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if you're hungry all the time you probably need more protein why well what drove an 11-month-old boy to eat salt straight out of the salt shaker and why did an infant in the 1920s choose to drink straight cod liver oil something that kids notoriously hate well here's a 1928 study on newly weaned infants who completely decided their own diets they were presented with a wide variety of meats milk eggs fruits vegetables juice and cereals and they either pointed at or just grabbed what they wanted if the babies could pick the right Foods they could get all the proteins vitamins and minerals that they needed the infants ate in weird patterns they ate a bit of everything but depending on the week
they would eat astonishingly large amounts of beef then the next week they might be eating tons of eggs and then would switch to cereal the next week they ate a wide variety of foods even choosing to eat bone marrow liver kidneys and raw beef it's R in the end the babies grew to be very healthy five babies entered the study with rickets but by the end they all had beautifully strong Bones the researchers analyze the content of all 36,000 meals the babies ate and they found that they were indeed choosing a variety of foods that made for a nourishing and nutritionally complete diet one child who was vitamin D deficient when first introduced to the study chose to drink straight cod liver oil which is rich in vitamin D in a
different 1940 study an 11-month old boy who had a disease that prevented him from retaining sodium chose every day to eat an abnormal amount of salt all by himself he ate the salt straight out of the salt shaker and while he didn't eat crackers he would lick the salt off of them these old studies support this idea that our bodies can to some degree make us crave foods that we need the most this is where something called the protein leverage hypothesis comes in it basically says that because the body knows it requires a lot of protein it will compel you to keep eating to get more protein eating the same number of calories you'll be hungry on a low protein diet than you would be on a high
protein diet so for example you might be full for a while after a 400 G ribey steak but might be craving some snacks not too long after eating two Big Macs even though both of these meals got you about 1,140 calories the difference is the ribi steak is giving you 96 g of protein but the Big Max only gave you 52 g of protein there's actually a lot of evidence for this protein leverage idea every single human obesity study you will ever look at in the history of medical literature the more protein people ate the better a study from just this year found that on average each one% increase in protein lowers total calorie intake by about 1% a 2005 study found that people eating a 30% protein
diet lost more weight and had lower hunger scores than people eating a 15% protein diet a 2011 study found that people ate more calories if they ate a 10% protein diet instead of a 15% protein diet in that study the people on the low protein diet were craving more Savory Foods their body was craving things that taste like they should have protein in them you want your steak Yeah right now good people think it's crazy that I've eaten 200 gram of protein for almost 20 straight years every single day I like eating protein it fills me up I feel good on it that's why I do it I think we all understand to some degree that protein is very filling I bet you could imagine yourself polishing off, 1500
calories of pizza and ice cream pretty easily but, 1500 calories of just lean beef will leave you sweating and struggling to swallow in between deep breaths oh here come the meat sweats there's a couple way protein blunts your appetite one idea is What's called the ostatic hypothesis that says essentially the body is always trying to maintain a certain level of amino acids when it senses that there is not enough amino acids present it will make you hungry and of course amino acids come from the protein that we eat here's a really cool graph from a quite old study that shows that appetite and amino acid concentrations in the body are tightly linked when amino acid concentrations go
up appetite goes down when amino acids go down appetite goes up other research has found that eating protein simply increases the secretion of anorogenic hormones associated with a reduction of appetite for example in one study where an amino acid mix reduced the appetite of obese adolescents they surmised that this was due to an increase in the appetite suppressing peptide glp1 and that glp1 is likely secreted in response to the intestines sensing the presence of certain amino acids look at pictures or footage of a 1960s Beach and it's pretty obvious that the Obesity epidemic of today is a recent issue our food environment has definitely changed in many ways but could the issue be that we just eat too
much cheap food reporting on USDA data Vox claims that Americans devote just 11% of their household spending to food a smaller share than nearly every other country spends on food consumed at home alone now part of this is because America is a wealthy Nation so people don't have to spend so much on food but considering America spends a lot less than say France or Norway part of it is simply due to the fact that Americans simply buy food that is cheaper to produce I don't think you'd be surprised to hear that cheaper food makes you fat cheap processed food is loaded with additives sugar processed carbohydrates and Seed oils but what it doesn't have much of is protein is not cheap
protein is actually the most expensive macronutrient this study on 106 Supermarket Foods found that the cost of food increases with food protein density the more protein a food had the more expensive it was fat and carbohydrates however are really cheap NLS y79 data suggests that as income goes down obesity goes up so of course cheap foods have all kinds of negative attributes but maybe cheap low protein foods are driving people to be fat by keeping them hungry because they're not getting enough protein what are you eating I don't even know I just know I'm hungry all the time Dr Ted n has a philosophy on maintaining a healthy weight that is really simple you just need to improve
