Click HERE to Watch: What if EVERYTHING You Know About Protein Intake is Wrong!

What if EVERYTHING You Know About Protein Intake is WRONG?

So for years you’ve been told that having more protein and eating more calories will give you more muscle.

But what if every single thing you know about protein intake and calorie intake is absolutely wrong?

And not just wrong, but also holding people back from realizing their full potential as natural athletes. In fact, one of the reasons why a lot of people in developed countries probably don’t have the amount of muscle mass gain as natural athletes in undeveloped countries could be not because of better genetics as most people would seem to think.

It could actually be because they’re eating too much.

And so in this video I’m going to turn everything you know about bodybuilding nutrition upside down. And hopefully it’ll help you make better decisions in terms of what you need to eat to really build muscle.

Most Protein and Calorie Recommendations for Building Muscle Come From Bodybuilders Using Steroids

So before I go any further, we have to address the elephant in the room, which is the fact that a lot of people out there in the bodybuilding community talk about the fact that you need one gram of protein per pound of body weight and also that you need to take in a ton of calories and bulk up in order to build muscle and then afterwards diet down.

And this cycle of bulking up and dieting down is essentially what competitive bodybuilders do and have been doing for decades.

And it’s become pretty much the de facto way that most natural athletes out there who are trying to build muscle will employ in their endeavors to try to put on as much muscle mass as possible.

But, like I said, there are elephants in the room. And the biggest one is the fact that most bodybuilders use drugs.

Why Popular Protein Intake Requirements for Building Muscle Don’t Apply to Natural Bodybuilders

The problem with drug use is that it allows you to consume more protein and utilize that protein in a way that a natural athlete never could.

It also allows you to consume a ridiculous amount of calories and not have their body fat increase. And not just not having their body fat not increase, but they can put on a lot of muscle as a result.

And so for them, it makes absolute sense to consume as many calories as you possibly can and as much protein as you possibly can, bulk up to take advantage of the anabolic effects of steroids and then afterwards cut back down.

And the problem is that for natural bodybuilders as well, it sounds like a good idea, because number one, it sounds completely logical. The more you eat, the bigger your muscles are gonna get from all the extra calories and extra protein.

Number two, of course, we’re bombarded by all the bodybuilders doing it and we figured, hey, if it works for them, it should work for us.

And number three, because it feels good. Who doesn’t want to eat more?

Marketing Propaganda Makes It Hard To Get Real Protein and Calorie Intake Recommendations

The fact is this, when it comes to bodybuilding there is almost zero science to it whatsoever. People just pretty much go by tradition and what the most popular athletes or influencers are doing. And there’s no evidence-based testing.

And also, very important, there’s no trying to understand what the minimum dose is. And unfortunately because we live in an era where almost every single bodybuilding magazine back in my time to the bodybuilding influencer today is trying to you some sort of protein supplement because that’s how they make their money.

The idea of having a really high protein intake is one that sells protein supplements. And unfortunately that essentially drives the bodybuilding industry.

And so there’s no interest whatsoever in trying to figure out what the minimum dose is because you’re trying to create a good consumer.

And you want a consumer to consume as much as possible.

Eating Too Much Protein & Calories Can Reduce Muscle Gains in Athletes

But the problem is, could it really be that the fact that if you take in too many calories and too much protein that your results are actually less than someone taking in less protein and less calories?

But here’s the problem.

The problem is that we focus so much on what people in developed countries are doing that we forget that there’s a whole world out there of people who are building tremendous amounts of muscle without tremendous amounts of protein.

And also without tremendous amounts of calories. That’s important. They aren’t eating that much and they’re building ridiculously impressive physiques.

And we’re not really taking the time to look at that and say, “Well, wait a minute. There’s something going on there.”

They’re not bulking up at any point in time because they don’t have the resources to bulk up. But at the end of the day, they are walking around with physiques that almost anyone who is bulking up, cutting down, going through that awful feeling of having to overeat all the time and then afterwards basically starve yourself.

You would love to walk around with that physique without having to go through a lot of stress on your body and we’re not paying attention to it.

Understanding the Law of Diminishing Returns for Protein Intake and Energy Intake

So what I want to do in this video is talk a little bit about what I call the Law of Diminishing Returns.

The Law of Diminishing Returns suggests that the benefit gained from any specific input decreases as that input increases beyond a certain point which in this particular instance refers to the fact that even though eating protein and having a certain amount of calories will help you build muscle that there could come a point where eating over a certain amount of calories and protein actually gives you less results.

This a bit of a hypothesis on my part but, however, it’s my story and it’s also the story of a lot of natural bodybuilders and natural athletes who I’ve worked with for decades all around the world.

My own story is one that I’ve told many a time. I started off at 125lbs at 6ft tall and was able to realize my dream as a successful natural bodybuilder at 198 1/2lbs, consuming only 120 grams of protein per day.

That’s right, and I’ve this many times before. 120 grams of protein per day was all the protein that was required regardless of what my size was to be able to build a truly impressive physique.

How Bulking Up Can Lead to Less Muscle Gains For Natural Bodybuilders

When I came here to the United States when I was 20 years old, I did what every bodybuilder would aspire to do, which was I bulked up to as much as 252 pounds as one point in time and it was absolutely miserable.

And then I cut down to 211 pounds for a competition which was also equally ridiculously terrible and I’ll never do it again.

Click HERE to watch Kevin’s Video: How I Lost 43lbs in 12 Weeks The Dark Side of Natural Bodybuilder

And I did put on additional muscle mass from doing that, but it was no where near as significant as when I was eating less. To the point where later in my career I started eating far less and kept on getting gains.

And given the fact that I was eating more or less the same amount of calories when I was 125lbs as I was when I was 198lbs, because again, like I said, I grew up in Trinidad. We didn’t have that many resources and as a result I didn’t have the luxury of being able to take in 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. I would’ve loved to, but I simply couldn’t.

Kevin’s Daily Calorie Intake During His Period of Maximum Muscle Gain

I also would’ve loved to be eating more calories on a regular basis but I was probably getting around 2,200 to later on maybe 2,500 calories max on a regular basis, which is pretty much on the low side.

Some days would be even as low as 1,800 calories per day. And yet, I still was able to grow. And again, it’s always a mistake to take the experience of one particular individual and think that extrapolates to the entire population.

It’s called the errors of small numbers.

And if I was only taking my own experience and saying, “Well, this worked for me and that’s how everyone else should be eating as well.” That would be a mistake.

But it’s not just me. That’s the thing.

The Sweet Spot in Terms of Daily Protein Intake To Build Muscle Without Drugs

I’ve worked with so many people around the world, like I said. And what I found looking back at all my notes and everything else was that the sweet spot seems to be somewhere between 100-130 grams of protein regardless of how much someone weighed and regardless of activity level.

That somehow or the other seemed to be enough to help people put on significant amounts of muscle mass.

The Importance of Lower To Moderate Calorie Intake For Better Muscle Gains

But, here’s the thing, almost always when they were consuming 2,500 calories or less, with 3,000 calories at the upper limit.

And again, the strange thing is that this seemed to hold true regardless of activity level or body weight.

That’s, relatively for a bodybuilder, is low protein intake coupled with what for a bodybuilder as well would be a moderate caloric intake but seemed to be a sweet spot to really help people grow.

Why These Numbers Apply to All Natural Athletes

Now, over the years, I’ve helped hundreds of men and women put on significant amounts of muscle. And I’ve always had them do it with diets that have been extremely on the moderate side with not bulking up whatsoever.

So I have a pretty large data set from people who I’ve worked with myself and I can see for a fact that you can take in a moderate amount of calories and a moderate amount of protein and still build a physique that puts you on stage at the level of a professional natural bodybuilder.

Examples of Better Results From Eating Less Protein and Less Calories

But what I’ve also witnessed over the years is the number of men, and sometimes women, but mostly men who’ve come to me over the years and talked to me about the extreme amount of protein that they were eating, the extreme amount of calories that they were eating.

And when they would come to me and we would essentially re-work their diet, have them eat considerably less protein and considerably less calories in conjunction with the high intensity training that we do, they made better results.

Which, over time, got me to a point where I’m making this video right now because my whole life is based on the idea of that whatever I’ve seen or observed over the years is something that I think should be shared with as many people as possible and without trying to sell you something.

Now let’s talk about how evolution plays into this.

Now, it makes sense completely from an evolutionary perspective because our ancestors were not eating at any point in time, one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.

That simply wasn’t happening.

But they obviously were able to increase their muscle mass because the entire adaptive process whereby we increase our muscle mass is a survival based one.

It’s what allowed our ancestors to survive in extremely harsh environments where they would try to do an activity, barely be able to do it, or not be able to do it, and their body would adapt by increasing their muscle strength and to some degree muscle size to allow them to continue to do that activity to survive.

Those that were able to do that would survive the harsher environments and would go on to become our ancestors.

Those who were not able to do those things, obviously died out, and were not our ancestors.

And so it does make sense, also, given the fact that hunter and gatherers in general do not have ridiculous caloric intakes. And so, one would be able to surmise that we are designed to have low energy intakes and even perhaps, low protein intakes and still be able to build muscle.

But perhaps even be able to build better muscle under those circumstances because it’s under those circumstances of low energy intake and low protein intake that our ancestors probably would have needed to have built more muscle to be able to do what they needed to survive.

And so what I’m going to leave you with with this video is to think about the idea that most information you’ve gotten so far about eating more protein and everything else has almost always come from those who benefit from the over-consumption of the consumer.

And perhaps it makes sense first to sit back and do what I did, which is a very simple experiment. Eat less, monitor your progress, and see what happens.

And at 50 years old, I still look like this over 20 years from my last time stepping on stage in a bodybuilding competition.

And so there just might be something to this whole idea of eating less calories, eating less protein, as you have nothing to lose by trying it!

Now that you’ve seen this video, make you watch this video on how I gained 70 pounds of muscle naturally!

Click HERE to watch: How I Ate to gain 70lbs Naturally!

And so I hope that you are able to learn something from this particular video. Incorporate it into your nutrition, and it helps you on your path to excellence.

Thanks so much for watching, know that I believe in you, and as always, Excelsior!

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Featured everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to CBS News, Kevin Richardson’s Naturally Intense High Intensity Training have helped hundreds lose weight and transform their bodies with his 10 Minute Workouts. One of the top natural bodybuilders of his time, Kevin is also the international fitness consultant for UNICEF and one of the top personal trainers in New York City.