Hatten Health Podcast Episode 7 Part 2 Talk About Protein

Here is Part 2 of our episode about protein. We pick up right where we left off in part 1 of episode 7.

Hatten Health:
Website:
https://www.hattenhealth.com
Hatten Health Recipe App: app.hattenhealth.com
Instagram & YouTube:  ⁨@HattenHealth⁩  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hattenhealth
Email: hello@hattenhealth.com 

You can also catch the video version on our Youtube channel. Go like & subscribe.
We are Hatten Health
Family. Health. Growth. Empowerment.
Let's make it happen, together!

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Taking back into the conversation, we can talk about canned fish. Like tuna, salmon is a fish too. But we can talk about all that because yes, the fresh one's good also, but canned can be very beneficial to the health also. A lot of nutrients in there. I like to make salmon patties. Salmon patties are fun to make. You can make them into fish sticks and form them and fry them. Why not make the healthier one instead of the processed frozen ones that don't really do anything for you? Make them fresh at home and don't take it doesn't take a lot of time to add some breadcrumbs and some egg in there.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, and with canned, you don't really have to focus on like actually cooking from raw, right?

SPEAKER_04 0:54

Or just already cooked. Yeah. Yep. Basically, breading them, putting them in the pan. Getting your omega-3s in there, getting about 20 grams of protein. So you're still getting your protein levels in there. They're amazing. And it saves time too. It really does. They're inexpensive to get at the store usually. You can get three or four or five cans if you want. Make a batch for today, tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

They're amazing.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Like no time at all. Usually take what, like five minutes?

SPEAKER_04 1:20

Exactly.

unknown 1:21

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Really quick, easy dinners for sure. I love it. Love it. Another one I want to add is Greek yogurt. It's probably one of the most versatile sources of protein too, dairy proteins. You can use it for breakfast, right? Yogurt and granola. You can use so many different ways. If you can buy it plain, full fat, that is the way to go, is going to be most cost effective because you can always sweeten it with honey or fruit. Don't buy the already flavored container to get the plain. And then you can use it for salad dressings. You can use it to make homemade or a replacement sour cream on tacos. You get 17 to 20 grams of protein in a serving. You also get calcium, probiotics, great for gut health. And it tastes good. And it's a great way to add some more protein into the start of your day in your breakfast.

SPEAKER_04 2:19

Let me tell you, I've eaten more Greek yogurt since meeting her than I have my whole previous life together. And I am very thankful for it. I've always loved yogurt, but I was always eating it going out the wrong way, being the pre-sugared, pre-sweetened, pre-flavored kind.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Well, and Greek yogurt is the key here too. Like Greek specifically, um, not just yeah, you'll play or not, it's nothing but sugar. There's no nutrients in that.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Yeah. So this and the shortcut is the build your grocery car around these five things, and your family's protein levels are very, very, very well handled without spending a fortune in the grocery store and spending a ton of time deciding, looking for, and a ton of time in the kitchen making your dinner.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah. And um if you're concerned about your time or what you should be putting in your grocery cart or what you should be eating, we have a solution for that. We'll simplify it for you, not just listening to us right now. But if you're interested at all, there is an app out there that could definitely help you with all of this. And it is called the Hatton Health Recipe Club app. You can find it at app.hat and help.com. We're working on getting it in mobile stores, but we have created this app for specifically what you just said.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

To help families, to help individuals with knowing what to buy with meal plans that are nutritious for them based on your specific dietary needs or allergies, restrictions, things like that. And you can create meal plans, then those auto-populate a grocery list for you. Depending on your location, it will analyze your grocery list and tell you where the best place is to get the best price for your entire grocery list.

SPEAKER_04 4:24

I'm telling you, there's not a lot of apps out there like this. In our extensive research, we haven't seen anything like it, but things that we have implemented into this app that will help you and your family. This is awesome. Definitely a game changer. It'll save you time, money, frustration, and it saves you a little bit of stress too, if cooking or grocery shopping stresses you out.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

It's all right there. And we're even working on getting access so you can just import your entire list into wherever you shop, say Walmart, Instacart, things like that, and you can have it automatically delivered to your door right there. You don't even have to go to your customer.

