Welcome to episode 46 of the Inside Knowledge podcast. I’m Anna Mapson. This week’s episode is all about protein because people find it quite confusing how much we should be eating. When you should be eating it, what kind of foods are good for IBS.
Protein rich foods are good for IBS
Protein can often be something that people rely on.
At the extreme end is people who go on a carnivore diet, eating only animal based proteins, like meat, cheese, and eggs. This can be quite a tempting thought for some people with IBS because sometimes it’s the fibre in our foods that seems to be the biggest trigger.
Carnivore diet is not healthy
And so the thought of eliminating all of that and just living on protein with no fibre might be quite appealing. However, this carnivore diet is not something I would recommend to anybody, let alone people with IBS.
Although you might feel better in the short term, what you’re doing is in the long term, changing your gut bacteria because there is no fibre there to feed your gut. The good bacteria. And we rely on that good bacteria for interactions with our immune system, keeping the gut healthy. Keeping bowel movements regular. Lots of reasons why we need fibre in our diet.
And it’s not just about digestion. There are cardio metabolic reasons. People are less likely to have a stroke, to have heart attack, and less likely to have colon cancer. So lots of reasons why we need fibre in our diet.
The importance of protein in your diet
But I often find as well, some people are not eating enough, or maybe not eating enough good quality protein.
And so let’s talk a bit about why we need it.
Main sources of protein
If you don’t know what key sources of protein are it includes things like meat, fish, eggs, nuts and seeds, as well as tofu and beans and pulses like lentils, etc. When we eat protein, it is broken down into amino acids. There are nine essential amino acids that have to come from our food, so our body cannot make them.
There are other amino acids as well that we can make based on having these nine essential amino acids from the diet.
Animal protein vs plant based
Animal sources of food have got more protein in them compared to plant based sources of protein. You need to eat more plant based proteins throughout the day to add up to the same amount of animal sources.
I’ll go through a couple of examples in a moment. But just thinking about what it actually does for us. In a digestive sense it keeps us fuller for longer because protein is broken down quite slowly compared to fast release glucose, for example.
Slow release energy
So when you have something like a piece of white bread, piece of toast, that will be burnt through quite quickly in terms of energy. Whereas if you eat more protein sources, they will give you a longer source of energy because digestion takes a little bit longer.
Amino acids – our core building blocks
Protein when it’s broken down, essentially keeps our structure. It helps us build muscle, bones, but it’s also used for our body’s processes like hormones and our digestive enzymes. These all require protein to build and to keep us going. As well as things that you can see on the outside, like nails and your hair and your skin.
So this is sometimes a good indication of whether you’re getting enough. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about how you can look at your diet, but actually you might look at your body and think, am I getting enough?
Signs of insufficient dietary protein
In cases of severe protein deficiency, you might see things like dry, peeling nails. Very dry and dull hair, maybe hair loss, where basically you’re not producing enough protein to keep these non essential functions of your body going. Your body will not prioritize creating strong healthy nails when actually it needs some protein to make sure that your heart is still beating and that your blood is still going around your body.
These are core functions that will be prioritized. Where people are on a very low energy density diet, like if you are on a very restrictive diet for your IBS and you’re not eating enough calories. You may also find that you are deficient in protein and this can also lead to muscle wastage.
Undereating can cause a low protein intake
So sometimes people are losing weight because they’re not eating enough food because of the fear of food. Go back and listen to my episode on ARFID as well, if you want more details on that. But one of the consequences of not eating enough energy is muscle wastage. Our body is literally breaking down muscles over time. Now that is to get energy to keep those core functions going. This is really common in elderly people who don’t eat enough protein.
And one of the reasons they might not eat enough protein in old age is loss of teeth. Sometimes protein takes a lot to chew. So if you don’t have good oral health, it can really impact on your ability to get that first stage of digestion, which is breaking it down with your teeth. And then people end up not eating enough protein and that can lead to muscle wastage over time.
Eating protein stimulates muscle synthesis
There’s been studies to show that an increased protein intake will lead to might help with muscle protein synthesis. That’s like the way we’re creating muscle. Or it just slows down the muscle degradation that comes with inactivity and old age.
Are you always hungry?
And finally, another sign that you might not be eating enough protein is that you’re hungry a lot. Now in people who have IBS sometimes this hunger can be a sensation of like hypersensitivity. I find sometimes with my clients, they say they’re hungry all the time but actually once we get the diet right the hunger goes away even though they’re not eating more calories.
They’re just eating different foods. So sometimes the hunger all the time can be a symptom of IBS. But, also, hunger may be increased when you’re not eating enough protein.
How much protein do I need to eat?
And if you’re somebody who’s looking to lose weight or not to gain any weight, then you may want to make sure that you’re getting sufficient protein to manage your appetite and your body needs.
If you’ve got no idea how much your body needs, one way of working this out is looking at an amount per every kilogram of body weight that you have. The minimum amount of protein that we should all be eating is around 0.75 grams of protein for every kilo of body weight.
If you’re particularly active or trying to increase your muscle mass, you may need to eat about 1.5 grams of protein for every kilo of body weight.
Examples of daily protein intake calculations
So let’s look at some numbers. If you’re around 60 kilograms, which is about 9 stone 6 you would need 48 to 90 grams per day. So 48 is at the lower end if you’re just eating the maintenance dose of 0.75 grams of protein for every kilo of body weight.
And 90 grams of protein per day if you are really active and you’re doing a lot of exercise and that is 1.5 times your body weight in kilograms.
Now if you are in a bigger body, say that you are 70 kilos, which is around 11 stone, then you would need somewhere between 56 and 105 grams of protein per day.
So this sounds like a very clear kind of conversion that you can scale up and down.
Protein calculations are based on lean body mass
But the problem is, is if you’re in a body that has quite a high amount of body fat compared to your lean muscle mass, this calculation will lead you to have a really unrealistic target for the amount of protein at that upper range.
This is because the calculation is based on your lean body mass. This is the things in your body like your organs, your bones, your skin. So it’s based on your body, except for fat. So if you have a lot of fat on your body, I’m talking like sort of 30 percent upwards, that is going to skew this protein calculation.
So for example, if you were around 96 kilos, which is 15 stone and one pound, then you’d need 76 grams to 144 grams of protein at the top end.
Some athletes will be eating 2 grams for every kilo of body weight that they have. Most of my clients and my audience are are not in that space. And I’m not really a sports nutritionist, so I don’t necessarily recommend people going up to that top range.
Calculate your needs based on your lean body mass
But if you’re very into going to the gym and you’re bodybuilding and you’re really lifting heavy weights, maybe you are going to go even higher than that.
So what we need to do is, if you have percentage of body fat that you think could be skewing these results. And making it a little bit unrealistic to eat that much protein in one day. If you’ve got to try and get to 200 grams in a day, it’s going to be really expensive. Because you’re going to have to eat a lot of meat and eggs and fish and probably protein shakes in order to hit those targets.
Whereas if we base it on your lean body mass, when sometimes if you’re into losing weight, this might be like your ideal weight goal. It might be just your body weight minus 30 percent. If you don’t know how much your body percentage of fat is, you might have to just make some assessments.
Listen to your body, not just the stats
So, all of this should just be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt. The main things that I want to stress is there is this calculation. And this can be helpful in some instances. But at the same time, I also try and guide people to tune into your body and think about your appetite.
Think about what you need. But where we don’t have that sense of what we need, and we don’t know if we’re eating the right foods or not. Sometimes these are good just to give you the right ballpark. What you’re trying to aim for.
How to meet your protein targets
So let’s look now at what amounts of foods have these protein targets. Say you are trying to get to around 50 grams of protein per day. And that is probably like the minimum that most people should be aiming for. If you are in a much smaller body, maybe you want around 45 grams of protein.
