Essential Amino Acids Explained: How to Build Muscle & Burn Fat

Are your protein choices actually supporting fat loss and muscle growth?

In this episode of the Energetically Efficient Show, Kristin breaks down everything you need to know about essential amino acids (EAAs) and how to use them strategically for muscle growth, fat loss, and metabolic health.

If you’ve ever wondered whether supplements like Perfect Amino or Kion Aminos are worth it (or how they actually work), this episode gives you a clear, practical guide you can apply immediately.

She also shares her exact daily routine, including how she uses EAAs during intermittent fasting to stimulate muscle protein synthesis without breaking a fast, plus how to incorporate them into your day for maximum results.

Tune in to hear:

•  What essential amino acids (EAAs) are and why they’re critical for survival 
•  The key difference between essential and non-essential amino acids
•  How EAAs support muscle growth, fat loss, and metabolic health
•  Why 30g of protein per meal matters for muscle protein synthesis 
•  How to use EAAs during intermittent fasting without breaking your fast
•  Kristin’s exact daily supplement routine (morning + nighttime protocol) 
•  How EAAs compare to whole food protein and protein powders
•  When to use EAAs if you’re busy, fasting, or under-eating protein
•  The truth about protein quality and amino acid profiles
•  How EAAs can support recovery, sleep, and healing

Resources mentioned:

• BodyHealth Perfect Aminos: https://www.bodyhealthaffiliates.com/3QT3K68/3QQG7/ use code GOLDEN20 for 20% off your first purchase
• Perfect Amino Usage Guide
• Kion Aminos: https://getkion.com/ Use code GOLDEN for 10% off
• IM8: Use code GOLDEN for 10% off

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Connect with Kristin:

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristin_rowell_

Website: https://energeticallyefficient.com/ 

Transcript

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The reason we have the word essential in front of them is because your body cannot make them on its own. You must, and I mean must, get them from your food that you eat or supplements that you take. Okay. Your body can do a lot of cool stuff on its own, by the way, but it cannot, under any circumstances, make essential amino acids. Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Energetically Efficient Show. I am your host, Kristen Rowell, and I am creating this podcast episode based on some feedback I received over a question box that I did on Instagram asking what you guys wanted to hear about. And the specific request for this podcast episode was how do I think about and use perfect aminos in my lifestyle? And so I love this topic because I absolutely love perfect aminos. Now I will tell you that I think perfect aminos and keon aminos, K-I-O-N, are essentially one and the same. I love both of them. I go back and forth between them. I think they're both amazing. So I'm not going to choose one or one of those over the other for you. You get to make that decision for yourself. But I will put links below to perfect aminos and keon aminos below this particular episode simply because I know some people like Kian and some people like perfect aminos better. There are price differentials between the two. I do have a 20% discount code for your first time you buy perfect aminos and a 10% discount code for your first time you buy Keon aminos. So again, I'll put those links below this video. But what I want to focus on today is exactly what these things are and why you might consider using them. So I take amino acids, meaning either perfect aminos or key on aminos, every single day. And I do it more than once a day. And I do it because I'm very focused on how I can always be retaining and maintaining and building lean muscle tissue while at the same time keeping off maybe losing or at least maintaining my body fat. Like I want to keep that low. I want body fat low and I want my muscle tissue high. And amino acids are a great, great tool for doing that. Why? Well, think about it this way: when you're eating protein, the whole point of eating protein is that you're getting amino acids from protein. When your body breaks down protein into smallest molecules, the primary thing you are getting from consuming protein is amino acids. And more importantly, we want them to be essential amino acids. So I want to make sure you guys understand the difference between essential and non-essential amino acids so that you can see why taking something like perfect aminos or kyan aminos, which contain essential amino acids, is going to be such an important way to improve your metabolic health. Okay, so essential amino acids versus non-essential amino acids. First of all, there are about 20 total amino acids. Nine of those are essential. So of the 20 amino acids, nine are essential. And those essential amino acids are called essential. The reason we have the word essential in front of them is because your body cannot make them on its own. You must, and I mean must, get them from your food that you eat or supplements that you take. Okay. Your body can do a lot of cool stuff on its own, by the way. It can make lots of things by itself. It can create glucose, for example, out of excess protein and carbohydrate. Even if you eat a zero carb diet for years on end, your body will manufacture within it the glucose that it needs for your brain. Isn't that cool? So your body can do a lot of cool stuff, but it cannot, under any circumstances, make essential amino acids. So we have to consume them in food or we have to take them in supplements. The other thing that's important about the word essential in front of amino acids is that you have to have them to live. If you didn't have essential amino acids for days, weeks, months, years on end, you would die. You have to have them. So they are literally essential for life. So they're very important molecules that we want to get inside our body. And you can either get them, like I said, through food or supplements. But for me, because I'm very focused on muscle building and fat loss, I recommend taking them as a supplement every single day. And I'll tell you what I do throughout the course of this episode. So one of the things I want to direct your attention to, and I thought this was really cool that they put this together, several years ago, Perfect Amino put together a usage guide that has a lot of valuable information in it. So I'm going to share some of the information from that usage guide. And then I'm also going to tell you about what my personal practice is every single day and where I notice the most benefit. So many of you know that I start my morning every morning with one big thing of water. In fact, hang on, I have my water bottle right here for you. So this is the water bottle I'm using right now. I've used hydro flasks in the past. I happen to really like this one because it has either I can just pour it into my mouth or there's also a straw in there. But this is about 30 ounces, if I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty sure it's exactly 30 ounces. Yes, it's 30 ounces. Okay. So the first thing I'm doing in the morning is I'm having this bottle of water with the juice of one lemon, one scoop of Redmond's Relight Electrolytes, and one scoop of creatine, and one scoop of tomorrow's nutrition sun fiber. I know it sounds like a lot. I'm putting all those things in there. I also personally put some L-glutamine, some myoinocitol, and some other things that I've talked about in a prior episode that we can link below this video so you can hear about my whole entire morning drink. But that is what my first bottle is. My second bottle, so once I finish that, I have to finish that before I can have my coffee. And then my second bottle of the day, I put in that one packet of IM8 vitamins and minerals. So that's a red powder that I put in my water with one packet of vanilla perfect aminos. And the reason I get that is because I love the vanilla flavor. Some people think perfect aminos are too sweet. For some people, it's not going to be sweet enough. I personally love the vanilla flavor. So I mix that with the berry flavor, and that just tastes really good to me. But I also, at the same time that I drink that bottle, I consume five tablets of perfect aminos. So again, my second bottle of water in the morning, and sometimes I