SPEAKER_04 5:04

Yeah. It uses AI metrics to build everything around you and your family's lifestyle. Like if you build a mean build a profile, you can select like the dietary restrictions, how often a week you cook certain meals, what you do like, what you don't like, where you um your location, your age, your preference. Uh all the other thing that you want to input, it will build everything that you're looking for around your specific metrics. It's very customizable to you and your lifestyle, whereas a lot of other apps that just do a general outline, general preferences. This gives you what you need based on what you want and the way you live. And yeah, it's very customizable. It's very personable.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

Gets to know you.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I don't want to go. There's so much more to this app that I don't want to take too much time away from this. But so if you're interested in that, definitely go ahead and sing that. There's a 14-day free trial. So don't feel like you are obligated to pay anything. Check it out for two weeks, see how you like it. Of course, we have different monthly memberships or an annual subscription, but it's gonna change your life. I promise you, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:09

Absolutely. And moving right along, let's go into the correlation of protein and weight loss and go into the psychology behind why it actually works.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Yeah. So protein is really driving the conversation right now, right? That's why we're doing this whole entire episode just on protein alone. But does higher protein intake actually support weight loss in some aspects? It does. It's not just a trend, and we'll dive into that okay.

SPEAKER_04 6:41

So is it is it as real as people say, or is it all hype?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

No, it's real. It's real for sure. So there are three distinct physiological mechanisms that happen. They're all well supported in the literature. The first is satiety. So protein is the most satiating macronutrient out of all three. So it keeps you fuller longer and is harder to digest too. So compared to carbohydrates or fats, and it does this through multiple pathways in the body. So it helps slow gastric emptying. It stimulates the release of different hormones like GLP1 or PYY. It suppresses grenolin, which is a primary hunger hormone. So eating more protein actually tends to help you eat less overall without like white knuckling you yourself through hunger. So that is a huge powerful mechanism behind eating more protein.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

So protein doesn't just actually burn a fat like you might hear in commercials or fitness fan flowers. It just gives you that satiating feel, makes you full, so you eat less.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Partly. Partly, yes. Uh the second mechanism is the thermal effect of food. So your body burns calories, right? And so the act of actually digesting and metabolizing food produces heat.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

And so protein has a thermal effect of 25 to 30 percent, meaning that a quarter to a third of calories from protein are burned just by processing them, by digesting them. Ah, see. And so if you compare that, say, to fat has about two to three percent, and carbohydrates are about six to eight percent. So it's not a massive effect, but it really does add up over time. So basically, you're burning more calories as you eat protein compared to fat and carbs.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

Oh, so it adds up. Okay, so and and the third?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

And the third is this is one that I want to emphasize most to people, and especially to women out there listening and watching this muscle preservation during caloric restriction. So when we're in a calorie deficit, yes, we lose weight, right? A lot of a lot of research out there, a lot of people have said over the years, you know, you need to eat less than what you expend. And so less calories in, you're in a deficit, you should lose weight. Your body doesn't just burn fat, though, when you're in that calorie deficit, it also breaks down muscle tissue for energy because your body's not getting enough energy. And so without proper adequate protein intake to help with that muscle wasting in a way, and combining that with, say, resistance training, this really signals your body to say that we need this muscle, don't touch it, and preserve the muscle and burn with it. Wow. So if you're not eating enough protein, getting enough protein throughout the day, you're also losing muscle mass at the same time. Oh, and so it's a balance that you need to increase your protein, have adequate protein intake along with resistance training to tell your body to signal to it that you actually still need this muscle, yeah. Don't touch it, burn the fat, don't burn the muscle. This matters enormously for long-term weight management because muscle is also the highly metabolic active tissue. And so it burns calories at rest, even.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

And so if your diet is requiring you to have significant muscle loss, it's definitely gonna affect your resting metabolic rate. It's gonna affect your metabolism in the long run. And you're actually gonna be more susceptible to weight gain and regain and have that yo-yo effect. That is one of the main physiological reasons why yo-yo dieting is so destructive for so many people and why they lose the weight quickly, but then regain it. It's just this constant cycle. So it's not just psychological, it's actually a metabolic cost to losing muscle repeatedly over time.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

