Protein Requirements for Vegans

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DO VEGANS NEED TO EAT MORE PROTEIN?

There is a rather strong rational argument that those who don't consume animal-based foods require more protein to be within optimal protein intake ranges especially if the goal is to maximise muscle growth or maximise muscle retention efforts during a fat loss phase.

What is this rational, why is this the case?

Plant-based proteins are slightly 'lower in quality' than their animal-based counterparts. What is referred to here is the amino acid composition of the different protein-containing foods, and whether they're a 'complete protein' containing all 9 essential amino acids (EAA's).

A complete protein is made up of 20 amino acids. 9 of them are essential (EAA's) meaning the body 'can't make them from other stuff', so we must get them through diet. While animal-based protein-containing foods contain all 9 EAA's, plant-based protein-containing foods often lack in 1 or more of the 9 EAA's. So in this sense plant proteins are 'less powerful', or 'less effective' for muscle growth or retention.

However, this isn't really an issue and rather just a slight inconvenience that is easily solved with slightly higher protein intakes and a wider variation of food sources to ensure all EAA's are present within the diet at sufficient amounts, and to 'make up for the lower quality'.

The main 'inconvenience' present is that many protein-containing plant foods come with 'extra baggage' in the form of additional carbohydrates and fats in high amounts. While almost all protein-containing foods come with carbohydrates or fats as well, and it's rare to find a food that is 1 macronutrient in isolation. The relative amounts, or 'protein to carb & fats ratio' is often less favorable for those trying to hit a 'higher protein' intake whilst keeping total Calorie intake within a ceiling required for fat loss to occur.

If we're going to put it down to numbers. Most people who eat animal foods can likely maximise muscular potential with protein intakes as low as 1.6g's per kilo of body weight per day, whereas this threshold for vegans may fall somewhere around 2g per kilo with 2.5g/kg likely around 'whats arguably optimal'. Unfortunately, really precise recommendations are difficult as protein requirements fall on a scale that may change based on the person & their situation. Just understand vegans probably need a little more.

Take home: Plant-based diets can be just as powerful as their animal containing counterparts in terms of muscle, it might just be less feasible from a real-world practically standpoint. A slightly higher total protein intake coming from a wider variety of food sources likely counteracts any potential drawbacks. The feasibility of protein targets and Calorie ceilings may be a little difficult if animal-based foods are off the menu, but it certainly can be done with some guidance from an FNC coach.

[1] Consumption of fat-free fluid milk after resistance exercise promotes greater lean mass accretion than does consumption of soy or carbohydrate in young, novice, male weightlifters.

5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle Whilst Dieting

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Top 5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle Mass Whilst Dieting

1. Resistance training

2. Set your deficit

3. Protein target split across 4 meals / 4 hours apart

4. Measure progress, adjust deficit if needed

5. Consistently sleep at least 7 hours a night

Minimising muscle loss during a diet

The very simple answer is resistance training and protein at each meal. If you are not lean, don’t want to track food intake closely and your goal is to drop some body fat whilst minimising muscle loss, this is probably fine as a guide. 

In nearly all cases of dieting and weight loss, the goal is actually to reduce body fat mass whilst maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. The loss of some muscle and strength during a diet is thought of as a reality of having a reduced amount of energy available for a sustained amount of time. 

How to predict your rate of weight loss
A fairly consistent recommendation is to aim for a body weight reduction of about 0.5-1% per week during a diet, to try and minimise any potential muscle and strength loss.(1) The larger the deficit being the predictor of more muscle loss. (3). There is another school of thought that you may consider dieting as hard and fast as possible, get down to goal weight / goal leanness faster, then finish the diet earlier in order to be able to then start training again at maintenance energy levels.

First you need to have a good idea of your maintenance Calories. You could use an online calculator or track your food/drink intake and body weight for a couple of weeks. If your weight is fairly stable, you will have your average maintenance Calories. 

