Protein is an essential nutrient for bones, muscle, cartilage and skin. Your body needs it to produce enzymes along with hormones and your body uses it to build and repair tissue.
Gym goers can often be mistaken for thinking that more is better when it comes to their protein intake for building muscle tissue and recovering from sessions but this can be very untrue.
Excessive protein intake without taking into account its absorption can be doing more harm than good. Hydrochloric Acid, also known as HCL, is critical for protein digestion. HCL activates Pepsin which is a digestive enzyme that breaks down and assimilates proteins. Now if you’re taking in truck loads of protein and not producing enough HCL for that amount then toxicity of the digestive system can occur from the undigested protein being converted to ammonia. So now we have further dysfunction in the digestive system causing other key nutrients not being absorbed and our efforts in the gym going to waste.
Whilst 1.8 to 3g per kg body weight is the often recommended protein intake in text books. Look at your individual circumstances. Do you suffer bloat, gas, or reflux after eating protein containing meals?
All of these can be a sign HCL production is insufficient.
Do you suffer from stress, have a poor diet, drink excess alcohol, have poor eating habits such as eating on the run, have a history of chronic use of antacids and prescription drugs or suffer from Candida? All of these can diminish our bodies natural HCL production so diving into a high protein diet might not be the best idea.
Ways of improving your HCL production would be taking control of your stress, ensuring you are relaxed at meal times, chewing your food thoroughly, including bitters around meal times and supplementing with betaine HCL and zinc carnosine so protein digestion is aided by the betaine hcl whilst the zinc carnosine aids the repair parietal cells allowing better secretion of HCl.
The body is a complex system. Look at your individual circumstances and work from there. Not just following the lead of the guy in the gym who stenches of protein farts.
