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goron-king-darunia · 3 years

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@hannikka Regarding a comment on this post. “i know this ask has nothing to do with me, but i will be honest with you, before you said to take this with a grain of salt i was going to fight you XD (not really, but still XD) because i definitely and actually fell in love as in real lovewhen i was very young and it lasted years, so i was horrified for a moment, but then again like you, said our experiences are not universa” Again, like I said, I have not been a child in a very long time and I am demisexual so my threshold for attraction is VERY different from the standard. I can only speak from my experiences as a child and what I’ve seen regarding other kids I’ve worked with. It’s not impossible to fall in love, real genuine love, as a kid. I just think that’s VERY rare for it to happen and it seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Obviously this is anectdotal rather than data driven and even then, in the USA, narratives involving children and romance are heavily sanitized because in the USA implying that children are people with feelings like adults is very scary strawberry territory for censors because god forbid we imply children are complex people. Even worse if we imply children and adults can be friends, good heavens. The USA tiptoes around intergenerational friendships like a plague corpse in the street because if something even remotely resembles pedophilia, it’s BAD. Like, the USA buries that shit so hard, to the point where when the Professor Layton games came out I was confused for the longest time about what relation Luke had to Layton because in the USA one does not simply just have a grown man mentoring a young boy that isn’t his son or a blood relative of some sort. Like... there were memes about Layton being a guy that kidnaps orphans because that, for some reason, seemed more probable than the actual explanation which is that Luke is the son of one of Latyon’s close friends, and he and Luke bonded over solving a mystery together in town. Hell, even Layton being adopted was kind of a revelation for me when that showed up in the narrative because the USA had a BAD track record of underrepresenting non-traditional family structures. So I’m sure my view on children is partially cultural as well. The USA doesn’t want to admit it but we’re STILL barely out of that old phase of “children should be seen and not heard” bullshit of treating kids like extensions of their parents and swung right around to some weird other extreme of “if we even acknowledge kids at all, we either make them wise beyond their years or infantalize them to hell and back because what even is a child anyway? Baby? Yeah, we know what that is. Helpless cinnamon roll that can never do anything bad ever. Teenager? Yeah we know what that is. That’s like that weird stage of development where you’re like an adult but with now power and lots of feelings and you’re terrible with everything. IDK if I just grew up overly sheltered (which is probably the case) but like... seeing all these new shows on Netflix that acknowledge that teenagers have sex feels... transgressive somehow. Like, I LIKE that we’re acknowledging it. Because we’ve known for ages it happens and clearly doing pearl-clutching and trying to pretend it doesn’t won’t stop teen pregnancy. But it feels so terribly RECENT that we’re actually not actively shoving that under the rug. The Lion King (the good animated one, not the CG one) firmly cemented in my head when I was a wee baby watching it that “friends” and “lovers” were separate categories (even though Nala and Simba are a couple, LOL) because like, yeah, thinking about getting married to my best friends was WEIRD (even at a time in my life when a lot of my friends were boys. XD) So I was totally with Simba when he was like “Ew, I can’t marry her! She’s my friend!” It’s really only been in recent years that the idea of friendship and romantic/sexual relationships aren’t mutually exclusive has become mainstream. Or at least, it’s only recently that I aged into a group where these stories were targeted. IDK, I feel like I’m getting into the weeds here and talking in circles. But the point is YES, I am totally only speaking from my own experiences here, I am 100% not an authority, I am only giving an opinion, and my opinion is largely shaped by experiences and media that are not universal by any means. XD. I was relatively sheltered, have conservative parents, was a neuroatypical child and still am neuroatypical as an adult, turned out to be demisexual which is pretty different considering most of the world is some flavor of allosexual, an I grew up in the USA where basically the only acceptable adult/child relationships are parent/child and teacher/student (and if you’re a teacher you’re on thin fucking ice, fucking YIKES) because the USA treats every other possible interaction between an adult and child as highly suspect. The only factors I have mitigating these views is that I’ve worked with kids and took developmental psychology in college. So I am aware children are a lot more complex than the culture in the USA gives them credit for being. Children aren’t some weird alien species. They’re largely just very tiny adults with very little power/little ability to act on their agency and very little experience. I have met 10 year olds I would trust more than I trust myself, honestly. Kids that are more mature than me and just... understand things I would definitely NOT have at the same age. So, like, again, I’m not saying it’s impossible for kids to fall in love. I’m just saying that usually kids aren’t concerned with that, and when they ARE, they’re usually practicing the particulars of love. but this is just from my own childhood and my limited experience working with grade school kids. Kids I worked with were far more interested in friendships than romances, and as a kid, my romantic interests were, like, Link from Ocarina of Time and I couldn’t decide if I liked fucking Knuckles the Echidna as a dad or as a boyfriend and I think I settled on dad material because I have an old old old illustrated story that I might have even uploaded here where Knuckles is my dad. XD So, like, for real, take my opinions with a FAT grain of salt because I am literally just a goofy goober and have been in exactly 2 romantic relationships and one of them only lasted a year. XD (The other is basically from college until now which is practically 10 years, but also largely long-distance so, like. Definitely not the usual experience. XD) But also, for real, if I say something controversial, weird, or just plain wrong, you can 100% feel free to fight me because I am an idiot and I say dumb shit all the time. That one debunked post that went around about the “Azhar Library bombing” is a big case in this. XD I am basically an educated adult child. I know some things, but more than anything I know enough to realized that I actually know VERY LITTLE and my whole life should be a learning experience. So I am absolutely not opposed to being wrong and getting taught things because that’s honestly half the reason I’m even remotely as good a person as I am today because I was a garbage kiddo and a garbage teenager and still probably a garbage young adult and was educated out of it. I have a lot of internalized beliefs that were changed because of college and listening to people online, and I can only learn more and grow more my having good friends throw down and fight me over stuff when I say a dumb thing. XD Literally I am probably only on the Left because good people educated me on politics when no one else would. I legit could have been one of those awful cases of a disenchanted teen that was led down the alt-right pipeline. Scary to think of but my parents weren’t teaching me so thankfully better people stepped up to do it. So, legit, you are welcome to fight me any time, man. I want to learn. I want to be inoculated against bad ideas and educated away from any bad opinions I hold.

#hannikka #rambling #ranting #kinda #100% if you see me post a bad take ABSOLUTELY FIGHT ME ON IT

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queeryourgame · 4 years

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Community Values, Guidelines & Rule Enforcement

Community Values

Queer Your Game is an international multi-game LGBTQIA+ only gayming community. We aim to provide our Gaymers with a protected cross-platform environment where we can all enjoy ourselves, meet new gay™ people from all over the world and gayme together safely. Queer Your Game welcomes all sorts of Gaymers regardless of gender, race, religion, nationality or level of skill.

Our community is live on Discord and you can join us today!

We expect everyone to behave responsibly, kindly and respectfully toward one another across all platforms and games.

The following guidelines are not exhaustive and we reserve the right to change and amend them as our community grows and we learn. We’ll let you know when we do, but we expect all of you to read them, accept them and abide by them.

One last thing, safety is our main concern and to that end, we are offering a moderated space.

You are the heart of this community. The way you behave is the way we all behave and your integrity is our integrity. If you see someone that needs help, if you witness something that’s against our guidelines or just plain wrong, say something. Do something. Tell a mod, alert us on social media, stand up for your fellow Gaymer as you would like your fellow Gaymer to stand up for you and help.

Join Queer Your Game 👉 http://bit.ly/QYGDiscord

Community Guidelines

Queer Your Game is an LGBTQIA+ only community. What does that mean? Well, it means that if you are cisheteroromantic AND cisheterosexual then you can’t be part of this community. We appreciate that you consider yourself one of our cishet allies and we understand that you might have a spouse/partner, family members, friends and acquaintances who are LGBTQIA+ that you care about and support. However, due to the nature of the gaming community at large, we wish to keep QYG open to LGBTQIA+ folks only. PS: If you are cisAromantic and/or cisAssexual and you consider yourself Queer, we welcome you.

Our community guidelines must be respected cross-platforms. You must also abide by the community guidelines and terms of services of the platforms you are using. On Discord, you must respect Discord’s guidelines, on Twitter, you must respect Twitter’s guidelines, on Xbox, you must respect Xbox’s guidelines, etc.

Queer Your Game is not yet a corporation but we will abide by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), the European Union Copyright Law (EUCL), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WIPO and WCT) and the World Trade Organization (WCT) on copyright and intellectual property. If the copyright and IP organization of your region isn’t mentioned here, please know that if we are contacted by them regarding copyright and intellectual property transgressions by our users, we will consider their inquiries just as seriously as those from the organizations mentioned above.

While we are on the subject of copyright and intellectual property, it’s important you remember that we consider fanart and derivative work to be fair use. Fair use is a right, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Using culture to express yourself and create your own representation is something that we at Queer Your Game actively encourage.

Reposting original art, derivative work, and fanart as your own without crediting the artist or appropriating art, derivative work, and fanart is forbidden. If we find out that you are stealing original art, derivative work, and fanart from the artists in our community—whether from Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, or anywhere else our users are present—for commercial purposes, you will be reported to said platforms, to the relevant authorities, and you will be immediately banned from Queer Your Game. Forever.

The sharing and/or promoting of illegal activities and illegal materials, like piracy, copyright and intellectual property infringement, betting and gambling, pornography, pornography involving children/animals/violence, political parties, etc. are forbidden in our community cross-platforms.

Please don’t use the community Discord and other platforms for your advertisement of any kind, unless you are affiliated with Queer Your Game and/or we have given you permission to do so. Yes, that includes charities and fandom projects. Do not ever ask for money or promote your Ko-fi, your Patreon, your PayPal, your Kickstarter, your IndieGoGo, etc. unless you are affiliated with Queer Your Game and we have given you permission to do so.

Remember when we said that your safety is our main concern at Queer Your Game? That starts with keeping your personal information secret. Do not ever share your personal information in our Discord Server or publically on our other platforms. If you want to share your personal information with a fellow Gaymer, add them as a friend and share what you wish to share via private direct messages.

Nobody at Queer Your Game, Admins or Mods, will ever ask you for your personal information in our Discord server—unless you are in the SOS channel and you are requiring immediate IRL assistance, and we do mean life or death situations.

If you are caught sharing another Gaymer’s personal information, you will be banned. If you obtained that information illegally, we will report you to the authorities in your country of residence.

To become a part of our gayming community you need to follow our application process. We do not allow Gaymers to have multiple accounts—especially if you have been kicked or banned and you’re trying to trick us into adding you again. Don’t do it.

If we catch you impersonating another Gaymer, you will be banned and reported.

By the way, don’t use offensive usernames. By offensive we mean insulting, discriminatory, violent, sexual, etc.. Oh and don’t copy another Gaymer’s username either.

We are running an 18 and older Discord server and we don’t mind you discussing all sorts of topics, including sex. I mean, we’re gay. It’s okay. Just don’t be inappropriate. Don’t link to porn, under 18 content, illegal content, or you know, all the stuff we already mentioned above. Don’t upload under 18 or NSFW content in the chat, don’t use porn/violent/discriminative GIFs, don’t swear like a sailor, don’t spam.

Using our community Discord for sexual acts or intercourse, the promotion of sexual services and the exploitation of children is prohibited.

We will have zero tolerance for Gaymers who bully, harass, verbally abuse or berate other Gaymers in-game, on Discord or any other platforms Queer Your Game is on. Hate speech is not okay. Do not promote violence against anyone, especially other marginalized folks. If we catch you bashing on someone, alone or in a group, you’re done.

If you have a disagreement with someone or you’re getting upset and you feel like lashing out, find a Mod, take a break. If you can’t manage what’s going on in the moment, walk away, send us an email or DM us. Criticism should always be polite and constructive. In fact, one of the mottos we use in every aspect of our work at Queer Your Game is “To be a voice of criticism, be a force of proposition.” It’s good advice; you’re welcome.

Trolling in-game, on Discord and other platforms Queer Your Game is on is unacceptable. Don’t ruin the experience of other people. That goes for spoiling. Whether it’s about a game, a movie, a book, a tv show, just don’t spoil, okay? Now, we know some of you will want to talk about every bit of spoiler and juicy news out there so we made you a channel on Discord.

In-game, we expect you to show fair play, to win with dignity and lose with grace, and to support your fellow Gaymers and teammates. Cheating and hacking are prohibited. Respect in-game rules and codes of conduct. No friendly kills, no awoxing, no spawn killing, no stealing from other Gaymers, no destroying other Gaymers property. Oh and no botting.