The 3500 Calorie rule, as it’s known, is more of a general guideline which estimates that to lose 1 pound of fat (about 0.5kg) you need to a Calorie deficit of about 3500 Calories. So if you were 100kg and were aiming to lose 0.5% per week, you would estimate that you need to average a weekly deficit of about 3500 Calories. It is not an exact science though and may need to be altered over time depending on progress. (2).

The website of the USA National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases hosts a “Body Weight Planner” which is an interesting resource for looking at estimated rates of weight loss and could give you some insight and reasonable expectations about you goal and the length of your diet. (https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp)

Training

It’s a bit of a “use it or lose it” story with muscle. Continuing a resistance training program whilst dieting is more important than nutrition when it comes to minimising reductions in muscle and strength.(3) 

Rates of weight loss and protein in studies

A major consideration is going to be your starting point.

In a study of overweight young men who were not regularly participating in resistance training, the study gave a great insight into “newbie” gains and gaining muscle while losing fat. Two groups were both set a 40% Calorie reduction for 4 weeks. One group consumed 1.2 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and the other group 2.4 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. Both groups lost the same amount of body weight, the lower protein group maintained lean body mass and the high protein group, despite a 40% reduction in energy intake, actually increased lean body mass. Also of note is the difference in average protein content per meal in the groups. The low protein group averaged 0.23 grams / kg body weight / meal whereas the high protein group averaged 0.48 grams of protein / kg body weight / meal.(4) The amount of the amino acid leucine per meal is a driver of muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth) and it is estimated that around 30-40 grams of protein per meal would be needed to reach a leucine threshold high enough to stimulate muscle protein synthesis (1).

In a study of track and field athletes, two groups were assigned either a 750 Calorie/day deficit (24% deficit) or a 300 Calorie/day deficit. Both groups consumed 2.1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. After the four weeks of dieting, the larger deficit group lost 2.2kg body weight on average, with 0.5 kg being fat free mass (body weight - bones and fat). The smaller deficit group lost 0.4kg body weight on average with 0.2kg being fat free mass. So with a larger deficit, a little more fat free mass was lost but significantly more fat mass. What is really interesting about this study is that athletes with a body fat percentage of more than 10% at the start of the study were able to preserve more fat free mass. (5) In practicality, except in very specific sports and physique competitions, it’s unlikely many people would (or should) try to diet into single figure body fat percentages anyway. 

An interesting study of young athletes actually compared rates of weight loss, with one group targeting a reduction of 0.7% bodyweight per week and another above the mentioned guidelines of 1.4% bodyweight per week. The slower group had a 19% Calorie deficit and the faster group 30%. The slower group consumed 1.6 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and the faster 1.4 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. Both groups trained 4x per week. Both groups dieted to lose about 5.5% bodyweight. The fast group took 5.3 weeks on average and the slow group 8.5 weeks. The slow group actually increased lean body mass a little whilst losing fat and the fast group lost a tiny amount of lean body mass. (6) What would be interesting would be if this study had the fast group then consume their new maintenance Calories and continue training up until the 8.5 week mark to then compare the two methods. Would the fast group have regained that minimal loss and potentially gained some more muscle in those 3 weeks? There is also a difference, although slight, in protein intake and in reality, whilst the fast group was targeting 1.4% weight loss per week, they actually average 1%. 

In a study of young athletes who were regularly resistance training (4-5x per week) they were seperated into a lower protein group 1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and a high protein group 2.3 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and a high. Both groups had a 40% reduction in energy intake for 2 weeks and lost a similar amount of body weight. The low protein group however lost about 5x more lean body mass than the high protein group on average. (7)

Those studies are some “food” for thought when considering the size of your intended deficit. 

Protein

We’ve already touched on protein a little and the studies above have some interesting data on protein targets across a day and at each meal. 

If dieting, the amount of protein consumed should be higher than someone focussing on muscle gain or re-comp. This is due to the Calorie restriction during a diet meaning that less carbs are available for energy and some protein may be broken down and used in place (3). How high this protein intake should be will depend on the individual circumstances. Looking at the above studies, 1.2 grams / kg body weight / day was enough to preserve lean body mass in untrained overweight males when combining diet with a new resistance training program. However under the same conditions, 2.4 grams / kg / day was actually better. 

