AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

“Am I hav­ing enough pro­tein?”

It is the ques­tion every per­son with fit­ness goals asks them­selves.

More re­cent­ly, it sparked a vi­ral de­bate over pro­tein pow­ders, leav­ing gym en­thu­si­asts and fit­ness in­flu­encers flex­ing their thoughts in the com­ments.

But for the nu­tri­tion ex­pert who ig­nit­ed the con­ver­sa­tion, she main­tains that T&T may be fo­cus­ing on the wrong nu­tri­ent al­to­geth­er.

“I didn’t re­al­ly un­der­stand why we were so fix­at­ed on pro­tein sup­ple­men­ta­tion rather than fix­at­ed on bal­anced eat­ing,” said reg­is­tered di­etit­ian nu­tri­tion­ist Dr Can­di­da Khan (fa­mous­ly known as Dr Di­di).

The pro­tein ob­ses­sion

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Dr Di­di said the on­line re­ac­tion mere­ly re­flect­ed what she had been see­ing from years of clin­i­cal con­sul­ta­tions: peo­ple chas­ing mus­cle while for­get­ting their health.

It is no se­cret that the mes­sag­ing be­hind pro­tein in­take is promi­nent at every gym and from every lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al train­er. It is hard to miss the mes­sage that whether you are in a caloric deficit or sur­plus, pro­tein is king.

Nat­u­ral­ly, this has spawned a mas­sive mar­ket of pro­tein shakes, cook­ies, bars and easy recipe hacks, with com­pa­nies promis­ing faster mus­cle gains from a sin­gle sug­gest­ed scoop.

But Dr Di­di be­lieves many have mis­tak­en pro­tein sup­ple­men­ta­tion for strat­e­gy and over­looked the re­al­i­ty of a true fit­ness jour­ney.

“You could con­sume as much pro­tein as you want. But pro­tein con­sump­tion doesn’t equate to mus­cle gain,” Dr Di­di said.

“You have to tie that in with a spe­cif­ic rou­tine lifestyle in or­der to get the re­sults that you want. But if you bal­ance your meals and you don’t over­do pro­tein sup­ple­ments, you can get a bet­ter re­sult with your physique.”

When the num­bers tell

a dif­fer­ent sto­ry

Dr Di­di re­vealed that many clients ar­rive at her of­fice con­fi­dent and con­vinced they are mak­ing progress. How­ev­er, her body com­po­si­tion as­sess­ments of­ten re­veal a sur­pris­ing and un­com­fort­able truth.

“They would tell me, ‘I know my mus­cle mass is high, but my body fat is al­so af­fect­ing the way that I look.’ And when I look at the as­sess­ment and I show them the num­bers. Their skele­tal mus­cle is low. Their over­all mus­cle is low. Their vis­cer­al fat is high, which is the fat around your or­gans. And the to­tal body fat is high.”

It is on­ly at that mo­ment, Dr Di­di says, that clients ad­mit their body’s con­di­tion is due to years of pro­tein sup­ple­men­ta­tion and over­con­sump­tion with­out un­der­stand­ing how to eat prop­er­ly.

To be clear, Dr Di­di is not telling peo­ple to avoid pro­tein.

It re­mains one of the body’s es­sen­tial macronu­tri­ents, along with car­bo­hy­drates and fats. Along with pro­vid­ing en­er­gy, it is vi­tal for build­ing and main­tain­ing tis­sues, mus­cles, hor­mones and en­zymes. With­out enough of it, the body can ex­pe­ri­ence im­paired func­tion and mus­cle loss.

“The rec­om­mend­ed amount is 0.8 grams per (body weight) kilo­gram. And a lot of times we are us­ing more than that, claim­ing that we want to be like the ath­letes. But you have to re­alise that the amount of ex­er­tion of en­er­gy and ex­er­cise and again, de­pend­ing on your goals, is dif­fer­ent for every sin­gle per­son.”

She warned that over­con­sump­tion is a mis­take too eas­i­ly com­mit­ted against our health.

By “over­shoot­ing” pro­tein in­take, any ex­tra that the body can­not use for im­me­di­ate mus­cle re­pair does not turn in­to more mus­cle. In­stead, it is con­vert­ed and stored as fat.

And while there is no im­me­di­ate ev­i­dence that over­con­sump­tion im­pacts or­gan func­tion, clear­ing this ex­tra load over time can place un­nec­es­sary strain on or­gans such as the kid­neys and liv­er.

For Dr Di­di, the re­al is­sue is im­bal­ance, where peo­ple over­shoot with pow­ders and end up with more body fat and meta­bol­ic strain with­out any guar­an­teed in­crease in mus­cle.

The lo­cal food so­lu­tion

Rather than search­ing for ex­pen­sive sup­ple­ments, Dr Di­di be­lieves peo­ple can find ex­act­ly what they need in tra­di­tion­al lo­cal foods al­ready sit­ting on their din­ner ta­bles. Many peo­ple who avoid lo­cal meals in favour of shakes are al­ready sur­round­ed by nu­tri­tious op­tions that of­fer es­sen­tial vi­t­a­mins, min­er­als, car­bo­hy­drates and fats.

For Dr Di­di, that dis­con­nect of­ten comes from fo­cus­ing on one nu­tri­ent while over­look­ing the rest.

“You could bal­ance any Tri­ni dish. You could have mac­a­roni pies, stew chick­en and sal­ad with callaloo.”

She added that lo­cal favourites such as pelau, buss-up shot and dhalpuri roti with cur­ry meat and tra­di­tion­al sides can eas­i­ly fit in­to a healthy lifestyle with the right por­tions.

“It’s al­ways go­ing to be about ar­rang­ing the plate with your favourite meals, but ad­just­ing each in­gre­di­ent so that it falls with­in a safe cat­e­go­ry for your body and your health.”

She ex­plains this bal­ance us­ing a sim­ple “quar­ter-quar­ter-half” plate rule:

Half of the plate: Veg­eta­bles and fruits, to get your fi­bre, vi­t­a­mins and min­er­als.

One quar­ter of the plate: Lean pro­teins such as chick­en, eggs, beans, fish or to­fu.

One quar­ter of the plate: Car­bo­hy­drates or starch­es such as rice, pro­vi­sion, roti or mac­a­roni pie.

Her point is that these pro­por­tions mat­ter much more than de­mon­is­ing in­di­vid­ual foods.

“I wish that the hype was more on the fi­bre, be­cause that’s lit­er­al­ly what we are lack­ing. We are lack­ing suf­fi­cient veg­eta­bles and fruits every sin­gle day, be­cause we are hy­per-fix­at­ed on pro­tein in­take and pro­tein sup­ple­men­ta­tion. And then the se­vere out­come could be gut is­sues and af­fect how your kid­neys func­tion.”

The nu­tri­ents we are miss­ing

Dr Di­di em­pha­sis­es that every­day whole foods eas­i­ly meet these needs. She sug­gests high-qual­i­ty an­i­mal pro­teins such as grilled, baked or stewed chick­en, fish and eggs, along­side plant-based op­tions such as pi­geon peas, chan­na and nuts.

But she warns against ex­treme fix­es to get fast re­sults, such as eat­ing sev­er­al tins of tu­na dai­ly, which in­creas­es mer­cury ex­po­sure, or con­sum­ing ex­ces­sive num­bers of eggs, which adds sig­nif­i­cant di­etary cho­les­terol. Even lean meats must be eat­en in mod­er­a­tion as part of a bal­anced plate.

And at a time when T&T and the wider Caribbean con­tin­ue to bat­tle ris­ing rates of di­a­betes, obe­si­ty, hy­per­ten­sion and car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, she wor­ries that peo­ple are ob­sess­ing over macros while ig­nor­ing over­all longevi­ty.

“I com­plete­ly un­der­stand the con­ve­nience be­hind it (pro­tein pow­ders) be­cause that’s how it’s been ad­ver­tised.”

“But I can’t sup­port it. Health should al­ways be a pri­or­i­ty.”