do it as my first, and I do the lemon second, but for the most part, it's my second bottle of water in the morning, has five essential amino acid tablets with it, and I have one scoop of the powder. So that's two servings of perfect aminos that I'm starting off my day with. And the reason I say I'm starting off my day with that, you guys, I get that bottle of Redmond's Relight and Lemon and Creatine, et cetera, down so fast that I'm drinking my second bottle probably within a half an hour, maybe an hour of being up. That first bottle is gone during my workout. Even if I didn't go to the gym in the morning, it's gone pretty quickly because I want to have that coffee during the times when I'm drinking coffee. I'm not going to be drinking it next week, by the way, because we're starting my Radiant Reset. So for anyone who is joining us in that, who is part of that, um, that starts. I think I'm recording this. I'm recording this prior to when we're starting, but this will probably be released after we're already in that. So if you ever want to join us for my Radiant Reset detox, we'll put a link below this video so that you can make sure that you are on the list, the wait list for that, and then join us. We'd love to have you. Okay, so getting back to this drink. So I'm doing one scoop with five pills, meaning two servings. One scoop is one serving, five pills is one serving. So you might say, Kristen, why are you doing two servings in the morning and not one? The reason for that is that I am most focused on how do I make sure I get basically the equivalent of a serving of protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis first thing in the morning while I'm in my intermittent fast. Because I typically don't eat breakfast until after I've been up for a few hours. So could you take just five of the pills or just one scoop of the powder and still get a serving of protein? Maybe, but the way that they describe it on the website, and I just want to read this to you here because this is what it helped me understand. They say that one serving, meaning five grams of perfect aminos, compares to approximately 10 grams of protein from whole eggs. Okay, so that's just 10 grams of protein, 15 grams of protein from meats. So again, that's just a half a serving of protein. That eggs is a third of a serving of protein. Because remember, I want you to have 30 grams in one sitting. And then it says 15 grams of protein from meats, which is half of a serving. And then it says 30 grams of protein from whey, pea, soy, or collagen protein powders. Now, this information is confusing to me because I would say that a serving of protein powder and two servings and 30 grams of meat are kind of the equivalent. But because they say that you only get the equivalent of 15 grams of protein from meats with one serving of perfect aminos, I start my day with two. Okay. I start my day with two servings of the perfect aminos. And the new thing that I've started doing, which I very much love and I'm noticing it's making a difference in my sleep, is I am ending my day with two servings of perfect aminos. So I will typically take 10 tablets of perfect aminos right before bed, along with my progesterone, along with my magnesium, and other things that I take before bed. I'm taking 10 of those perfect aminos tablets. Now, on the website, on this perfect amino usage guide, which you can find on the website, we'll put a link below this video so you can read it for yourself. One of the things it talks about in here, which I loved learning, is that the perfect aminos is fully absorbed into the bloodstream in an average of 23 minutes, which is amazing. So it's not like my body is laying there in bed, like I just ate 10 pills and it's gonna like take forever to break down. These are tablets that don't have a coated thing around them. Okay, so your body can break them down really easily. They're not a pill that's coated, is what I'm what I'm trying to convey to you. And I say that because a lot of times your body has to work to break down the vegetable cellulose capsule around many pills. This doesn't have a capsule. This is just a pressed tablet, so your body can break it down much more easily. And the fact that it breaks it down so quickly in 23 minutes means that during your sleeping hours, during the time when you're in recovery phase, you are then making all of that awesome lean muscle tissue. Keep in mind, you guys, even though I recommend strength training intensely twice a week at least. And of course I recommend Discover Strength. This is no secret. The most important thing is you have to sleep to make the muscle that you just did during that strength training workout. You're not making the muscle while you're doing the exercise. You're making the muscle while you're sleeping, while you're recovering. So if you can get all of those awesome perfect aminos in your body right before bed and then be recovering during the night and building that awesome lean muscle tissue, that's only going to help you burn body fat and build lean muscle tissue at the same time. So I'm doing two servings in the morning and two servings at night. Now you could also do this with key on aminos. You could do two scoops of the keon powder in the morning and two scoops at night. The reason I don't usually recommend the pills for people when it comes to keon is that one serving of the keon pills, because the pills are smaller, one serving is seven pills. So now that means in order to get two servings, you have to take 14 pills. It's kind of a lot. And they're also not pressed tablets like the perfect aminos. They have a uh casing around them, they have like a shell. So if I take keon, I stick to the powders. And I love the watermelon powder. I like the Keon watermelon powder better than I like the perfect amino watermelon powder. And just by way of a fun fact, you guys, Perfect Amino and Keon used to sort of be the same. The founder of Perfect Amino used to manufacture for Keon. So I know for a fact, because I've talked to all the insiders at these companies, I know that they're essentially the same product. So that's why I say six and one, half a dozen the other in terms of the powders, they're essentially the same. Keon, in order to not violate their intellectual property, had to change their formulation a bit. So Keon, I noticed, added histidine, which is another amino acid that people argue about whether it's essential. Some people call it conditionally essential. So in any event, six and one, half and dozen the other in terms of the powders being essentially the same. Perfect amino has that vanilla flavor that I like. Keon doesn't have that vanilla flavor. So for me, I get the watermelon keon, I get the vanilla perfect aminos. I've also tried the chocolate perfect aminos, which I liked. And I've tried the mocha, and some people really enjoy the mocha, like in their coffee. You could put the mocha in your coffee and take five of the tablets with that, and that would be a great thing in the morning as well. So just to circle back to what I do, I'm always taking two servings of perfect amino first thing in the morning. And I'm doing that during an intermittent fasting period so that I'm still building muscle, still giving my body the raw materials that it needs to build that lean muscle tissue and burn fat before I ever have a meal. Okay. So I don't take perfect aminos at all throughout the day, other than those two servings in the morning and now the two servings at night. Like I said, I take 10 tablets before bed, and that's how I use it. If I'm ever in a pinch where let's say I have a quick in-between meetings and I don't have time to do anything other than grab a pre-made protein shake that let's just pretend has 20 grams of protein, I would take, I personally would take five perfect aminos tablets with that. So I would do the five tablets and the 20 grams of protein protein shake to know that I got at least 30 grams of protein in that meal because I got those five tablets with it. So I'm hoping that makes sense. That would be the other way I might use it, but I would try, instead of taking five tablets with the shake, I would try to eat something else with it. So I would have the 20 gram protein shake and like a marigold protein bar that has 21 grams of protein. Or I would have two egg life egg white wraps that have 12 grams of protein total and then drink the 20 gram protein shake. I don't want to just be consuming my nutrients in the form of amino acids in pills all day long. That's just not ideal to me. So just so you know, the only time I would really do that during the day is if I was really in a pinch and I wasn't having the right amino acids. I will say the other thing that I might consider doing, and I recommend this to clients often, is if clients can't have whey protein, which has frankly a much better amino acid profile than pea protein, or rather plant protein, I should say, if you're drinking, let's say, a plant protein shake that's got a mix of pea protein, chia seed protein, brown rice protein, other kinds of proteins, some of which don't have complete amino acid profiles, I would take five perfect aminos with that shake as well. And the reality is some people just like to have the convenience of protein shakes. They like plant protein. They don't like whey protein. Maybe whey protein makes them bloated. Maybe they know they have an extreme sensitivity to whey. Maybe they got a food sensitivity test that told them please don't eat whey. And they have to do plant protein. Now, unless you are getting the actual amino acid profile on the bag, unless they show you the amino acid profile online, unless you see the amino acid profile and you know it is the amino acid profile for that particular food. And I say this because companies trick you, they always trick you. They will write, um, they'll have the amino acid profile on the website and it'll say typical amino acid profile. And then they'll list a bunch of amino acids, but that might be the typical amino acid profile, let's say, for a P-based protein or for a whey-based protein, or for a collagen-based protein. It might not be the typical amino acid profile or the actual rather amino acid profile for their protein powder. So just be very careful when you're reading labels. This is one of the trickiest things that companies do, and it drives me crazy. So I email companies all the time and I say, can you send me your exact amino acid profile for one serving of this protein? And oftentimes it's very different than what's represented on the bag. And that is such a sad reality, you guys, but I just have to tell you that so that there's not any sort of confusion as to what the amino acid profile is that I'm getting in my body. I may, if I'm using a protein powder where I don't fully know their amino acid profile, I may also take five perfect amino with that protein shake. Now, perfect amino does recommend in its usage guide to have the tablets by themselves or to have the powder by itself. But if you're gonna eat a meal with it and you just take the pills first, it's better than not doing it at all, especially if your meal does not have 30 grams of protein. So let's say you're in a pinch and all you can have is three eggs on your way to work and you're eating hard-boiled eggs in the car. In a perfect world, you would sit down and have a breakfast before you got in your car. But I get we all need to eat in our car sometimes. If you only have time for three eggs, or let's say you can't even finish more than three eggs because you're full, I would want you to take five perfect amino with that because three eggs is at maximum going to give you 21 grams of protein. It's more likely probably 18 grams of protein. It might even be only 15 grams of protein. And then that meal by itself, without adding the perfect aminos or without adding the key on aminos, it will not let you stimulate muscle protein synthesis. If there is one thing that you take away from this podcast episode today, it's as a reminder that you have to consume at least 30 grams of protein in one sitting to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. So make sure that is your goal. If your meal doesn't have 30 grams, have those five perfect aminos with it. Okay. Now I tend to eat more than 30 grams every time I have a meal. So I don't need to do that that often, but every once in a while on a pinch, I might have to. Okay. The other way that I consider using perfect amino, and I recommend this for you as well, is during a day where you're doing a longer fast. So when I do a 36-hour fast or a 72-hour fast or a 48-hour fast, any sort of long fasting, which I periodically do, I do take perfect aminos more often than that. So I'll take my two servings in the morning, I'll take my two servings at night, but I will add another two servings in the middle of the day just to continue to build muscle protein synthesis while I am fasting. So again, that would be six total servings on a day where I don't eat at all. Two servings in the morning, and my servings in the morning is one scoop of powder and five pills, two servings during the middle of the day. It might be one scoop of powder and five pills