Peter Attia

But let's talk a little bit about protein.

So a lot of the consternation stems, I think, from a debate around the RDA and the recommendation of 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Do you want to tell folks a little bit about where that came from?

Where does this ubiquitous recommendation that we consume protein

0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

So again, just to put that in perspective, I weigh 180 pounds.

So that is probably 82 kilos.

So I should be eating about 60 to 65 grams of protein according to the RDA.

It's the middle of the day.

I've had 60 grams of protein today, so I could basically stop eating protein for the rest of the day now, right?

Yeah, some people would say that.

Or what if they were active?

Yeah.

So when we go back and look at some of the USDA-based studies on this topic, and we wrote about this.

So the subjects for this study were, if my memory serves correctly, lean, inactive, sedentary young men.

Or I think you said about 150 pounds, if I recall.

Yep.

Yeah.

Maybe even a bit lighter, but yeah, about that.

So these are guys that weighed 65 to 70 kilos, very inactive, and nitrogen balance was demonstrated in them that you could achieve it at 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram.