Protein is one of the most important building blocks for a strong, healthy body and it’s often underestimated. In this episode of our 5 Non-Negotiables Series, we break down why protein matters for muscle repair, energy, metabolism, and longevity. Learn how to get enough protein in your diet, when to eat it, and the difference it can make in your health and performance.
This is Part 3 of 5, continuing our journey through the essential habits that fuel lasting wellness.
Welcome to Sibling Rx, your go-to space for building a healthier home and a healthier you. Join siblings Dr. Yasmin and Dr. Radi as they bring over 25 years of clinical experience in injury care, prevention, and functional wellness to the mic. Equal parts heart and humor, science and soul, they explore everything from hormones and mental health to daily habits that support lifelong health.
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Full Transcript
Protein as a Non-Negotiable 0:00
Welcome again to Sibling RX. We're continuing with our non-negotiable series and today we're going to be talking about protein as a non negotiable. So if you haven't listened to our previous non negotiations, you can go back to take a quick look at those and listen to those while you can. But today we're talking about protein. So are you? Oh, I always forget to introduce myself. I'm Dr. Yes. Dr Roddy. What do you do? I don't know. Just kind of a fill in here today. We've done three of the five non-negotiables.
This is the, we've got two of five, this is number three. You said that the other ones are on our playlist. If people didn't listen or see, they can go back. and watch that. Did you just need to repeat it? No, but because you didn't introduce yourself, it totally threw us off. Oh no, threw you off, no. But not everyone else off everyone knows who I am. Justin was about to leave the room because he did it all wrong and you were so adamant about starting the hook. But there's no hook. There is no.
Yeah. Well, the hook is you totally jacked up the beginning. So, all right. Anyways. Let's talk about protein. Gosh, such a pain in the ass. That's what it's all about. Do you want to start? So why is protein a non-negotiable? Well, protein is a massive building block. Protein is something that your body needs to thrive and live and build muscle and builds your immune system, help your mood, helps your mental state. I mean, it's just such an essential part of the diet. Yeah. The challenge is, a lot of people have a hard time getting enough of it in because they unfortunately snack or consume other things so they don't hit that
Why Protein Matters for Satiety and Hormones 1:51
amount that they should get in, which we'll get into in a minute. Or they Yeah, and really protein is just the vehicle where all the amino acids live. And in order to get the correct profile for the protein, you have to have all them amino acid present at the right levels, right? So protein controls your satiety. It increases your GLP-1 production. Like how satisfied you are when you eat. So it lets you know when your full, so it controls your leptin, right? And your ghrelin and all that stuff. Which are the two hormones that control your hunger and your appetite.
And then it does that by increasing the natural GLP ones in your stomach. So I always tell my kids, if you're hungry, eat protein first. Then you won't overeat. You won' t eat the other junk. Eat all the stuff on your plate, even before your vegetables. Because that really helps regulate your blood sugar and you won't have the crashes later. And it helps balance your hormones too. When it comes to food, if you have a meal that is less protein than it is and it's more like a carb or something like that, you definitely eat and a couple hours later you're like, am I hungry again?
And so when I cook at home, I make sure that my protein is separate from my carbohydrates or starches. That way you know how much you're eating, right? Because if it's all mixed in a bowl or in casserole or something like that. It's hard to know what you actually eat. Yeah. Last night we were going to cook and Claudia's like, do you want to? I bought some shrimp. Let's cook the shrimp and I was like. I kind of felt like I needed some more protein than just shrimp, you know what I mean? Yeah, but that's better than like beans.
No, I know. But we had like grass-fed ground beef. I felt that desire of having that versus like shrimp. in something like that than having five shrimp or something. I knew I would be hungry afterwards. Anyway, the type of protein is really important. Not everybody eats animal protein and they can obviously supplement with other types of really good source of proteins. You did that for a long time until you left the dark side and you came back to the real side where we eat animal proteins, which was like 20 years ago.
The problem again with, and again, no disrespect to vegetarians or vegans, but- They're all lining up outside. Right. Picketing outside with tofu, they're watching tofu on their stick, you know. Vegetarianism or veganism is wonderful, it's good, But you just have to really do things to get that protein in.
Animal vs Plant Protein Sources 4:41
Yeah. And if you how to do it right, then you don't have the blood sugar issues. But I know a lot of vegeterians that are pre-diabetic because The reason why is because in order to get enough protein and the right amounts of leucine, which is the amino acid that's needed for muscle protein synthesis and muscle building, You have to eat a lot of beans. A lot. Of lentils. Supplement a. Lot, right? I mean, they could supplement. They could supplements. Yeah. Right. That's good. You know, which is, yeah, I.
