Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you are in a caloric deficit, and this kind of brings us into the protein, dietary protein requirements world a little bit. If you are in a caloric deficit, but you are— and we should probably talk about what the protein requirements are. But let's say you are getting sufficient protein intake, daily protein intake to counter, to prevent your body from pulling protein out of your muscle, basically. Can you not lose the lean mass or muscle mass? Let's say you're not doing resistance training, but you are just getting the protein in. Say you're doing aerobic, but you're still in a caloric deficit, but you're getting the protein.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And not lifting weights.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You're not lifting weights.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, the answer is it will help to preserve some lean mass, but you're still, no matter what you— if you are not lifting weights and I mean, this has been shown, again, over and over in research. You will lose— well, I want to at least— I always hate to talk in absolutes because if you're very obese, where you just have a— let's say you're 100 pounds overweight, you can lose fat without losing muscle much more readily because you just have so much fat to lose that the body's going to pull from the fat stores. But I'm talking when you're starting to get down into people who just are, quote-unquote, overweight. You're going to lose muscle if you do not resistance train.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Now, even if— I want to point out, though, even if you're lifting weights, if you are getting insufficient protein, you're going to leach some muscle. So, you need to still take in sufficient protein. And there's actually evidence that you need more protein than what has been shown for people at maintenance or above to maintain muscle or even to gain it slightly when you're in a caloric deficit. So, that actually increases protein needs to some extent.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Can you talk about, like, what those requirements are?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, sure. So, this— we start to get into generalizations. So, the general literature shows somewhere around 1.6 to 1.8 grams per kilogram per day of protein is required for resistance-trained people, which is about double the RDA.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, RDA for sedentary individuals is around 0.8 grams per kilogram per day. You need roughly double that to, you know, to maintain or to promote anabolism while you're resistance training. And the upper confidence interval is about 2.2 grams per kilogram. So, meaning that to really be on the safe side, if you're— for the vast majority of people, if you're in the gen pop...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Probably not going to make a difference. But if you're a bodybuilder, when I'm coaching bodybuilders and consulting with them, it really does not hurt to take in more protein. I mean, there's a lot of myths about kidney damage in healthy individuals, no good evidence that there's any negative effects on renal function, certainly on bone density. These are all unsupported from my reading of the literature.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, there's not necessarily a downside to it. You have to look at cost-benefit. Everything is cost-benefit. For bodybuilders, I would say go up to 2 grams per kilogram per day, which is roughly, for those of us in the States, about a gram per pound. It's not going to hurt. But I would say that becomes even more important to stay in that upper realm. So, if you're, like, 1.6, if you're especially in a surplus, you generally need— the needs for protein are going to be encompassed because the body isn't going to leach muscle. When you start getting into a deficit, that's where I think it becomes even more important to be at that upper realm, that 2.0 to 2.2 grams per kilogram.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So, people that are— let's say people that are obese, and I always say obese or overweight, and maybe it's important to distinguish these two based on what you just said. But if they are obese and/or, like, you know, overweight, and they're wanting to lose fat mass, right, should they be calculating their protein intake based on their targeted weight? Or— because if they're, like, you know, 300 pounds, for example, or, you know, that's a lot of protein, right?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, it's a great question, and the answer is no. So, the protein needs have been based on men and women who are relatively lean. I want to say relatively, for the vast majority of the population, they would consider it lean. So, for guys, somewhere like in the 12% to 15% body fat range, for women around 20% body fat or so.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, if you are 300 pounds and you should be 200 pounds, you would want— let's say you would calculate it at your— the weight that you would be where you would be at your lean weight, where, you know, for a guy, 12% to 15% body fat. So, we can then regress to saying, base it on lean mass, but most people aren't getting DEXA scans to determine their lean mass or even, you know, they're not going out and getting body fat caliper measurements, just not in the realm of what most people are going to do. And you can make a general estimate. These are not precise measurements. It's not like, you know, people think that we're doing these experiments and they really nail it down into these precise areas.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: They're generalized recommendations based upon what we know, and there's going to be variations around the mean. You're always going to have people that are— when we do research, we report the means, as you well know, which are the averages. But people aren't an average. You get some people that are up here, some people here, and they average out to here. So, yeah, so, if you're overweight, obese, you want to figure your protein needs at what you would be at a relatively lean weight. You know, let's say, again, for a guy, 10%, 12%, 15% body fat. I will say this, it doesn't hurt to take in, like I said, a little extra protein. On the good side, protein is very difficult to store as body fat, much more difficult than carbohydrates and fat.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, it's— if you're going to err on the side of caution, that's where you'd want to err on the side of, you know, taking in a little more protein at the expense, if your goal is weight loss, at the expense of carbs and fat.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Right. Now, we had Stuart Phillips on the podcast, a colleague of yours, and he was talking about, with the protein requirements, like, the buy-in being more like, you know, just to get, like, at least 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. And for me, I was like, okay, because that's what I'm going to try to aim for. But then, as I started to become more— do more resistance training, I realized I was meeting the buy-in, but I wasn't meeting the 1.6. And so I have to now increase, like, a can of sardines will get me there.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Like, I need about 16 to 20 more grams a day. So, you know, for people like my dad, for example, he's in his 70s and, like, good luck getting him to 1.6. Like, I'm trying to get him to 1.2, right? I'm trying to, like, prevent him from, like, just, you know, completely depleting his, you know, his amino acids from his muscle every day, which he's kind of doing. So, he has to supplement and do the protein shakes and stuff like that. And I'm happy at least to get him there.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Next step would be then 1.6, you know, and, of course, adding the resistance training, which should be essential, but I haven't been able to get to that point yet.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So, I wanted to mention that with the protein requirements because, you know, there was like— I know the RDA is so low, 0.8. And Stuart talked a little bit about, like, some of the flaws in the early studies that were done to calculate that.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I'm just, like, wondering when is it time to reassess this, you know, and change it? Because a lot of people think they're getting enough protein, and many people don't even get the RDA.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, to address that, 2 things I think that are important. So, 1.2 is better than 0.8, certainly. But, I mean, there's good literature showing, we've done work on this, that if you want to maximize anabolism...

