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Protein is a game-changer for maintaining muscle, managing weight, and living a vibrant, active life. In this fast-paced episode, I’m breaking down 5 essential protein tips you can implement today. Whether you’re aiming to improve your workouts, support healthy aging, or boost your healthspan, this episode has something for you.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
•Why protein is critical for maintaining muscle as you age
•How protein helps control hunger and aids weight management
•The best high-quality protein sources to prioritize in your diet
•How to distribute protein evenly throughout the day for maximum impact
•The role of supplements and how to use them wisely
Resources Mentioned:
🔗 FREE 3-Week Strength Training Program for Beginners
🔗 My Recommended Protein Supplements and Nutrition Picks
💡 Got questions about your health or fitness journey? Let’s connect! I coach middle-aged clients to help them live healthier, longer, and more active lives—even if you’re dealing with injuries or past setbacks.
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Aaron Shaw (00:01)
Welcome to HealthSpan Digest. My name is Aaron Shaw and I have been a HealthSpan coach, occupational therapist, strength coach, absolute nerd about all things health and fitness related for almost 30 years. And in this podcast, I talk about the five pillars of HealthSpan, those being exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and preventative care. These pillars will help
extend our healthspan. Our healthspan is the length of time within our lifespan that we are healthy, active, vibrant, feel great, and ideally being free of preventable diseases, preventable conditions. And one piece of this, one piece of my message is in the nutrition category, the nutrition pillar is going to be protein. And today's episode is going to be a short one and
Over the course of five minutes, when I start the timer, I'm going to give myself five minutes to make five points about protein intake. Anything that I mentioned as far as any products on this podcast, I make sure there's references in the description so you can always hunt those out. And if you have any questions or concerns, ideas, wishes about your own health and fitness, please hit me up. I'm a full-time coach, so I work with people.
typically middle age, middle age and beyond who want to be as healthy, active and vibrant as possible and need some guidance along those pillars. And certainly with my background in therapy, most of my clients have some bumps and bruises and aches and pains and previous injuries and whatnot. So we help them navigate through that through my coaching program. Also at the very end of this, make sure that there's a link to a free three week
strength training program for beginners. So it's three weeks. It's absolutely free. I put the link down in the description. Also includes some tips on nutrition. check that out if you want a kind of a kickstart for a healthy lifestyle. Definitely starting with exercise, but let's get into this. So I'm to start a timer here and five tips on protein one of the macronutrients, five tips in five minutes.
We catch my breath before we do this because these five minutes go so quickly. So five tips in five minutes on protein. You ready? Let's roll. Timer start. Muscle maintenance and aging. So protein is absolutely critical for maintaining muscle as we age. It really helps prevent muscle loss. What we have to remember is that our muscle mass naturally declines as we age. It's one of those many things that's a total bummer about getting older.
Typically, in the 5 % range, 5 % of our muscle mass decreases every decade starting around the age of 30. That is a massive impact on our health. Muscles do a ton of great metabolic benefits and functional benefits to muscles, but we need regular protein intake to sustain these muscles. Regular protein intake sustains or really supports longevity, quality of life by keeping muscles
resilient. But with that, we have to make sure that we strength train. We have to do resistance training to get the benefit of that. And a quick caveat, I hear this from many women, you're afraid of getting big and bulky by resistance training. Pound for pound, muscle is smaller in size than fat. So keep that in mind. Point two, satiation and weight management. So protein is really the most filling macronutrient, which means it helps control hunger.
Definitely including protein in all meals should be the goal and it will help really reduce overall calorie intake versus eating a bunch of carbs and fats and really makes it lot easier to maintain our weight. And I think this is why so many people have protein drinks. And certainly that's a billion dollar industry right now probably is just these little protein drinks that you get at any any store. But keep in mind that these protein drinks may help you save, you know, full fuller for longer, which has a benefit. But
in and of itself is not going to build your muscles. So it will help you perhaps consume fewer calories, which is great, but we want to make sure that we finish this health equation where there's protein plus resistance training equals healthspan. Tip number three, make sure that we have high quality sources for our protein. So we really want to aim for complete proteins like lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy. Definitely there's a variety of plant-based sources like soy and quinoa.
And these options really help us have all of the essential amino acids that we need that support muscle growth, immunity, like immune system functions and recovery. want to avoid processed meats. Sorry, fellas. That means bacon, sausage, hot dogs, all this stuff that's, you know, certainly has some protein to it, but it is high in saturated fats, sodium, bunch of garbage. Also, these, I've seen chips and cookies that have
you know, the label of protein stamped on the front of the package. It's garbage. mean, a lot of things have protein, but it's absolute junk food. So stay away from junk food. Make sure it's whole high quality protein. Grains and grains and veggies do have some protein, but in and of themselves, not quite, quite enough to maximize health protein distribution. So now let's talk about the spreading out to make sure that we're spreading out protein throughout the day. So we're looking for really 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal.
And this will help maximize our protein synthesis. So spreading this protein in, know, through evenly throughout the day, meal after meal after meal will help our protein, help our stimulate our muscle protein synthesis to get the most bang for the buck. This is way more effective than just having, you know, kind of like a carb heavy meals throughout, throughout part of the day. And then having like a, you know, steak and just trying to like lump all of your protein into one shot. It's better to kind of dose that out.
starting with the first meal of day. whenever you do have your breakfast, make sure there's some protein in there. It's a great way to get you off on the right foot. so that is eggs, could be yogurt, and maybe even a protein smoothie if that's your thing. So make sure you get this balanced protein intake throughout the day. Fifth point, supplements. Supplements like protein powders and bars, they can be good for
You know, quick on the go, like if you're, you know, post-workout on the run or something, that's totally fine. Still look for, you know, there's no reason why you can't get 20, 20, 30 grams or more per serving, but really make sure that it's a clean, good source. So again, these are supplements. They're not meant to be the only source of protein. They're meant to supplement real actual foods. I'll put a link in my, Amazon's Affiliate store, which I have my website for my preferred brand of protein. do have a protein shake.
pretty much every day. I also have creatine in it, bananas, berries, almond butter. That's my secret sauce, it works for me. So supplements are just that. Do not live on protein shakes, protein bars or snack bars. It's not real food. Get real food and then supplement.
And there it is. That is five tips, five minutes. I'm moderately breathless, but it is a superficial look at protein. If you have questions about protein, your protein intake or your macronutrient intake overall, your nutrition overall, please hit me up with a question. Send me a message. I talk to all of my coaching clients on nutrition and how it works with, you know, everybody wants to lose a little bit of weight, it seems, but also for performance, for health, for metabolic health.
So with that, the action item of the day, listen to this again if you have another five minutes or 10 minutes to digest all this protein, if you will. If you have any questions, let me know. Until next time, cheers.
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