it, this would be the go-to for somebody on a plant-based or vegetarian diet.

Well, vegetarians can do like whey protein, which is awesome. But here’s the thing. As human beings, we work on the all or nothing principle when it comes to protein synthesis. So, really only complete proteins can be utilized, right? Partial proteins or incomplete proteins can’t really be utilized properly.

So if you’re somebody on a plant-based diet, you’re probably gonna have to combine different protein sources, and maybe supplements to be sure you’re getting all of the amino acids that your body actually needs to function properly. So and I’ve said this before, you know, plant proteins are designed for building and growing plants.

Animal proteins are designed for building and growing animals, we are animals and we prefer, we just prefer as human beings, animal-based proteins, okay? Nothing wrong with being a vegetarian or vegan if you want to go that route, but just make sure you’re getting the right types of proteins, right. And you may have to combine a few different things to get there.

So here are some high protein foods that I recommend eggs, obviously, an amazing source of protein, especially the whites, but eggs are just like so perfect. That’s like a 65% fat, they’re 30% protein, and then just a tiny little like a 5% carbs or something. And eggs, eggs are just the perfect little package. Right?

Now one egg is like six grams of protein. So you know, you eat four eggs, you know, you’re up to 24-25 grams of protein. This is awesome. This is gonna get you, you know, a great deal of ways towards your protein goals for the day. So eggs, an awesome source of protein.

One of the best sources of protein is chicken breast, eight ounces of chicken breast is like 70 grams of protein. So for most of us, if you can eat a couple of chicken breasts a day, boom, you’re good, like you’re pretty well covered, right?

Beefsteak, you know, eight ounces of steak is like 68 grams of protein.

Canned tuna is an amazing source of protein, four ounces of canned tuna is like 27 grams of protein.

Salmon, I love salmon and highly recommended it, you know, there are so many good health benefits from eating salmon, four ounces of salmon, 25 grams of protein.

Here’s a good plant base, there are two good plant-based sources of protein I’m gonna talk about one of them is tofu, and the other is tempeh base. So tofu, obviously made from soy, and four ounces of tofu can have anywhere from 8 to 15 grams of protein. And this depends on how firm it is. So the more firm the tofu is, the less water content and the denser it is, and the higher the protein content. So I always opt for the super firm is the most firm, whatever they call it, the firmest type of tofu that you can get.

And then tempeh is another soy-based protein. It’s made from soybeans. It’s fermented though, and so it’s a fermented soybean block. And so it’s very dense like there’s not a lot of water content in there. But the fermentation actually helps to break down the phytic acid in the soybeans, making the starches and the temporary in the temporary actually easier for you to digest.

So this is one of the best plant-based sources of protein, and four ounces of tempeh is 23 grams of protein. I know it’s amazing, right? Cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and a cup of each of these have around 23 grams of protein. Lentils, a cup of lentils, when it comes to you know beans, legumes, I don’t know what that is. It’s a bean or legume, whatever.

Lentils are very high in protein, 18 grams of protein for a cup. But one thing with this one thing here is that 28 grams of carbs in a cup of lentils. So you’re kind of like, you know, that’s very high in carbohydrates. So I’m mostly talking about lower carbohydrate forms of protein here, but that one’s just pretty high in carbs.

Almonds, a quarter cup of almonds, seven grams protein, awesome. Here’s one, broccoli or Brussels sprouts, two cups of broccoli or Brussels sprouts gonna give you seven grams of protein. So there are all these amazing sources of protein out there.

Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list. These are just a few things that came to mind that are kind of high in protein. Definitely, you know, you can just Google this and you’ll find all kinds of other options but at starting adding some of these things into your diet and you know, one thing you can do if you’re somebody that’s leaning more towards a low carbohydrate approach, just like, lower the carbs and replace those carbs with protein.

Here’s the other thing to keep to consider. Protein is very filling, it’s very satisfying to eat, it’s filling, it fills you up, it keeps you full for longer, and you’re not going to be as hungry. You know, it also shuts down those hunger signals. So eat more protein, there are so many good benefits from this.

Okay, well, what about protein after we work out? So most people believe that you need to consume some protein right after a workout like you’ve got about 30 minutes, and you better get some protein in. Yeah, you know, get that shake, go on, or whatever. And so this is kind of a standard that’s been around for decades, you know.

But there’s some recent research that suggests that a larger window after your workout is fine. So according to the International Society of Sports Nutrition, consuming protein anytime, up to two hours after your workout is ideal for building muscle mass. So, you know, anytime up to about two hours is going to be ideal after that. It’s not terrible. But it’s just the ideal window is going to be up to two hours after a workout, right?

This works out perfectly for me, because I’m usually not that hungry right after a workout like I’m not eating, you know, right after I’m done with a heavy lifting session or a long run. I’m just not hungry right away. And I usually wait an hour or two, before I eat anything anyway. So it’s totally fine. So just know that you don’t have to slam down some protein, right? When you’re done running or lifting weights or whatever, you can wait up to two hours totally fine.

Okay, what about protein supplements, should we be supplementing with protein. So, you know, I talk a lot about eating real food. And I think this is probably the best way to go. For most people, getting your protein from whole foods is probably best. But I do believe there is a place for protein supplements.

So for example, some women find it difficult to get 100 or 120 grams of protein per day from eating food, because they would have to eat a lot of protein, a lot of chicken or a lot of eggs, or a lot of steaks and they just can’t do that just can’t eat that much protein, okay? Totally fine.

In this case, a protein supplement can be perfect, you know, take a protein supplement one or two scoops of protein usually there it’s like 20 to 25 grams of protein in a supplement. And you know, you could do that a couple of times a day. And that’s going to give you like half your protein requirement for the day, you know, and then you can eat real food to make up the rest, and then you’re good and you’re not stuffing yourself with food.

So a couple of the types of protein supplements that I recommend. The first one is whey protein, whey protein is dairy-based, but it contains all of the essential amino acids and it is quickly absorbed by your body. So this is like the gold standard when it comes to protein supplements is whey protein, this is like the best thing that you can take as a supplement, okay.

Second to that would be soy protein. So if you don’t do dairy, and you want like a plant-based then soy is going to give you it actually does contain all of the essential amino acids. And it’s been looked at been linked to some pretty impressive health benefits. So soy protein is actually pretty good when it comes to a plant-based protein supplement.

There are a couple of other plant-based protein supplements that do not contain all the essential amino acids, they’re pretty good but they just don’t contain all of the essential amino acids so that would be pea protein. It just doesn’t have all the amino acids that you need. And hemp protein.

Hemp protein is made from hemp seeds that have a lot of fiber, omega threes Omega six fats like these, these two like pea protein and protein, they’re fine, but they’re just not complete. They’re not going to give you everything that you need. Okay. Alright, so that is everything I have to say about protein at this time.

I hope you guys got something out of this. I hope you learned something I learned a lot just by putting this together and going back to a lot of the sources that I use and just kind of piecing it all together for this episode. I had a lot of fun doing this.

So if you got something out of this today, I would love it if you would share this with a friend that would mean a lot to me. Alright, until next time, love you all keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

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