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: It doesn't mean that you're not going to gain any muscle if you're taking in 1.2, but it will impair the gains that you're going to get, especially when you're talking about older individuals where they're anabolically resistant. So, it becomes even more important. And I think this is another important thing when you're dealing with older individuals, they're not only anabolically resistant to resistance training, but also to protein, where the per-dose aspects need to be higher to some extent to get what's called leucine, which is one of the essential amino acids. And there's— I don't know how deep you want to get here, but there's a leucine threshold.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Leucine is the amino acid that seems to kickstart the muscle growth process.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And it seems to be somewhat higher, at least some of the literature does show that, in older individuals, getting more leucine is important to kickstart that process. As you point out, though, and fairly, for older individuals, it becomes increasingly difficult to get protein in. And I'm a big fan of whole foods. Like, supplementation is something that you do when you cannot get whole foods in. But as you get older, taste buds start to dissipate, your food does not have good taste. So, older individuals have difficulty chewing sometimes, too, and that is where supplementation can come in. It's much easier to drink a whey protein or a casein or egg protein shake and get that protein in through supplemental means if you're not meeting your daily requirements.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, I think that's where— and for anyone, I mean, women, it seems that women often also are not programmed to take protein as much. And, yeah, it's just very easy to do through protein shakes if you're not going to be able to do it through whole foods.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: What's the leucine threshold? Like, can you, like, in terms of protein, like, obviously, we'll get— we can get into the vegan, vegetarian, because it's a whole other thing. But, like, if you're eating meat, chicken, poultry, fish, you know, if you're getting the essential amino acids, like, what gram dose per meal would you say would be important for crossing that leucine threshold, and at what age?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. So, these aren't, again, hard cutoffs in either of those. I've seen 3 grams, with the threshold increasing from 2 to 3 grams of leucine as you get older. Where is that cutoff from being, quote-unquote, older? There isn't one. And if you don't necessarily— I certainly don't think you need to take leucine as a supplement if you're taking in a high-quality protein source. You know, if you're eating meat-based proteins, which, by the way, aren't just meat, they're also milk and eggs, etc. So, proteins from animal, I should say, animal-based sources, you're going to be getting quality proteins that are rich in leucine.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And again, it's just getting the proper dosages in, which might be— it's been shown there is a graded— there's a recent study out of Luc van Loon's lab, who's a terrific researcher, protein researcher in the Netherlands, and they looked at, again, my memory now, it's been a while since I looked at the study, but it was— they did 0, 15 grams of protein, I believe they used whey, 30, and 45, I think it was. But anyway, it showed a dose-response relationship for muscle protein synthesis where they kept getting a greater response. Now, it did seem to somewhat curve— the curve wasn't— it wasn't a linear relationship. So, there was, you know, more parabolic where it started to—