So high protein during weight loss is actually protecting your metabolism, not just making you feel full. Exactly. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Also, I want to be clear on what high protein is and what it isn't. Okay. So the research with protein is that for weight loss, it generally supports somewhere between 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight. Or about 25 to 30 percent of your total calories should be coming from protein. So that's definitely on the higher range for somebody that we said was an average sedentary adult eating 0.8 grams. So you're upping that protein content in your daily diet. And then also, you don't want it to be extreme. So saying 60% of your daily diet coming from protein. So that means you're not getting any carbs, and that's what some diets push is to have that extreme, high protein, low carb, but also carbohydrates are not the enemy as seen with these diets. And carbohydrates also can support weight loss. Also, fat is not the enemy as well when you're eating the right types of fats, and that's a whole nother episode for another day. Um, but the calorie balance and protein adequacy are really the key variables when it comes to weight loss.

SPEAKER_03 12:56

And the food still has to taste good or no one's tips to it.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

That's right. So that's probably one of the most underrated factors within nutrition research is yes, and adherence as well. Yeah. Is for sure. You know, it's easy to say, hey, in a lab, eat this, do this, or tell somebody that. But if it doesn't actually taste good, if they aren't getting enjoyment from it, then what's the point?

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Yeah, you almost feel like you're chewing on a bootstrap.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

Yeah, let's go right into like the what a lot of people want to hear is the myths. Talk about some of these common myths because there are a lot out there. Just break it down. Just let the record straight as they like to say.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

So uh, myth number one is that you can only absorb 30 grams of protein per meal at a time. This one will not die, and I don't know why. And I don't know where it got started, but there is no cap how much you could absorb at one meal. Your body is capable of digesting and absorbing protein even at a large meal. Yeah, it's just gonna take longer to get through your system. So 60 grams of protein at a meal uh will take more time to digest than a 20 gram protein meal, of course. That's that makes sense, but uh doesn't mean that the protein isn't absorbed or utilized over time. And so that 30 gram roll uh it's a huge misinterpretation as far as muscle protein synthesis studies go. It has it's largely been debunked with research research over the years. Okay, and so uh yeah, there's no like hard cap of how much your body can absorb.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

I feel like that's sold a lot of protein shakes. I know because I've bought some.

unknown 14:55

I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

So true. Um, yeah. Go if you have protein powder at home, see how many grams per protein or grams of protein per serving are in here.

SPEAKER_04 15:07

It's important to check that.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

It's more than likely 30 grams. And so myth number two is high protein diets damage healthy kidneys. And so there's a bit of a nuance with this one. So I really want to be precise in how we talk about this. So for people that do have, say, chronic kidney disease or have some type of significant renal impairment, things like that, definitely high protein can increase or accelerate the regression of those impairments and diseases. So it is a concern for sure. Um people that do have those types of ailments or diseases definitely need to work closely with a nephrologist and a registered dietitian to ensure that they're getting adequate protein intake and are being careful with their kidneys that are that do have an impaired function or other chronic health diseases as well. But if they're significant, definitely it's a concern for sure. Um, but for most people with normal healthy kidney function, it actually isn't such an alarming issue. Um, research does support that high protein diets don't actually cause kidney damage in and of themselves. Um, your kidneys are designed to handle byproducts of protein metabolism. As long as you're staying well hydrated when eating high protein, you should be fine.

SPEAKER_04 16:47

Yeah. And I hear this from people who think they have to have meat. Um, they say you can't get enough protein from plants. That's another myth that I hear.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, and that's true. I mean, we talked about this earlier, right? So uh a well-planned, varied plant diet can absolutely meet protein needs across all life stages, right? And so, and this has been confirmed by big nutrition organizations too, even including the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, have proven this. And so the key, though, that I want to summarize and reiterate is the variety and the intentionality of it. You cannot be a vegetarian and just live off of iceberg lettuce and call it a plant-based diet, right? Um, you need to have varieties. You need to have lentils, chickpeas, tofu, edamame, quinoa, all the things that we already talked about and have that throughout the day so that they can meet their protein needs.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Wow, it's it's very interesting, very important to know. And that was myth number three. Let's get into myth number four. I've taken some real notes on this, so I want to read my notes to make sure I say this to you directly as possible without any bias. This is very important. More protein always means more muscle. I've heard that for real. But what I've gotten through my research is protein above a threshold doesn't continue to drive muscle growth indefinitely. Okay, so like once you've once you provide your body with the amino acids it needs to maximize muscle protein synthesis, and that threshold has meant a much lower intake than any fitness influorist would have you believe. Additional protein doesn't translate to additional muscle. I'm gonna say that again. Additional protein does not translate to additional muscle. Now, it gets oxidized for energy. The limiting factors become training stimulus, sleep, hormonal environment, and total caloric intake. That's what that's for.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Yeah, and that's the one that I want women to hear. Eating protein cannot make you bulky. So many women have said that over time. I don't want to eat, I don't want to eat too much, or I don't want to do too much resistance training because it's gonna make me bulky. It's gonna make me look like a man. And I could talk about this for an entire episode probably. Uh, but maybe we will. But building appreciable muscle mass requires years of progress, right? Consistent resistance training, adequate caloric surplus and hormonal conditions that most women do not have the same degree as men, and so eating adequate protein and doing regular strength training will make the average woman leaner, stronger, more metabolically resistant, and have more functionality throughout her life. But the fear of bulking is keeping a majority of women away from the most powerful health practice available to them, and it makes me so generally frustrated. So, women, please lift things, eat protein. Please.

