Dr. Luc (Luke) van Loon

Yeah, that depends on the type of training, where you're coming from, what your body mass is.

I mean, you can hide a six-pack pretty well if you have a lot of excess fat, of course.

So that really depends on the type of program that you do and the body morph that you have.

So we try to make it more simple, but it is actually much more complex.

But if you consider that a single meal containing 20 grams of our high quality protein maximizes muscle protein synthesis.

for up to four to six hours, then it makes the most sense that every main meal throughout today is an anabolic stimulus, so that you would have 20 to 25 grams of protein in your breakfast, 20 to 25 grams of protein in your lunch, and 20 to 25 grams of protein in your dinner.

And then, theoretically, you have three anabolic stimuli throughout today helping you to optimize muscle building, muscle reconditioning.

I actually make that mistake all the time by saying that it's not about muscle building, it's optimizing muscle conditioning.

And that could be for the endurance athlete, that would be better muscle to do endurance type exercise.

And for the bodybuilder, that might be a bigger muscle.

That's what now everybody's being advised for athletes that consume more than those 75 grams of protein that you can also add another meal moment.

And that's, for example, the pre-sleep evening snack.

For example, if you exercise in the evening, you take a protein rich snack after that exercise session in the evening.

And when you had dinner, for example, at four or five or six and you have a training session between seven and nine,

you have a protein-rich snack at 9 before you go to bed at, say, 11.

And so that's what a lot of athletes do, just have a nice distribution throughout the day.

The long-term studies, long-term, semi-long-term on nitrogen balance or on muscle protein synthesis are not that clear.

There are some studies saying you have better retention of your protein and of your nitrogen when you actually have a nice distribution.

But we also have a recent study that we showed that if you have a huge meal, you have a greater anabolic response when you assess it over a more prolonged period of time.

Now, a lot of people are now asking us, like, should I have one meal?