In athletic and training groups, the range of 1.6 - 2.3 grams of protein / kg body weight / day performed well in slow and faster diets in relation to the preservation of muscle. 

A systematic review of protein intakes for athletes and resistance trained individuals gives a guideline of 2.3 - 3.1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day scaled up with the size of the energy deficit and leanness of the individual. (8)

Fats and Carbs

After choosing the size of the deficit you are going to aim for and your protein intake target, whatever Calories you have left to budget will go to carbs and fats. You probably don’t want to go below 20-25% of total Calories from fat, then the rest would probably be best spent on carbs as fuel for training. Remembering that training is most important for muscle retention. However personal preference really can determine these ratios. (3).

Sleep

Sleep and recovery will be important, not only so you feel as good as possible whilst dieting and can train well. It could also play a role in how much weight loss in a diet is fat and how much is muscle. A study of overweight and sedentary adults had groups with a sleep opportunity of 5.5 hours or 8.5 hours per night. The short sleep time resulted in 60% more weight loss from fat free mass compared to the longer sleep group. In the short sleep group, 25% of weight loss was fat mass, whilst in the longer sleep group 56% of weight loss was fat mass. These groups were not resistance training, however the results would certainly encourage giving yourself the opportunity to sleep longer. (9).

Summary and Recommendations

1. Be very clear with your goals, expectations, starting point, length of diet and best practice recommendations. 

2. Have a resistance training program and stick to it. 

3. Know or calculate predicted maintenance Calories.

4. Set your deficit based on step 1 and strongly consider the 0.5-1% weight loss guideline.

5. Set your protein between 1.6 - 3.1 grams / kg body weight / day depending your circumstances in step 1.

6. Spread protein intake out across your meals, with probably at least 4 meals and close to 30 grams of protein per meal as minimum. 

7. Calculate your remaining Calories and distribute to fats and carbs, not going under about 20-25% of total Calories from fats (or about 0.5 grams / kg body weight / day).

8. Monitor progress with a number of methods, scale weight, hip and waist measurements, progress photos. Also monitor training performance, mood, sleep and take all into account regularly. You may need to change your plan at some point depending on all of these variables. 

9. When happy with your body composition, calculate your maintenance Calories based of your new weight and start consuming that amount of energy whilst continuing to monitor the same measures of progress. 

To learn more about how a nutrition coach can help you maintain your lean body mass whilst dieting, contact us today.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4033492/

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2376744/

3. Muscle and Strength Pyramid - Helms, et al. 

4. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/103/3/738/4564609

5. https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2015/01000/Body_Composition_and_Power_Performance_Improved.4.aspx#H7-4

6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21558571

7. https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/fulltext/2010/02000/Increased_Protein_Intake_Reduces_Lean_Body_Mass.14.aspx

8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24092765

9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/

Realities of Muscle Gain

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Hypertrophy is muscle growth. Resistance training performance is the most critical aspect to muscle growth and nutrition supports this as much as possible. Don’t get confused with this order of importance. 

FNC guide for muscle gain:

1. Find a coach / good PT to write you a hypertrophy focussed gym program and make sure you know how to do all movements correctly. 

2. Spend at least 2 weeks finding your maintenance Calorie number.

3. Set your Calorie target based on your goal and level of training experience.

4. Set a daily protein target.

5. Work out how many meals you can spread that protein target across, factoring in what is actually feasible for you do to consistently around your lifestyle. (Ryan’s favourite is the 4x4 formula. 4 meals per day, with about 4 hours in between each).

6. Have a rough (but flexible) guide for fat and carb targets.

7. Be consistent, be patient. 

Hypertrophy Training

• It’s all about training the muscles you want to grow and focusing on progressive overload, training the muscles frequently enough and close enough to failure. Over time, adding reps and/or sets and/or weight to your program as your muscles adapt to training. Your program will also need to be individualised to your level of training experience, as more advanced lifters will likely need more training volume to continue to build muscle 

Rates of muscle gain

• The rate in which you could expect to gain muscle is largely dependent on your level of experience with resistance training, and genetics. Gains are usually faster in beginners compared to those who’ve been weight training for years. 

  • Beginner 1-2% body weight gain per month

  • Experienced 0.5-1% body weight gain per month

• You might actually fit somewhere in the middle as well, these are just estimates to give some level of expectation.

• So at 75kg, one could expect to gain between 375 grams and 1.1 kg per month depending on their weight training experience.  

• If you are gaining weight much faster than this, it’s likely that a lot of the weight will be fat mass, not muscle. 

• So don’t expect early gains to continue for a long time. You’re ability to build muscle will slow over time. The amount you can gain before this happens is likely to be very individual.  

• If you have previously gained muscle from a resistance training program, but have lost some of that muscle due to de-training (taking a massive break) you will likely re-gain muscle to the point where you stopped training reasonably quickly, similar to a beginner lifter.

• Rates of muscle growth are also highly individualised. A 12 week muscle gain study showed huge differences in muscle gain rates in participants, despite them completing the same program.

Interference - Cardio Training

• Participating in other forms of training, such as cardio or HIIT could interfere with your strength and muscle gains. It doesn’t mean you can combine different types of training and still build some muscle, it can just slow down the rate of muscle gain. If your ‘other’ training also means that when it comes time for your hypertrophy session you are sore, fatigued or have depleted your glycogen (stored carbohydrates) you are unlikely to train as well as if you prioritised the hypertrophy training alone. Remembering that resistance training is above nutrition in terms of importance for muscle gain, this is a significant consideration. 

• If you are going to do other training, alongside your hypertrophy training, you want to make sure the volume and impact is low enough so that you feel your best during each hypertrophy session, with adequate rest, energy and without soreness from cardio, Crossfit or other sports.

Calorie Surplus

• Building muscle is an energy expensive process, so if your main aim is to build as much muscle as possible, averaging a small Calorie surplus is best. Ideally, you would first have a good idea of your maintenance Calories and then aim for a surplus relative to your weight training experience.  

• Muscle itself is more metabolically expensive than fat, meaning we burn a few more Calories from muscle mass compared to fat mass.    

• The surplus need not be large though. Body fat gain is a reality of consuming a Calorie surplus over time, however, a study was published in 2010 showing that a small surplus built the same amount of muscle over 12 weeks, with ⅕ of the body fat gain of a larger 500-600 Calorie surplus. 

• An advanced lifter might only consume a very slight surplus of 100 Calories average per day. A beginner might go for something closer to a 10-15% surplus above maintenance. This is because, as mentioned, beginners are likely to build muscle at a faster rate, and with muscle being more ‘metabolically expensive’, a larger surplus is likely to be more useful without a huge amount of fat gain. These figures are absolutely just ballpark guidelines and the dynamic nature of metabolism will need to be accounted for over time. Checking progress over time and making adjustments to Caloric intake will be required to optimise hypertrophy.

Re-composition (re-comp)

• Re-comp basically refers to reducing body fat while increasing muscle mass. It is absolutely possible, just likely to be slower than going through some dedicated cycles of focussing on increasing muscle, then reducing the body fat gains that come along with it. 

• However, if your goal is to re-comp, it might be a legitimate thing for you to consume a slight Calorie deficit whilst maintaining resistance training. In a study of elderly men who participated in a resistance training program with protein supplementation, one group consumed a very slight deficit and over 16 weeks lost about 2.4 kg of fat mass whilst increasing about 1.7 kg of muscle. Over 4 months, for beginner lifters, this amount of muscle gain is not fast, however if your goal is re-comp, it’s great to know that it is possible.

Nutrition and macros

• When aiming for re-comp or maximising muscle gain, less protein is needed compared to protecting against muscle loss during a diet (that’s a whole other topic for another day). Something in the range of about 1.6-2.2 grams / KG of body weight / day is a good aim. 

• Fats and carbs then come down to a bit of personal preference, however aiming for about 20-30% of Calories from fats and the remainder all going to carbs is a pretty good guideline. Favouring fats too heavily will reduce the amount of Caloric budget available for carbohydrates which can negatively impact strength training performance.

