Maybe you have heard:

• You should eat a high protein breakfast, or that eating a high protein diet is important, but do you know why?
• That “high-quality, complete proteins” are important, but do you know what that means?
• That almond butter and peanut butter are good sources of protein 🤦🏻‍♀️.

Now, I love me some almond butter, but nut butters and peanut butter are a good source of healthy fat, NOT protein.

I’m here to lift the veil, dispel the myths, and clear up any and all confusion that you may have about protein.

Over 40, and especially for peri to post menopausal women, it becomes increasingly important to eat a high protein diet for protein synthesis to support muscle growth, body functions, hormone balance, and to reap the benefits of protein’s thermogenic effects, and its satiety factor.

As you age, you can counter muscle loss and maximize your body’s ability to maintain and build muscle by eating a high protein meal for your first meal of the day to kick off the daily muscle protein synthesis cycles.

Therefore, protein is the only macronutrient (macronutrients are: protein, fats, carbohydrates) that requires age-based shifts in quantity and quality over time.

Over 40, the 3 specific reasons to eat a high protein diet are:

1. Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS)
2. Satiety
3. Thermogenic Effect

Protein & Body Function

Roughly 20% of your body is protein. Your bones, ligaments, tendons, muscles, liver, brain, skin, and fingernails are all built from proteins.

Proteins control function in all tissues and organs, support energy production, communication between cells, and hormone balance.

Your body turns over about 250g of protein in a day for a combination of functions and tissues in the body, one of them being muscle.

Protein is critical for longevity, metabolic function, and quality of life.

Protein & Amino Acids

There are 20 amino acids.

11 are non essential amino acids, which means your body has the ability to make them.

9 are essential amino acids, which means that your body does not have the ability to make them and you must get them from your diet.

Protein contains amino acids and high quality protein sources contain sufficient quantities of all 9 essential amino acids to stimulate and support protein synthesis.

3 of the essential amino acids, leucine, lysine, and methionine, are particularly important in establishing protein quality.

A food is considered a complete protein when it contains all 9 essential amino acids and if the correct amount is consumed, leucine is the amino acid that will trigger protein synthesis.

All animal proteins are complete, however, only a few plant-based sources, like quinoa and buckwheat, are complete.

(Sorry to break the news but, as delicious as they are, almond butter and peanut butter fall in the “incomplete” plant-based protein category as they are not a high quality protein and contain more fat than protein.)

Protein is the food source for our bodies to get the essential amino acids for protein synthesis to maintain and build muscle and support bodily functions.

Protein Synthesis, Amino Acids & Aging

There are 2 types of protein synthesis: Muscle Protein Synthesis and Liver Protein Synthesis.

Muscle protein synthesis (MTOR) is how your body repairs and builds muscle to maintain and increase muscle mass.

As you age, starting at 25, you have the potential to lose 5lbs of lean body mass and experience a 2-4% decline in your Resting Metabolic Rate per decade.

In addition, after 40, your mitochondria, (the tiny powerhouses inside your cells that turn food and oxygen into energy), become tired leading to mitochondrial dysfunction.

Mitochondrial dysfunction can make you feel more tired during and after exercise, causing muscle aches and pain.

Over 40, to prevent muscle loss and mitochondrial dysfunction, in addition to strength training, it becomes increasingly important to eat enough protein to support cell function, and specifically enough of the amino acid leucine, to trigger muscle protein synthesis to repair and build muscle.

Before age 35, your body can trigger protein synthesis with .8g – 1.7g of leucine per meal.

Over 40, your body requires a minimum of 2.5g of leucine per meal for a restorative effect on muscle protein synthesis.

That means, if you want to maintain the muscle you have, in addition to strength training, you will need to eat a minimum of 2.5g of leucine per meal and more if you are trying to build muscle.

How Much Protein Should You Eat Per Day?

The RDA guidelines at .8g of protein per kg of bodyweight (or .35g per pound of bodyweight) per day are outdated and based upon the bare minimum requirements to keep you alive.

Current research shows that 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day is more accurate and if you are over 40 and/or a peri to postmenopausal woman, then a high protein diet of 2.5g per kg of bodyweight or 1.1 – 1.3g per pound of bodyweight is best, especially if you are strength training and active.

How Much Protein Should You Eat Per Meal?

Your body requires 2.5g – 3 g of the amino acid leucine to trigger muscle protein synthesis.

This is generally about 30g of animal protein per meal.

So if you weigh 135lbs and eat 3 meals per day this would be about 45g of protein per meal.

However, to maximize the number of protein cycles per day, you want your first and last meals of the day to be highest in protein and if you are strength training, you want your post exercise meal to contain enough protein to trigger muscle protein synthesis.

Here’s why…

Protein Timing & Distribution

During the hours that you are sleeping, your body is basically fasting for 8 hours.

