Myth: Eating a lot of protein helps build muscle
Muscle is made from protein, this much is true. However, there is a lot more to it than just eating protein. Building muscle mass also requires a combination of strength training, the intake of adequate calories from healthy foods, recovery time, and sleep.
While doing strength training, you challenge your muscles with progressively heavier and heavier weights, and in doing so, each day you are encouraging them to grow in response. How much muscle growth is going to occur in a single day? In reality, not very much. It is a slow process, and as such, a person eating a balanced diet including at least 2-3 Canada’s Food Guide servings of protein and 2 servings of dairy or alternates will be consuming more than enough. Only strength-training athletes, such as bodybuilders, may require more protein than this, and even their needs can be easily satisfied with an extra serving or two.
So what happens if you do eat lots of protein? Any extra protein that your body is not going to use will get broken down and stored as fat in much the same way as any other excess calories do. The problem with protein is that its building blocks, amino acids, have the by-product nitrogen. Nitrogen requires more work for the kidneys to process, so for a person with kidney disease or a history of kidney problems, it would be inadvisable to overdo it on the protein consumption.
How much protein do you actually need? The standard calculation is 0.8g/kg body weight. (Not for everyone!!! This calculation is only used for someone at a healthy weight. There is a modification for someone who is overweight.) So, for a person who weighs 150lbs (about 68kg) that works out to about 55g protein. Considering that a 3oz serving of chicken breast has about 30g, a cup of milk has 8g, and a slice of bread or 1/2 cup pasta each have about 3g, it is easy to see that these kinds of protein targets are not difficult to reach. In fact, most North Americans easily consume more protein daily than they need.
So if you want to build muscle there’s no need to go wild on the protein shakes and powders. Do some regular strength training followed by a good post work-out snack containing some carbohydrate and protein (chocolate milk is a great recovery food) and stick with a balanced diet of good, nutritious foods. You’ll be well on your way!





