What is protein? What does Protein do?

You probably heard it before how important it is to consume enough protein if you want to build muscle but how does it actually work? Protein is one of the three energy sources of your body known as macronutrients. The other two being carbohydrates and fats. It is made up of little organic compounds known as amino acids.Besides water, seventy-five percent of your body is made up of amino acids.

Want healthy brain function? You’ll need amino acids, build muscle? Amino acids, maintain immune system? Amino acids, healthy heart? Regulate stress? Prevent certain diseases? Produce cells? Amino acids. Now you probably get the point amino acids are pretty important.

There are over 500 different types of amino acids but the human body only uses 21 known as protein-o-genic amino acids. Of the 21, the body can create them by restructuring other amino acids but  the other 9 known as essential amino acids can only come from the food you eat, specifically from protein and unlike fats and carbs your body cannot store these essential amino acids away.

When it comes to building muscle providing a body with enough leucine, isoleucine and valine which are essential amino acids is pretty important. These three are known as branched chain amino acids or BCAAs for short and of these three BCAAs by far the most important is leucine. It's directly linked to the activation of mTOR which activates multiple enzymes in the body that promotes muscle protein synthesis.

Wonder how muscles become stronger? When your muscle fiber proteins actin and myosin act on one another muscle contraction is produced, the more actin and myosin protein filaments you have the stronger the muscle becomes and this is where getting enough protein in your diet becomes important to not only maintaining or building muscle but also preventing your body from breaking the muscle down. 

But how much is enough ???

It's typically recommended to get about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. That's roughly 65 grams for men and 50 grams for women if you're an athlete add about 20 grams more. Take this with a grain of salt folks and there's no absolute consensus on the right amount of protein intake but regardless of the actual amount it doesn't take away the importance of having protein in your diet.



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