again. That sounds really delicious to me. And then at night, I'm typically just doing the 10 pills. So that would be the other way that I think about is using those amino tablets during a fast. Let me give you some more information from the Perfect Aminos website specifically, because like I mentioned, they have this usage guide. So they say here very clearly, one serving of perfect amino is one scoop of the powder or five tablets. Now I tell clients all the time, if you don't want to take the five tablets, if it's tough for you to swallow pills, do a heaping scoop of the powder instead. Or do two scoops of the powder in your water instead. You could do that. But for a lot of people, because it is sweetened, that might be too sweet for them. So it might be that you have to drink so much water in order to get the two scoops down. That for me, I just find taking five of the tablets and one scoop of the powder is the best. So they mention and recommend that for up to 125 pound person, take two servings first thing in the morning, and that's what I do. And then one more serving one to four hours before bed. They also say that's the same for 125 to 170 pound person, and I'm in that range because I'm typically 135 to 140 pounds, 140, depending on the day, sometimes a little more, depending on whether I just got back from vacation or not, or it was just the holidays, but I try to keep myself tight in that range. And then even for 170 to 200 pound person, it says take two servings first thing in the morning and one to two before bed. And then if you're larger than that, it recommends two servings of the morning and two servings before bed. So I'm doing two servings in the morning and two servings before bed because I found that it impacts my sleep, that it helps me be able to fast longer in the morning. It's getting the equivalent of two servings of protein when I don't even have to eat. So it doesn't break a fast, these aren't giving you any calories. This is why I really like these, because they can be such an adjunct to someone who's on a health journey of metabolic health. Okay. And then because it seems confusing on the website, like I mentioned, because it says 15 grams of meat is one serving of the perfect aminos, 10 grams of eggs is one serving the perfect aminos, or 30 grams of whey, pea, or soy collagen or collagen powders is one serving the perfect aminos. I just want you to think about it. If you want to make sure you're using perfect aminos for real meal replacement, take two servings of it. Take five tablets plus one scoop of the powder, or take 10 tablets. That's just what I recommend because that is the safest thing to know that you're stimulating muscle protein synthesis. Okay, I do encourage you to consider reading the perfect amino usage guide. So again, I'll pop that below this video. But a couple other things that I thought was really interesting in this in terms of recommendations, is, and I've got a PDF of the perfect aminos usage guide. So it talks about the fact that you can use this while fasting, because of course it doesn't interrupt a fast, which is true. It can help if you're an elite athlete. So if you're training from a marathon, it can really help. But the other thing that I think people don't realize it can be very beneficial for, because keep in mind we use amino acids to recover and repair our body, is if you're recovering from an illness, if you were sick, if you just had surgery, if you've got open wounds, if you had some sort of infection, perfect aminos or keyon aminos can be very effective for helping to recover from those injuries or illnesses. So you may want to do up to three times that you take it. I want to be careful I don't mistake and say servings, because I'm taking two servings in the morning and two servings at night, but you might add one midday, especially if you're having a hard time getting your protein in to make sure that you're consuming enough in order for your to help your body recover. Okay, the last thing that I want to say about perfect aminos is I was excited that they finally came out with travel packets because I travel a lot. So because I do that scoop of the powder every morning, I thought, oh, I don't want to have to take my big jar with me with a white powder, especially if I'm not checking a bag. So the nice thing is you can get individual one-size servings. You can buy a box of 30 individual packets. And so I just take a packet of the vanilla with a packet of my IM8 vitamins and minerals, and I mix those in the morning, and then I bring a little baggie with me of a bunch of the perfect amino tablets. So I have a baggie of pills, and then I bring one of those packets of the vanilla every single day of the trip. I might get chocolate sometimes just to change it up or the mocha, but then the watermelon keon I tend to use at home because I really like the watermelon key on flavor. And so I tend to use those at home and take the perfect amino for travel. I don't think there's anything else I needed to tell you about this. I do really encourage you guys to read this perfect amino usage guide, but the short version is they are effectively a protein replacement if you take two servings. And so Remember at the beginning of this when I talked about essential amino acids and non-essential amino acids, I'll probably do a separate entire podcast episode deep diving into what are the exact differences between those two so that you know for the essential amino acids. For example, that you're looking for not only leucine, isoleucine, valine, but that you're also, which are the branch chain amino acids, but that you're also looking for the six other essential amino acids, and that's what's contained in perfect amino. And that's why not all protein is created equal. That's why you can't just eat a vat of quinoa and think that it's the same as eating a grass-fed burger. You just have to eat so much more quinoa in order to get the same kind of amino acids that's in the grass-fed burger. So all of that is solved when you eat animal protein. And all of it is solved if you take perfect aminos or quinoas. I hope this episode has been helpful. I know it was a little bit shorter of one, but if you have questions about perfect aminos, please, please look at this usage guide that I'm putting below the video. And hopefully you found this information helpful. I will be back with another episode of the energetically efficient show soon. And if you want to try either of these amino acids, I recommended. Again, we'll put the discount links and everything below this video. Thanks for being here. Bye bye.