Protein Ratios and Gluconeogenesis

So Jose Antonio put out a couple of really good studies in the last couple of years. I think one was six months and one was one year, where they took people at anywhere from 2.2 to 3.3, and even up to 6 grams per kilogram, and found in most people there's no detrimental effect, and more protein seemed to be better, but a lot of these studies were also hypocaloric diets so when you're under eating calories you probably need to pump your protein up as long as you can get rid of the nitrogen and that's part of the problem people talk about having a positive nitrogen balance but again the body craves balance so you can have too high of a nitrogen balance and then you have to get rid of that through the urea cycle and then you realize wow my sweat smells like bleach I don't understand what's going on well your body's trying to get rid of the ammonia but the urea cycle's not working correctly because you've got a nutrient deficiency or something else is going on, right? So we will typically, I like the 2.2 to 3.3 grams per kilogram. The more carbs I give somebody, the less protein I'm going to give them. They don't really need it. But if somebody's in a hypocaloric diet and we're trying to save muscle tissue, I don't mind using some of that protein to create sugar because when you eat protein, you've got a 30% reduction through the thermic effect of food. then if you're in a lower carbohydrate lower fat lower calorie diet some of that protein will then be turned into sugar through gluconeogenesis which costs more energy so you can put someone in an energy deficit without actually like severely dieting them by by just through biochemical transformations right yeah so it can be a good strategy in terms then of obviously removing the ammonia and urea what are you suggesting for that if people are consuming a higher protein than you know say say normal so if they're doing higher than normal and they're They're getting those issues of ammonia toxicity. So you see this a lot with guys. They'll do like a super compensation routine where they're training twice a day, six days a week, and then they're eating tons of protein and tons of calories. And then they go home, and guys, when they come back from the gym, they take all their clothes off and string them through the house. And then your wife yells at you, and you go back and you grab your shirt, and then you smell your shirt, and it smells like bleach. It smells like ammonia. If that's happening, then you probably need to cut the training down a little bit. you're probably taking it too far and you're catabolic. You need to cut the protein down a little bit. And then what you guys were talking about, the arginine, that might be a good time to take a little bit of arginine or ornithine or citrulline to try to neutralize some of it because those are used in the urea cycle. But you don't need 20 grams of arginine. You just need two or three grams will do it. Wouldn't citrulline be better? Citrulline would be the preferred. So like six grams of citrulline or nine grams of citrulline malate. That's all you need. And glycine is really one of the other common side effects of ammonia toxicity from this is anger, irrational anger, irritability. And glycine is one of the best ways of controlling the neurotransmitters in the brain having a mild inhibitory effect to offset the ammonia and avoiding excessive glutamic acids because it's via that that it will create that kind of temporary insanity. So you should take 80 grams of glycine post-workout. Yeah, that'll slow you down. Maybe, yeah, we can stay a bit lower. A couple of grams is enough. It's a good way to lose weight when you have the Hershey's squirts and you're puking at the same time. Yeah, Hershey squirts. I've never heard that one. Hershey squirts. It's funny, eh? You've got brown chocolate spurting out your butt. There you go. Yeah. He was just thinking of Hershey kisses. Yeah.