SPEAKER_04 20:16

Say that part one more time. Say it louder.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

Women lift things and eat protein.

SPEAKER_04 20:22

Yes, there's a lot here, and we just want to wrap it up pretty soon because we have a few couple more points to touch on. Like, for example, the downsides of protein, the downsides are protein obsession. Let's get into that really quick.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

All right, so we've made a strong case for protein, I think, during this episode. Now let's be the responsible professionals and tell you where this obsession about protein actually becomes a problem. Because it is, and we see it. And so let's get into it.

SPEAKER_04 21:06

Well, I was hoping you go here because as someone who cooks for people, I watched this trend change how people relate to food in many ways that aren't really healthy.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Yeah. So first issue is opportunity cost. So when every food decision is filtered through, does this have enough protein? People often dramatically under eat other important nutrients, such as fiber, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats, and an enormous variety of phytonutrients found in plant based foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. So fiber intake in this country is already so low. Nine out of ten adults in the US are not meeting the recommended fiber intake. And for men, adult It should be 30 to 38 grams per day of fiber. Lemon should be 25 to 28 grams. Kids, it varies for ages one to four. They should have whatever their ages, say you have a two-year-old, you need to add five to their age if they're under four years old. So two plus five is seven grams. So Ala should be eating roughly around seven grams of fiber a day. For kids four to eight years old, that bumps up to 15 to 20 grams of fiber per day. And then adolescents, so nine to eighteen year olds, for girls, it's 21 to 25 grams, or for boys, it's 25 to 30 grams. And so this is so important though, because with the protein-obsessed diet, that completely eliminates your fiber content, right? When you're eating more protein. So whole food carbohydrates, complex carbohydrates to have high fiber help with gut health, also can improve cardiovascular health, blood sugar regulation, and even help with cancer prevention. So you need so it's a balance, right? So not just doing high protein. You need to have those things. And so fiber is a big one.

SPEAKER_04 23:18

Yeah. And from the kitchen side, when people become so focused on protein, they often stop cooking with variety. Um, like chicken, breast, broccoli, rice repeat. Chicken breast, broccoli, rice repeat.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

And all those, all those bodybuilder meal plan reels, right? Meal prepping reels, where it's just the same meal every day.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

And they're not telling you everything, they really do. And people tend to lose the joy of food, right? Um, they stop cooking with different grains and legumes. They um they stop exploring the global cuisines that have incredible protein-rich traditions. They stop enjoying the cherry meals because everything has to become so micro-trecked to the smallest detail, and you become miserable. It becomes a science project rather than just enjoying the experience of eating with each other.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

We just talked to somebody and we were talking about pizza because we did our Sunday family night pizza night.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

And he was saying he couldn't can't even go to a pizza shop because he's counting his protein and he doesn't want the carbs from the crust, and it doesn't he doesn't hit his protein goals.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Count your bites within your plate at the restaurant. Like, come on, bro, don't we tell him about our protein pizza anyway?