• Remembering that training is actually the number 1 priority for muscle growth, it makes sense to ensure that carbs are as high as possible within that personal preference. We break carbs down to glucose and glucose is the body’s preferred fuel source for intense resistance training.  

Nutrition timing

• Once total daily protein is taken care of, the next consideration is to split that protein intake across about 3-6 meals during the day. More than this is totally fine, less than this is probably not ideal for maximising muscle growth. 

• Those protein intakes would ideally each contain 20-40 grams of protein and be spaced about 3-4 hours apart. 

• If choosing plant based protein sources, the portion may have to be a little higher, around 1.5x more. 

• For hypertrophy training, the timing of carbohydrates is unlikely to be a huge consideration apart from, once again, personal preference. Unless training the same muscle group more than once within 24 hours, stored carbohydrates in the muscle (glycogen) should be sufficient again no matter the timing of carbohydrate consumption each day. 

• However, looking at optimisation and best case, it makes sense to have carbohydrates before training just to ensure all glycogen levels are “topped up”. 

• Again, with training being the most important factor, consider if you feel and train better with carbohydrates in the meal before training. 

To learn more about muscle building, check out some of our other blogs:

• 10 Protein Tips for Muscle Growth

• 5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle whilst Dieting

• Muscle Growth without Tracking

Making nutrition easy and automatic is a big part of muscle gain. It’s a goal which takes time and consistency and having a coach there to keep you on track, look at your results objectively and help guide you towards the easiest path can really help.

Creatine: FAQs and Myths

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In high school, there was one gym bro who took creatine. At the time we all 'gave him crap' for being on steroids (we thought creatine a steroid at the time). 

Turns out creatine firstly isn't an illegal substance, but it's actually the most well studied and confirmed effective sports supplement there is. 

Fundamentally the powerhouse of the body is ATP. Intramuscular stores of creatine help fuel the re-creation of more ATP during high-intensity bouts of activity to maintain the presence of ATP. However, creatine supplies are limited and do run-out as we use them up. While we can get some creatine from our diet, supplementation is required to ensure levels stay 'topped-up'.  

We know creatine helps you perform better in sport and exercise, which obviously matters if you're an athlete wanting to beat everyone else. But this increased performance also means a more appropriate stimulus to enhance the adaptive response to training. Creatine can also help recovery which allows more 'quality' training stimulus to be provided over time again leading to greater adaptations. 

What might surprise you is that creatine does more than just 'get you jacked'. The benefits of creatine are not exclusively sports related, with evidence showing use in lessening the development of chronic illness and disease.

So we know it works. Now down to the practical stuff.

Is creatine safe? 
Studies have shown a needlessly high dose of more than 10 times optimal requirements for 5 years to be safe in multiple population types and ages. 

Will I gain weight and get bloated?
You'll almost certainly gain weight. The key word being 'weight' and not fat. Creatines mechanism of action is increased intramuscular phosphocreatine, glycogen and hydration which all contribute to mass but not fat mass. The weight gain is a by-product of the means by which creatine is effective and don't worry this won't make you look 'puffy'. 

What type of creatine is best?
Just good old cheap monohydrate does the job, there is no need to purchase any more expensive, 'fancy-named' ones. Monohydrate is most commonly used in creatine research with other forms being no better or potentially ineffective. 

How much/ whats the dose?
You can load it to saturate stores faster, but for the sake of simplicity 3-5g a day does the job, but it might take several weeks to see any notable improvements/ effects. Timing across the day also doesn't matter.

How do I take it?

Add a scoop to your morning water, pre or post workout shake, in a smoothie or even in your oats or yogurt.

Creatine, it's good for sports performance, it's good for getting jacked, it's good for recovery, it's good for health and it's damn cheap. Cheap enough that if new research came out drinking all existing creatine research proving it to be ineffective it wouldn't matter a great deal, and the placebo would be worth it anyway.

To learn more about how nutrition can improve your performance in the gym or would like us to bust some supplement myths, contact us:

https://www.fortitudenutritioncoaching.com.au/contact

[reference] International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine