Metabolic Medical Newsletter #2 | August 2025

The Power of Protein: The Rule of 30

Your body runs on protein—every cell, muscle, and organ depends on it. Unlike carbs and fat, protein can’t be stored, so getting enough each day is key. This high-protein bowl fuels repair, strength, and satiety. Build every meal around protein and take your health back—one bite at a time. 💪🍲

We are made of cells: 30-40 trillion of them depending upon your size. Think of them like tiny LEGO bricks. Each organ has it’s own “colour” of bricks that perform a specific function. Although these cells are 70% water, the second most prevalent “ingredient” in making cells is protein. When we consume protein, an essential macronutrient, digestive enzymes break the dietary proteins down into individual amino acids. We then use these amino acids to make our own proteins. Protein is vital for muscle, but also our skin, bones, blood, hair, organs and tissue repair. If we don’t get enough protein, we internally "steal" from our muscles, bones and organs. Losing lean muscle reduces our resting metabolic rate and sets the stage for frailty and premature death. Unlike fat and carbohydrate, the other two macronutrients, protein doesn’t have a built-in storage source. 

Since the food guides of the early 1980’s, we have seen a de-emphasis on protein and a push for grains and carbohydrates. This has led to several issues. A recently proposed protein leverage hypothesis posits that every animal eats for a protein target. As we ate more grains and less protein, this diluted the nutrient quality and we ate 350cal more daily, mostly in grains to hit our protein target. This drove up insulin and weight gain. 

In our youth, it is the total protein per day which is most important: insulin and human growth hormone work to optimize protein synthesis. However, as we age, we need to focus on protein per meal as we become more anabolic resistant. Anabolic resistance is the “headwind” we fight in building protein in our body: it takes more dietary protein to make the same amount of muscle as we would have in our youth. All adults need a minimum of 100g/d * For those wanting to lose fat or improve their body composition, high protein diets have been shown to improve satiation and aid in weight loss while maintaining lean mass (muscle and bone). Our protein needs also increase with certain conditions: the demands of being physically active, living with chronic illness, inflammation or healing from surgery. The historic RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) of 0.8g/kg is a paltry number anchored on poor science.  Increasing our protein intake to 1.5-2g/ lean kg daily improves muscle protein synthesis, satiety, metabolic health and body composition. While more is not always better (we maximize muscle protein synthesis at 1.8g/kg i.e. eating more than this will NOT have an effect on muscle), getting enough protein is crucial in supporting muscle mass, curbing cravings, and keeping your metabolism working harder, even at rest.

To get adequate protein per meal, we need 30g of bioavailable protein as a minimum to trigger muscle protein synthesis. Bioavailable means our body can take what we eat and turn it into our own structural and functional protein. It is also important to note that the bioavailability of plant protein is only about 50%: you might think you’re getting 10g of protein in that handful of nuts, but in reality it’s 5g. Plant proteins are bound to fiber which we can’t digest so they pass through our GI system unused. Specifically, we need 2.5g of leucine, an essential branched chain amino acid (BCAA), to start making muscle. The maximum amount of protein that can be efficiently absorbed at one meal is approximately 60g, so an optimal protein “dose” would be 30-60g spread out over 2-3 meals. Leucine is widely available in muscle meats like ruminants (cows, deer, moose, goats, sheep), pork, fish, chicken, eggs, dairy and specifically whey. 

So what can we do? Knowledge is power- start reading serving sizes and use an app. I like Cronometer- it’s free and Canadian. Get a simple kitchen scale and start weighing out your food so you have an idea of amounts. We often think we are consuming more protein than we actually are; approximately 45% of adults do not consume enough, leading to overeating carbohydrates. Make protein the priority of your meal and eat the fat that nature puts with it! We need the fat for essential nutrients, satiation and to help absorb those vital proteins. I pack tins of sardine, herring or mackerel for a quick lunch or a snack. And get to know approximate protein sources. A 200g serving of beef—just under half a pound of steak or ground meat—delivers around 50g of highly bioavailable, muscle-building protein.Two slices of  “sandwich” sliced cheese is 10g. Jerky is easy to make and there are a few sugar free versions on the market. Even pork rinds are a great option- no chip has the protein power of a pork rind and healthier fat as well since they’re fried in lard and not an inflammatory seed oil. 

We’re taking our health back and that starts with what we put on our forks. The diseases of our parents and siblings don’t have to affect us: our genes do not have to be our destiny! We can prevent and even reverse so much disease and disability. There is hope and you have the power! Isn’t it wonderful to know we have the control to choose real food that can help heal our bodies, repair our metabolisms and let us thrive as we should?!

References

Simpson SJ, Raubenheimer D. Obesity: the protein leverage hypothesis. Obes Rev. 2005 May;6(2):133-42. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2005.00178.x. PMID: 15836464.

The Primal Podcast Episode 115 Dr Don Layman

*for for those who require a high level of ketosis to treat neurological, psychiatric, or cancer diagnoses, this may be too high to produce sufficient endogenous (internally made) ketones, depending on patient size and activity.

Fun Fact: Ruminants such as cows, deer, elk, moose, sheep, and goats can convert poor-quality plant proteins into some of the most nutrient-dense, bioavailable protein on the planet. They feed their microbiome in the rumen to digest the proliferating bacteria. This process results in turning 60g of low-quality grass protein into 100g of high-quality animal protein. No other system can do this: ruminants can create something from nothing! I am grateful for this evolutionary superpower of the ruminants.