Mean, the volume of the. Volume of. The food is a lie. And then what comes with the beans and the, and. Vegetarian proteins is carbohydrates. They're always, it's never just the macro. There's other things, some other fillers around it. Yeah. And not necessarily a filler, but like a bean, lentils have a lot of carbohydrates. Garbanzo beans have lots of carbohydrate. So yeah, It does have some protein, But it has more carbohydrate, you know, What you said a few minutes ago is if you do it right, then you can be a happy, living, healthy, vegetarian, vegan, and get your protein in and, get those building blocks that you need that, you may not get out of a fully vegetarian diet.
And you know, when I was, doing my figure aesthetics competitions, there was always one vegan or vegetarian bodybuilder next to me. And they killed it, yeah. And, they were great, you know, but they had to do a lot of supplementation with amino acids, which is totally doable. So, not to get into the whole world of macros and whatnot, I know protein is something that people tend to like to track better than they do their fiber or carbs or fats. Rule of thumb, typically, obviously, your body weight in grams of- Your ideal body.
Your idea body, let's say your ideal weight, like my ideal So I should have 105 grams of protein. That's like one of your legs. No, but if your ID body weights 200 pounds, for example, you should be getting 200 grams or protein and the best you can. I think sometimes people get a little neurotic on measuring and scale and all this stuff. It's good to be able to do that if you could do if you can try to get that, you definitely feel more full. Like we said, um, definitely feels stronger. If you're doing that on a regular basis, if your lifting and strain training, feel stronger, recover faster, really good for recovery, especially if post-surgical or post injury, always make sure you get your protein in because with, with a complete amino acid profile.
What about when people are going through like immune system issues, like autoimmune issues. I think it's important for protein to be in their diet all the time. Always. Yeah. And it really just helps with the anti-inflammatory component of everything, right? Which is a huge part of auto-immune, which, I mean, inflammation is the cause of it. Do you remember years ago, and I'm not going to say names, so I'll try to do this without saying Remember you used to work with some people that would eat a lot of protein via like turkey slices and like, and they would need so much of it that they wouldn't have problems, right?
Like, there is a concern that people have that what if I eat too much? If I have too many protein, are my kidneys going to shut down?
How Much Protein to Aim For 8:09
Am I going get flank pain? am I gonna have all these issues? Obviously if there's a pre-existing, they're more likely. But you know what I'm talking about, Right? Yeah. The main issue with that wasn't that they were getting protein from, well, it wasn't the protein that were eating protein like that. The issue was that, they are sourcing their protein, from a processed meat, which had all the nitrates and all of the preservatives which actually is harder on your kidneys than you know, the protein itself.
I totally remember that. It was kind of random. Do you remember when we were kids, you used to take baloney out of the fridge and just eat balony? I was bulking for protein. That is the most disgusting thing. The baloni diet back then. Before keto came in, it was the balone diet. Oscar Meyer baloney. Oh my God. You know, you, blocked it out here. I went through a lot of therapy and I got rid of that. Used to also eat. This is really gross. No, but you know what's really funny? Wait, we're talking about protein.
We're not talking family. Listen, when we were kids, he used to take raw hot dog out of the fridge. That's not true at all. So it wasn't really raw, right? Because hot dogs aren't real raw when you buy them in the pack. But you used to take them out of the fridge and just eat them. Like, we were in fourth grade. I don't remember that. Yes, I remember. And I remembered because mom and dad used leave us Chef Boyardee cans that we used always have to cook. Gourmet, yeah. because we're a latchkey kids.
And so I'm opening up the can of Chef Boyardee eating my ravioli, like probably right out of the canned too, which is so bad for you. If our kids had to do that now, they would die. They would be like, first of all, how do I open this can? What do do with this? Oh, don't even. You know, I had a tutorial on how to use a can opener with my daughter. Oh my God. Anyways, so going back to protein. How much protein do you eat before you work out? I really have like maybe a scoop of something like cottage cheese or like college in my coffee always.
And then cottage, cheese, maybe like a scooper before I go. But I have my vitamin mix with my creatine, my collagen coffee, scoop something or a hard-boiled egg. Those are the best. And then post-workout. Did I tell you I got one of those hard-boiled egg steamers? Oh, from Melania? Yeah. No, I've got it from Artel's, too. Oh good, yeah. That thing is so awesome. But it's in plastic, right? But the shell, the egg is in a shell. So, oh my god, it is the the thing I have ever invented. You can air-fry.
