Is Extreme Protein Needed?

I know and work with a lot of talented BB’ers and PL’ers and every SUCCESSFUL one will tell you the body needs EXTREME protein intake levels if you are to ever do well lifting and adding mass. Of course there are plenty of buck-sixty pound guys out there that will quote studies telling you that it is not needed.

I am constantly bombarded with posts from under 200 lb guys saying things like “I heard that the body can only assimilate 30-35 grams at a time” or the super MORONIC statement that is even more frequently heard “I don’t want to “waste” protein”. Oh really? It’s OK to drive to the gym, workout 2-6 days a week, spend countless hours lifting and prepping meals and spending God knows how much a month on mostly USELESS supplements (there are great ones, most guys buy the flashy crap ones though because of the marketing hype), and then after all that time, money and effort, they “are worried about “wasting” a bit of protein? Please, get real.

You need to understand that before a single gram of protein will be used for growth, first overall metabolic needs must be attended to. Then you need to take in to account all the micro-trauma that heavy training creates. Your body must use the ingested protein to first just synthesize protein just to heal what was damaged and get you back to square one before any additional mass will be accrued.

Now comes the big kicker that almost everyone here reading this is CLUELESS about—how little actual protein content is in the food you eat. When many see a recommendation that a 200 lb guy trying to add mass should get 375-400 grams of protein a day many flip-out. That is nuts! No one could use or possibly have a need for that much protein---WRONG! Just because 8 ounces of steak with fat has about 60 grams of protein, the average guy assumes that 400 grams of actual protein is a HUGE amount. IT IS NOT! 8 ounces of steak is mostly water and other constituents that do NOT count as the protein count.

But instead of taking my word for it, you do the math and find out how much ACTUAL PROTEIN is in an amount you would consider HUGE, and then think about what your overall bodyweight is and how tore-up a hard workout makes you feel.

Did you do the math? What do you think now?

Iron Addict