Looking at animal foods, like one egg would be somewhere in the range of four to six grams per egg. So in order to have a good size amount of protein for a meal, you want to have at least two eggs, if not three. To try and make it a little bit more sustaining.
With things like beef and chicken around a hundred grams is going to give you somewhere between 25 and 30 grams of protein.
With salmon 150 grams of salmon would give you 30 grams of protein.
One main meal, smaller protein portions at every other meal
So if you’re aiming to get 50 grams of protein in a day, you need one meal with a large source of protein. That could be your lunch with a big piece of meat, chicken, fish, prawns, whatever. And then maybe another meal with a little bit less protein, so something like three eggs.
Maybe some yoghurt as well, which is a good source of protein and 100 grams of like a high protein yogurt like Skyr or Greek yogurt could also give you another 10 grams of protein.
Plant based protein foods
And then, if we’re looking at the vegetarian sources of protein, it’s much less for the quantity of food. For example, 100 grams of peas will give you around 5 grams of protein. With tofu, 100 grams of tofu is somewhere around 12 grams of protein and you could normally eat 200 grams of tofu in a meal. You might be getting somewhere up by 20 grams of protein.
So that’s probably one of your best vegan sources of protein is to eat a lot of tofu. With beans and pulses, I like to try and explain to people that they’re majority starch. They’re really good sources of fibre. And if you imagine they are four parts. Three parts of those are fibre and one part will be protein.
Pulses aren’t the best protein source
For example, a cup of lentils might be somewhere in the region of nine grams of protein. So we’re looking like a under 10 grams of protein for your beans and pulses. One cup of kidney beans, black beans, again nine grams of protein and a whole cup of beans is quite a lot.
So you might not be able to handle that if you have got IBS.
Other protein containing foods
There’s really very little protein in fruit. Some protein can be found in whole grains though, particularly brown bread, brown pasta. And you can get pasta that has got increased amounts of proteins. For example, lentil pasta or buckwheat pasta. Or you can actually get high protein pasta, which the wheat proteins are concentrated.
Do look out for other ways to just increase up your protein that’s not necessarily all about eating lots of meat and fish.
IBS can make protein digestion difficult
So if you’re someone who has IBS and you’re thinking, yeah, I know all of this stuff about, about protein, but when I eat it, it makes me feel really terrible. Protein might be quite difficult to digest with IBS and you might find it feels heavy in your stomach. It takes ages to digest.
This may be down to not having enough stomach acid in order to break it down.
Protein digestion
Protein digestion starts with chewing it up. Like it’s really helpful to mash that food up with your teeth. But also when the protein reaches your stomach, then our stomach acid and some enzymes called proteases break it down into little chains of these amino acids.
So these are the building blocks for protein. Then In the stomach, there’s like the mashing up of food with your muscles. The stomach bag is crunching up trying to digest the food. Then this moves out into your small intestine, and the pancreas releases more enzymes that are also working to break down proteins into individual amino acids. So they can be absorbed and we can start to use them.
Why is it hard to digest protein in IBS?
Where this can go wrong for people who’ve got IBS is firstly, your stomach acid might be impaired due to you’re eating really fast. You’re really stressed. And you’ve probably heard me say loads of times on the podcast when you are stressed or in your fight or flight situation. Or you’re of high anxiety you are not going to be producing as much stomach acid and digestive enzymes as you could be. Therefore it could be impairing your digestion of proteins.
So, really helpful going back to the basics, sitting down to eat properly at a table, trying not to be too distracted, chewing your food really well so that you are using your teeth to mash up the food as much as possible before it hits your stomach. Then trying to stay upright if you’re having a lot of trouble, with reflux or digestion sitting really heavy in your stomach.
Trying a small walk, like keep yourself moving. Don’t sit down and feel all sluggish after a meal. Try to get up because it does help the food in your stomach.