Yeah, you could do that too. I've seen that, too, yeah. So going back to, the hot dogs. Yeah. Well, at least that was protein, right? That's right. We just don't know where it came from, where the meat sourced from. But making sure that you start your day off with protein. Again, I always bring it back to being a midlife hormonal female. You always want to make sure as a woman that you have at least 30 to 40 grams of protein in the morning, like to sit, to start your day, even as men, start a day off.
Protein Timing, Recovery, and Midlife Nutrition 11:40
If you can get a minimum of 30 or 40, ideally 50 grams a protein, in your breakfast, with, with nothing else, just protein and fat and maybe some fiber. Your day is like, you will. That's a lot of protein. It is. I mean, that's not like a hard rolled egg is what like four to six grams of. No, no, it's seven to seven and nine grams. So that either a lotta eggs or you're supplementing that with like Greek yogurt or a protein shake or. cottage cheese is great. Yeah. Um, but my, my go-to breakfast is my probiotic cottage, cheese with a whole avocado, which is never in stock by the way.
Cause you buy it all. I do. By five at a time. It's always out the probiotics cottage. She's a full avocado and then flaxseed because, and what I, do which, cause I love it is apple cider vinegar. Pour it over it. Over what? Over all of it, Over the cottage cheese? Yeah, it tastes so good. What? Tastes so bad. That's disgusting. No, even, Sid, my daughter does it. Yeah. I don't know about that. Because it adds more fermentation to, because sometimes I like to add kimchi to it too, and I'm out of kimchi, so I was like, what else do I have?
You make homemade kimchi right? No, I don't anymore. This is how you make kimchi. But if I'm out of kimchi, then I put the apple cider vinegar on there for fermentation. So protein, strength, energy, hormones, longevity, getting it in. If you're going to track a macro, track that one, get it for sure. I mean, honestly, the only two and fiber is not a Macro, but the Only two things to really track is protein and Fiber. Yeah. in midlife especially because those are the things that are going to help you prevent diabetes and Alzheimer's and dementia and all the co-morbidities that really right now between the ages of 45 and 55, if you dial in your nutrition with protein and fiber, you will set yourself up for success in your, in the second half of your.
You get a lot of those. Yeah. That's when those conditions start. Right. And then that's one, you know, even if you have like, let's say you live till to 70 or 75. If you get diagnosed at 55, You're dealing with 20 years of like misery, misery with medications and surgeries. So, Snacks are another big thing. I think a lot of people resort to protein bars when they're on the go. It's a good option if you've got nothing else to do. But I know recently the jerky has been a thing, there's all kinds of different jerkey that you can get four to five grams of protein.
That's not a whole lot, but at least it's something. Snacking on things that actually have protein in it versus you know, just a rice cake by itself or just just chips or something like that. You're not going to. So have you noticed that when you used to have just the bag of chips for a snack, you're hungry like 10 minutes later, right? So because you have 10 bags of. Which you usually do. I don't do that anymore. Yeah. That's gross. Oh my God. See, what's funny is that you don't remember things that used to do when they were so gross.
You only remember the good things. Totally. Why would I want to focus on the things are not good? I have a diary. I found a Diary in my garage of all these things I wrote down that he used do that use to discuss me.
Snacks, Amino Acids, and Closing Remarks 15:10
They were all from like fifth and sixth grade. I'm not even kidding you. It is hilarious. Yeah, I know. Okay, so the next non-negotiable we're going to talk about next episode is hydration, right? That's what's coming next. So that is number four of our five non negotiables. If you want more information on protein, if there's things that you like to eat to hit your protein macros, let us know. It's always good to kind of see the recipes. if you're mixing apple cider vinegar with something, we don't want to know that.
It's good. It is yummy. But make sure you let us know that. What's going to be our tag? But also, if you need an amino acid recommendation, message us. I'll send you a link. OK. So let's just use that, aminoacid. Message amino acid, and we'll sent you that info. And hopefully, that'll help you. All right, cool. Anything else? Yeah. You did such a good job opening it. Why don't you close it? Why don't you close it? Wait, let me go get the hot dogs real quick. Anyways, if you like this episode, please don' forget to like us, follow, subscribe, do all the things and we'll see you next time.
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