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: —trail off after 30 grams, but it did continue on above the 30 grams.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, it just shows that older individuals need more protein per dose to hit that leucine threshold, particularly after resistance training.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I mean, yeah, that's talking about a dose that you're going to have in your animal products, but then you're also probably going to have a protein shake with it because it's quite— I mean, I guess unless you can eat large, large, large steaks and stuff. But for me, I know, as a female too, I won't be getting—

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Well, I think four ounces of chicken is 30 grams of protein or so.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Is it 30?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. I mean, it's four, you know, if you get—

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: I eat four ounces of chicken.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. So, it's pretty good.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: With respect to what we were talking about with the being in a caloric deficit and gaining muscle mass and how...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: It's, you know, you have to do the resistance training and get the protein. But it seems as though gaining isn't— you're not going to be really gaining if you're in that caloric deficit, if you're the person that is actively doing caloric restriction for recomp, like, you know, I guess, aspects. But what about, you know, so, like, something I practice is time-restricted eating where I like to eat all my food within a, like, 10-hour window.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: You know, I don't go too crazy. But, you know, like, I like to have a resting period. And when you're not digesting and all that, you are in a repair process, right? You're in repair mode. The problem that a lot of people make with time-restricted eating is they go, oh, in order to eat within this 10-hour window, I have to skip breakfast, right?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: So they skip meals, which ends up being caloric restriction, you know, combined with the time-restricted eating. And so what I do is not skip meals. I do not skip breakfast. I do not skip meals. Unless, you know, there's some circumstantial thing that happens where I have to get somewhere or whatever, right? But if I'm getting all of my protein within that 10-hour window, so it's more of a— it's intermittent fasting but not being in a caloric deficit. So, getting the same calories that I would get if I was eating my food throughout the day. And then adding in resistance training, making sure I'm eating the protein. Is that going to be conducive to gaining muscle mass?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we actually are starting to get some good research on this topic.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Now, time-restricted feeding, it's interesting you bring that up. I have a paper currently in review, or a review paper, a review paper currently in review with my colleague Alan Aragon, who's a big nutritional expert. And we cover this exact topic. The interesting thing with time-restricted feeding, number one, there's various iterations of it. So, there's a four-hour eating window with 20 hours off, a six-hour eating window with 18 hours off, and an eight-hour eating window with 16 hours off, so there's all variations. Then there's also the 5:2 concept where you eat for five days and fast for two days or— so, a lot of that will depend upon the specific type of time-restricted feeding. What you're talking about, a 10-hour window, is much more friendly towards anabolism.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: But most of the— it's interesting because, conceivably, spacing out your protein would logically have benefits. And there's been some research, even longitudinal research, that backs this up, that you get better utilization of protein if it's spread out, let's say, at least over 3 meals relatively spaced, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and perhaps even 4. But now, again, if you're— so, this is where the nuances come in. If you're a bodybuilder, I would recommend trying to take in protein across the day as much as possible because when you're not eating, you're catabolic. Eating is anabolic. So, not eating is catabolic. But these studies on time-restricted feeding really don't show much difference. Now, our measures that we have, our current measures of looking at...

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Hypertrophy or, you know, even MRI, which is the gold standard, still has a margin of error. It's not like we're doing— you're looking at a cadaver and you're actually, you know, measuring, or you're doing, like, rodent research where you actually can weigh the muscle, etc. So, our measures might not be sensitive enough to detect subtle differences, but for the vast majority of people, I mean, you're not looking to bodybuild, it's just not going to be much of a difference. If you're going to do a 4:20, I would say you're then going to be in a lot more— and there's been research; one study certainly showed diminished anabolic, diminished muscle hypertrophy with a 4:20 versus a traditional eating pattern. I could see where a 2:5 might have issues.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, again, I would say, if you're going to— whatever you do, try to structure your training within that eating window that you have. Because— and there's actually been quite a lot of research on this— that the body is highly anabolic for at least 24 hours, if not more, after a workout. But when you start getting outside of, you know, 6, 8 hours or so, it's probably going to trail off where you might not harvest some of the gains, depending upon what you're looking for, you know, especially if your goals are more...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Yeah.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Optimizing muscle mass. So, I would say it's beneficial to try to get the feeding in within that window, whatever it is.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: If you're going to be, let's say, in a 10-hour window, try to train within the earlier part of that eating so that you're going to be able to eat after your workout and not go— let's say, not do it right after your final meal and then be catabolic for 14 hours.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay. So, is there some— with the anabolic window, is there some...?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: It's really a barn door. Yeah, we've done a ton of research on this. So, certainly, there is somewhat of a window. And even in the paper we published, which people take as no anabolic window, that's not what our research showed, but it showed that it's really minor. The much more important thing is getting your total daily protein intake in.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And that's where, kind of to your point, if you're hitting your daily protein requirements, whatever your window is, if you're doing, let's say, certainly 10 hours, but even, like, an 8:16, which is the most common time-restricted feeding strategy. If you're getting 1.6 grams per kilogram, you're pretty good. You're going to get the majority of your gains regardless. Then it starts to come down. You kind of mentioned this with Stu Phillips in similar veins, that that's kind of like the— now you're starting to get more like the cherry on the sundae here, if you want to eke out...

