Is there such a thing as too much Protein? I am pre band...but I am working on a healthier lifestyle now. I know at some point someone said 60 grams of protein a day is healthy. I am currently drinking two Protein drinks a day...at 35 grams each....plus a nutritious dinner that usually contains some protein.

Is this too much? That would be 70grams for the drinks plus whatever my dinner consists of.

There are extremes you can go to with Protein, but you're no where close to being there. My surgeon advised to 60gm per day - sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. If you're going to try and keep a protein minimum, then space it out 3 @ 20, 4 @ 15, not 1 @ 60.

Bodies are good at adjusting for different protein intakes, but until you're adjusted there's only so much you can really metabolize and use as protein at once. The more protein you eat, the less efficient the body is at using it up.

Unless your body has been "trained" to accomodate extreme (in either direction) amounts, 30g - 40g at a time is considered what the average body can use and an amount believed to be the range for healthy digestive function. You can eat more, digest, absorb, etc. -- you just can't really USE it, there's only so much your body can do with it. And we all know what too much of anything we don't need does to us. You might hear "you can only digest..." -- probably colloquially. There's a lot of science behind a statement like that so things can sometimes get oversummarized (*guilty*).

The biggest protein myth is that you can only digest 30 grams of protein at one time. Find out what's wrong with this belief and just how much protein you need. This is a common question. I also get variations such as, how much protein can you digest at one time?

There are two ways to answer this, because there really two questions being asked.

1) How much protein can the digestive system physically absorb into the bloodstream from a meal?

And the MORE IMPORTANT QUESTION...

2) How much protein can you body actually utilize?

The answers...

1) About 95% and higher, unless you have some type of digestive system malfunction.

So if you get convinced by supplement companies to drink a 42g Protein shake in 5 minutes, you'll still probably absorb at 38 or more grams of that protein.

Your muscle growth is not limited by the amount of protein you can DIGEST or ABSORB.

Your muscle growth IS LIMITED by the amount of protein that your body can utilize for protein synthesis.

So the answer to #2...

2) A lot less than you think.

You really don't need 40, or 30, or probably even 20g of protein per meal to keep your protein synthesis humming along. See Nutrition Help Expert Brad Pilon's post on "How Much Protein Do We Really Need"

Any protein that your body can't use for growth will be shuttled into a process where it is broken down (de-aminated: meaning the nitrogen is removed from the molecule and it becomes a carbon skeleton) to be used in energy pathways.

Now, there are benefits for eating extra protein (in my opinion) when dieting, mainly that it helps to suppress appetite.

Thank you for the info...I appreciate it