Can I drink at mealtimes or does it dilute stomach acid?
Sometimes people worry about diluting their stomach acid with a drink at a meal time. And so they will say, well, I don’t drink with a meal.
Um, this is okay. It’s okay to have a small drink with your meal to help you wash the food down. So don’t feel like you can’t drink at all. What I would probably avoid is drinking like two big pints of water with your meal. That may lead you to feel more bloated. It’s not necessarily about diminishing the impact of your stomach acid. But more that it can leave you feeling very bloated and full.
Is your protein digestion slow due to undereating?
One of the other things to do if your digestion is slow due to reduced eating is to eat more, and I know it can feel really challenging. I sometimes explain to my clients these two things can be true.
Firstly, you need more food. And, it feels like you’re eating too much. These two things can both exist at the same time. You might feel like you’re eating too much. And your body still needs more.
This is one of the challenges that we get when we have over restricted food for too long.
Protein powders for IBS
Now, I wanted to quickly mention, while we’re talking about protein, what about protein powders?
Are any of them suitable for people who have IBS? The one that seems to have the least amount of problems would be a whey based protein. These do not contain lactose, so whey is the protein that comes from dairy. So, obviously not suitable for vegans, but for vegetarians or people who eat meat, it could be okay to have a whey based protein supplement. But, it’s best if you can get this from your diet.
Downing a protein shake is hard to digest
By drinking down a large amount of protein in a shake, that is a liquid, so it goes through your stomach quite quickly. It doesn’t sit in your stomach for as long as it would if you were eating some solid food.
And then that can hit your small intestine quite quickly. So sometimes that whole digestion process that I’ve just described doesn’t really get a chance to work as effectively. And that can lead to feeling bloated, maybe diarrhoea, or just being uncomfortable.
Finding a low FODMAP protein powder
The other thing with protein powders that are of a mixed source. Not whey based ones, but maybe ones that are based on soya or pea based proteins. These sometimes are very high in FODMAPs.
That’s the fermentable fibres and so can cause a lot of bloating. So if you are taking a protein powder, then do just check what it’s got in it. The other thing to look for is sweeteners. So anything like xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol. These are also high FODMAP and can really set people’s bloating off.
The same with inulin, like FOS, if they say they contain prebiotics, which for some people will be an excellent benefit. For some people with IBS can actually make things worse. So try to avoid anything that’s got prebiotics in it, and that might look like FOS, inulin, fructooligosaccharides, galacto -oligosaccharides, any of those sort of terms.
Download the vegetarian low FODMAP guide
That was a quick whistle stop tour of protein for people with IBS. And if you haven’t already listened to episode 8 (Improving a vegetarian diet when you have IBS), go back and listen to that one. Where I talked about IBS with a vegetarian diet. And in there, you will also find reference to a link about vegetarian protein sources that are also low in FODMAP.
So if you’re following a vegetarian or vegan diet, then I’ve created a little handout which goes through some of the key protein sources for vegetarians and vegans. And whether they meet the low FODMAP diet or not, which you might find helpful.
Working with me in the Gut Reset
If at the end of listening to all of this information about IBS and protein, you’re still confused, then maybe you’d benefit from working with me in the Gut Reset.
It’s a three month program where I tailor all of this kind of advice to you, your health situation, any other health conditions you’ve got. What’s worked in the past and what hasn’t worked in the past for you, so that we can come up with a good plan together. The one that feels sustainable and that you can do.
Weekly 1:1 calls with me
And I also meet with my clients weekly to begin with, so that you get a lot of support to put the things into place and that you feel more comfortable. It’s achievable and sustainable. It’s not about changing everything overnight. That’s why it’s three months and I am there to support you through this process.
So please get in touch if you want to talk to me about working in the gut reset with me. Okay, I will leave it there for this week. That is it.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Inside Knowledge for people with IBS. Better digestion for everyone.