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: The maximum amount of gains.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And really, it's, like I said, more of a barn door. It's not this narrow window.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: And I think what we've debunked is that after 45 minutes, you, oh my God, I've got to slam my shake immediately after training or I go catabolic. And even if you're an advanced bodybuilder, I don't think there's utility. The utility in that is virtually nil. But I do say, when I'm coaching bodybuilders, you know, get your protein in as quickly as you can after a workout. You don't have to stress and slam your shake the minute you finish your last set, because this is where even small gains can be the difference between winning and losing a competition. So, again, it's highly context-specific.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: We try to make these general guidelines and apply it to the population, but everyone has their own, you know, goals, their own lifestyle that they have to deal with, and other factors, and that needs to be taken into account.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: If you are working out at home, let's say, and you can go and you're not a professional bodybuilder, you're a recreational, you know, I guess I wouldn't call it a gym-goer if you're doing it at home, but you're a recreational at-home gym-goer and you can go and take your shake right after your workout because you're at home and it's not stressful and you don't have to think about packing it and all this, I mean, would that—

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Not going to hurt, and it could help.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Like, even if it helps a tiny bit, it's— yeah, I would say it's— that is the cost-benefit where there is really no cost and a potential very small benefit. Now, again, if you start going longer and longer, if you're taking 5, 6, 7, 8 hours, and again, if you're doing a, let's say, a 10:14, and you train right after your last meal, and then go 14 hours, then you can start compromising some gains. So, there's no hard rule to this, it's on a spectrum. But I would say the quicker you can get it in, conceivably, the better. It's just no downside to it.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: With your— you mentioned the aging study where the fellow from the Netherlands was looking at, I guess, on a, you know, per-meal effect with respect to protein intake and muscle protein synthesis.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Is it like, you know, you're not going to have 3— like, most people aren't going to do 3 meals with 40 or 50 grams of protein without supplementing on top of that. Maybe, you know, maybe there's, you know, some people that will do it, but not like all the women, not all the older folks, you know. For the majority, I think, of those types of people, they might not be taking in that much protein per meal. Should they try to get at least 40 grams in one meal?

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: Yeah. I mean—

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Or is 30 enough? I mean, so is 40 better than 30 for these older people? Is it something they should even think about? It's just the cherry on top, but you don't stress yourself kind of thing.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, yeah, great questions. And one of the things I think that needs to be understood is that the studies are sterile.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: So, what I mean by that is that they're taking people, they're going to look at kind of proof of principle. So, they take them fasted, they're having nothing in their body, and they're giving them a whey, let's say, a whey protein shake. Whey is a very fast-acting protein that gets into your body very quickly into your circulatory system. The body gets to use the amino acids quickly. When you're eating a whole meal, the amino acids are released in a much more time-released fashion because the body has to digest the food, break it down, there's fats that are going to delay absorption. So, again, you're eating, let's say, chicken with, you know, broccoli and rice, etc., you're eating a whole meal. There's time-delayed release of nutrients into your body.

Dr. Brad Schoenfeld: That's why I said the most important thing—90%—is targeting your total daily protein intake. I hate to give exact percentages because I'm just pulling that out of the air, but I want to emphasize that the vast majority is getting your total daily protein intake. If you are stressing over the minutiae of how much is in the meal, if you're getting— if an older individual is taking in 1.6 grams, they're going to be doing fine. They're not going to be meaningfully compromising their gains unless they're looking to bodybuild, do a master's-level bodybuilding show.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick: Okay. Well, that's good to know. I mean, for the people like us, you know.