SPEAKER_00 24:29

And also, this brings me to that's a great segue into the mental health dimension of restricted eating as well. We've worked with clients, we've seen it in our own personal lives. People develop genuinely develop disordered relationships with their food when it comes to protein tracking or any type of extreme. And so my guard who we just mentioned, the anxiety about restaurants, right? Going to a certain restaurant, eating out, yeah, if you can't know exactly what your macros are, uh, refusing to eat your grandmother's cooking because it doesn't hit your protein intake goals for the day. There's a lot of social isolation around meals too, when you're being so obsessive and restricted. And for many people with eating disorders and disordered eating patterns, the obsessive tracking protein culture encourages us to be on a real ramp to something more serious. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

And so food is love, food is culture, and food is how humans have connected and bonded since virtually the beginning of time. So when it starts to become arithmetic, you definitely lose something special. You lose those special moments.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Beautifully said. Nutrition should be a service of a good life, not become the life itself. The goal is long, healthy, joyful existence with the people that you love. And food is supposed to be a part of that joy, not a source of anxiety. And that's why we're here with Thought and Health with our business, is to create that joy with families. Yeah. And it's to prevent the anxieties around food as our children age and get older. We want to create that positive food culture for them.

SPEAKER_04 26:29

I couldn't agree more. Now let's talk about the timing of it. People talk about protein intake timing. Does when you eat protein actually matter?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

For sure. There's, yeah, this is a whole area of science and it's evolved a lot in the last decade or so. Yeah, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_04 26:45

Okay, so the post-works workout protein shake. Is that real?

SPEAKER_00 26:50

So, yes. So there's this thing called the anabolic window. And the idea is that 30 minutes to 60 minutes after a workout, you need to consume protein to basically get your greatest gains from your workout. And it was thought if you didn't eat protein within that time, your gains would go away. It would be what's called the adaptation, or as we talked about before, the muscle protein synthesis would be a null. And so this was a big part of fitness culture for many years. Now, research has shown that even that window can be up to five to six hours, even up to 48 hours post-workout. So what matters most is total protein intake throughout the day. So even eating protein before your workout, anytime throughout the day, if you're meeting your goals, you're gonna be okay. You're still gonna be okay as far as your gains go. So I'm not saying that timing is relevant, uh, but consuming proteins within the hour of working out before or after does really help support muscle protein synthesis and recovery. But say you have a great training day and you miss eating a protein-reached meal within two hours post-workout, it's gonna be okay. Don't beat yourself up about it. Relax, eat that meal when you can.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

So, what about breakfast? We mentioned before that a lot of people under eat protein in the morning. I've heard people say that I'm not a breakfast person.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, or if you look at all the majority of breakfast items on the grocery shelves, you got really sugary cereals, pancakes, all of that. Uh, yes, this is a major distribution point I want to keep coming back to because most Americans eat very little protein at breakfast. Uh, a little bit moderately at lunch, and majority of it comes at dinner time. Uh, but for muscle protein synthesis, you really need to eat be eating protein throughout the day, spreading it out. Think about eating 20 to 30 grams roughly every four to five hours. So if you're eating a protein-rich breakfast, that really helps kickstart the process and significantly improve satiety and helps reduce your caloric intake later in the day as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

To get 20 to 30 grams of protein at breakfast, think about eating eggs, Greek yogurt, like we mentioned before, cottage cheese, some smoked salmon, uh a protein smoothie, quinoa bowls, um, things like that. So uh research has really shown that for weight management, appetite control, and daily distribution is to be really consistent, especially at breakfast time.

SPEAKER_04 29:57

How about and before bed? Because I know some people drink cassium shakes at night.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Yeah, so this is really interesting research. Cassian protein is found naturally in dairy products, so cottage, cheese, Greek yogurt, milk. And it's really slow to digest. It's a slow digesting protein that releases amino acids gradually compared to some others. If you consume it before bed, then those amino acids are slowly being released while you're sleeping. And this can actually really help support overnight protein, muscle protein synthesis. And um, for older adults, this can really help prevent muscle loss. And for athletes too, who are doing some really heavy training, this might be a great strategy for them and to be worth considering because your body's still working to build that muscle overnight when you're sleeping versus trying to keep up during the day.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

So it's not mandatory for general health, but it could be a good, a good tip for if you're trying to meet certain goals.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

That's awesome. You should definitely write that down. In closing, we have some final takeaways that we want to leave you with. And I know you're on a great role right now, so I'm gonna let you continue with that thought.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Yeah, we we covered a lot today. Yeah, a lot of ground and just