your protein to energy ratio in this framework you can think about macronutrients like this we need protein to build our muscles maintain our cellular machinery and so on it builds us up and maintains our body fat and carbs will consider as just an energy source so you want to get plenty of grams of protein per calorie of fat and carbs you want a high protein to energy ratio for example a riye steak has plenty of protein and plenty of fat but no carbs so it protein to energy ratio is 0.7 lean beef has no carbs and even less fat so its protein to energy ratio is higher at 1.0 then of course things with tons of calories relative to protein are going to have really low protein to energy ratios potatoes and
peanuts have protein to energy ratio of just 0.2 another way to think about this is if you want a healthy lean body with a high protein to energy ratio you should eat foods that have a high protein to energy ratio the more overweight and unhealthy you become the lower the protein to energy ratio of your body will become so here's the next question too little protein is definitely a thing but what is too much protein the RDA for protein is set at 0.8 g of protein per kilogram of body weight that would mean that if you're a 70 kg or 154 lb man you only need 56 g of protein two Big Macs and a handful of almonds should do the trick however what some people don't realize is that the RDA is the minimum
protein required to prevent deficiencies it is not the optimal protein intake Recent research has found that at least double the RDA of 0.8 G per kilogram is likely where you want to be this paper argues that at least 1.2 G per kg to 1.6 G per kilg of protein is better for health there's something called the accept able macronutrient distribution range which is set based on epidemiological evidences that suggest consumption Within These ranges play a role in reducing risk of chronic diseases as you can see in the chart while the average American is at least above the lower end of the amdr they are very far from the upper end so it seems like we really could stand to get more protein but what amount of protein is
too much well that hasn't even been established in human randomized control trials optimizing for protein those people always do better it improves satiation better body composition healthier lean muscle mass better insulin and glucose control Dr Gabrielle lion states that we haven't seen any negative effects from upper limits approaching 3.3 G per kilogram which is four times the RDA there has not been to my knowledge any evidence to support higher levels of dietary protein having any kind of negative effect ever one study having women eating over four times the RDA as much as 3.4 G per kilogram per day didn't experience any negative health effects the US and Canadian Dietary Reference intake review concluded there was not
sufficient evidence by 2005 to establish an upper limit for how much protein can be safely consumed but maybe you've heard of this idea that protein is bad for the kidneys and liver Dr Stuart Phillips a professor on tier 1 Canada Research chair in skeletal muscle Health said that this idea is totally bogus there's no data that link the two none not a scrap he explains that the idea that protein is bad for the kidneys came from the fact that people who already have kidney disease do better on Lower protein diets though it's the disease that made the kidneys unable to properly handle protein not the other way around that would be kind of like saying because people with prostate cancer have trouble
peeing water causes prostate cancer at the end of the day it should be totally expected that protein increases satiety of course your body makes you eat because it is urging you to get a certain amount of minerals nutrition and amino acids so if you haven't gotten the protein your body needs why would it signal you to stop eating protein is obviously a very vital nutrient it's much more than just the brick and mortar used to build muscle of course our bodies don't require protein but the amino acids that protein is composed of this review article amino acids metabolism functions and nutrition lays out that amino acids act as cell signaling molecules regulate gene expression act as key precursors for
producing hormones and important biological substances like dopamine serotonin EP nephrine norepinephrine and thyroid hormones just to name a few and further evidence shows that dietary supplementation with amino acids is beneficial in ameliorating obesity diabetes cardiovascular disease metabolic syndrome and infertility and amino acids are beneficial not just for optimizing muscle growth but also for preventing excess fat accumulation on the body amino acids have all kinds of important functions there's a whole academic Journal dedicated to them one other thing about Hunger it's well known that we all have a hunger for salt when anything from a rabbit or pigeon to a kangaroo monkey or human doesn't get
enough sodium from Salt it will develop a marked craving for salty things so what people might not realize is that when they're craving salty calorie Rich snacks they might be able to extinguish that hunger by just getting some salt that's why this video sponsor element comes in I often have one of their tasty no sugar electrolyte salt packs when I find I'm craving a snack or something and it often reduces and sometimes totally eliminates my Cravings since electrolytes and sodium are a big part of hydration and maintaining energy level in general it can really help to replace the electrolytes you lose when you're fasting doing a low carb diet or if you're just sweating a lot at the gym
I often feel a lot better if I hydrate myself with element while drinking my coffee because this reverses the dehydrating effect of the caffeine element tastes great and there's no junk in it's just a good balance of electrolytes sodium potassium and magnesium a bit of flavoring and some Stevia if you don't want any flavoring you can just get the raw unflavored type if you go to drink lm.com whatat I've learned you can get a free sampler pack with any purchase