After an overnight fast from sleeping, your body is in a catabolic state (i.e. below MTOR baseline). When your body is in a catabolic state it slows down protein synthesis to preserve muscle and this is when liver protein synthesis* will take protein from muscle for synthesis.

(*Remember: Protein synthesis involves both muscle protein synthesis to support your muscles and liver protein synthesis to support other bodily functions.)

When you wake up, since your body is in a catabolic state, your body is more sensitive to receiving protein in the diet because it wants protein to trigger muscle protein synthesis.

When your first meal of the day is high in protein with a high quality, complete protein and a minimum of 2.5 – 2.6g of the amino acid leucine, then your body will trigger muscle protein synthesis (MTOR).

Muscle protein synthesis (MTOR) lasts for about 2.5 hours. After it stops, amino acids are still high in the blood which indicates that muscle protein synthesis (MTOR) is still active at a baseline level (i.e. above catabolic, at baseline).

This means that when you eat your next meal, 3-4 hours later, muscle protein synthesis (MTOR) will ramp up again.

If you have a high protein meal at your first meal, then you open yourself up to more muscle protein synthesis cycles throughout the day at each of your meals. This gives your body more opportunities to maintain and build muscle, which is extremely important over 40 and for peri to post menopausal women.

Conversely, if you wait until your last meal to have a high protein meal, you will only get one muscle protein synthesis cycle during the day.

Over 40, and especially for women during and after the menopause years, to maintain and build more muscle, we want more cycles of muscle protein synthesis.

For the last meal, since you are getting ready to go to sleep and fast for 8 hours while you sleep, you want to fuel up on protein before this fast.

Remember, muscle protein synthesis (MTOR) lasts about 2.5 hours, while liver protein synthesis is active after MTOR winds down and continues while you sleep.

Therefore, you also want your last meal of the day to be a high protein meal.

In addition, after exercise, your muscles have an increased blood flow due to muscle contractions and are primed to take in nutrients. Therefore, you want to eat enough protein post exercise to trigger muscle protein synthesis.

This means the 135lb woman could shift her protein distribution to look like:

• Breakfast: 50 g
• Lunch: 35g
• Dinner 50g

Pro Tip: Casein is slow digesting protein and is a great pre bedtime snack to support protein synthesis through your nighttime fast while you sleep.

Personally, I eat 4 meals per day and one of them is a pre-bedtime snack of casein, almond butter, and either sweet potato or steel cut oats.

Aside from muscle protein synthesis, the other benefits of eating a high protein diet are satiety and thermogenesis.

Protein & Satiety

Research shows that high protein diets are more satiating and when you eat more protein throughout your day, it makes it less likely to overeat.

Just think about how hard it is to over eat protein. It’s the one macronutrient that makes you feel fuller faster and for longer.

Protein & Thermogenesis

One of the incredible benefits of protein is its furnace-like, calorie burning, thermogenic effect.

Digesting, absorbing, and metabolizing macronutrients in general, takes energy and burns calories.

But the special thermic bonus that protein has is that it can trigger muscle protein synthesis which causes it to burn more calories than other macronutrients.

Depending on how many muscle protein synthesis cycles you have in a day, you can increase energy expenditure by 20 to 35% of protein’s net caloric intake.

For example, if you eat 800 calories of protein in a day, 160 to 240 calories of that will be used for digestion, absorption, and muscle protein synthesis.

That means the 800 calories of protein you consume are really only 640 – 560 calories!

Um hello?! Who doesn’t want to burn calories just by eating enough protein??

Where to Start?

If you want to increase your daily protein intake, first track how many grams of protein you are currently eating in a day.

Making a large jump in protein consumption (e.g. 60g to 135g) can cause you to feel bloated, gassy, and be constipated.

While your body adjusts to the increase in protein, you want to slowly increase the amount of protein you eat over a 7 – 10 day period, and taking a daily digestive enzyme also helps.

Use a macro tracking app like MacroFactor (one of my favorites!), Macros First, MyMacros, or even MyFitnessPal, to start tracking your macros and grams of protein.

Then determine how much daily protein you should eat by multiplying 1g of protein x your ideal bodyweight.

I say your ideal bodyweight, because maybe you want to lose weight, so use your goal/ideal bodyweight.

Then divide up your protein over however many meals you eat in a day and make your first and last meals the highest protein, with at least 30g of protein at your post exercise meal.

From there, you will back fill carbohydrates and fats. Carbohydrates will be based upon activity level and fats will be whatever calories are left.

For your macro calculations, protein and carbohydrates are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram.

In the Midlife Muscles & Macros group coaching program, we will take a deep dive into everything about protein and macronutrients.

You will learn all about macros, how to determine your ideal macros, and so much more!

🚀The Midlife Muscles & Macros Group Coaching Program launches in June and is for women 40+ who want to take control of their fitness and nutrition, achieve their best health yet, and make midlife the best life.

⏳I’ll be offering a 33% discount to the women on the pre-sale email list only. To get the discount, sign up for the pre-sale list by clicking on the button below…