Raging is a no-go. Don’t rage quit, don’t yell at your fellow Gaymers, don’t insult people, don’t swear excessively, etc.. If you can’t handle what’s going on in-game, if you know you’re going to lose it, walk away. It’s that simple.

Cooperation and support are promoted within Queer Your Game. We like transparency and we think that champions, raid leaders and more skilled Gaymers should lead and help and teach and theorycraft and strategize and all the good things that can advance their fellow Gaymers, their own teams, parties and guilds of Gaymers. Just don’t go around sharing all of that on social media unless it’s made clear that it’s okay or you’re the person who came up with it.

At Queer Your Game we consider ourselves proponents of social justice and equal rights. We also know what a lot of social media platforms and communities refuse to acknowledge: tech and media are not neutral and no community or person is apolitical. While we encourage conversation and we understand that nobody’s perfect and no content is unproblematic, we want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy the diversity of our community as they have fun, share, learn, educate themselves and grow. We expect all Gaymers to be on their best behavior. If you witness any of the following behaviors, report it to a Mod.

Racism, anti-blackness, xenophobia, white supremacy, Islamophobia, antisemitism, cultural appropriation, and bigotry will not be tolerated.

If you’re a transphobe or a TERF, don’t apply. We don’t want you. We also expect Gaymers to respect their fellow Gaymers’ pronouns. Misgendering will be sanctioned.

Sexism and misogyny won’t be tolerated. If you’re a white feminist, we don’t like you either. And if you don’t know what that is, we encourage you to check Google.

Ableism, food-shaming, fat-shaming, and all physical discrimination or belittling are rude and forbidden.

Don’t police, gatekeep, etc.. We have Mods and Admins, and we have guidelines. Your judgment of others is not required nor welcome.

Threats, incitation to violence and self-destroying behaviors, and any activity or conversation that could lead to your physical or emotional harm are completely forbidden and will get a Gaymer banned.

Suicide stunts or self-harm for attention-seeking, entertainment, or bad jokes will be sanctioned.

We have created an SOS text chat and voice channel on our Discord. Our intention is to provide a safe space for any Gaymer who would find themselves in a sudden and terrible struggle. If you are in danger, if you are in crisis, if you are experiencing a medical or mental health emergency, etc., anything that would require immediate assistance, you can, if you choose to, go into the SOS text and voice channels.

We want to make it clear that, even though our Moderators are notified that if they are alerted or see a Gaymer in an SOS channel, they should immediately check on them, we cannot shoulder the responsibility of your well being and your safety. We will not offer professional and trained support even if some of our Moderators and Admins could be trained professionals. For now, we can only provide you with a safe space and common sense help if we are able. We will call the police or an ambulance if you need them and we happen to be able to. We will stay with you if you require a presence. We will help provide you with crisis helpline phone numbers if they’re available where you reside so you can seek the appropriate help.

Please don’t abuse the SOS channels. We cannot stress enough that this specific gesture is a way for Queer Your Game to show you in action that we care. We are not in any position to be responsible for your safety and/or your well being and we do not make any promises of trained support or life-altering actions. Therefore Queer Your Game—as private individuals or as a corporation—is not liable for you.

Rule Enforcement

Queer Your Game is a moderated space, on Discord, on Social Media, in forums, and in-game. We have Moderators, Admins, and Super Admins.

As a moderated space and community, Queer Your Game does, in fact, exercise a certain censure as described in our community guidelines. We reserve the right to change them, although we will let you know when that happens.

The appreciation of your violations and of your behaviors remain up to the discretion of our Mods, Admins and Super Admins. You can appeal a sanction, a temporary kick or ban, a definitive ban, etc. by emailing us at [email protected]. The decision to maintain, alter or lift your sanction(s) is also to the discretion of our Mods, Admins and Super Admins.

The offense system is as follows:

You can get warnings of different gravity in-game, in Discord chat or voice channels, in your mentions and in your DMs or PMs depending on the platform you commit your offense on.

If warnings don’t have an immediate impact on your behavior, you can be asked to a private conversation with a Mod, an Admin or a Super Admin on Discord.

A small offense will get you an email, a DM or a PM, possibly a temporary time out or kick, most likely a private scolding and a mark on your account.

A serious offense will get you the same treatment as a small offense, a definite scolding, a kick or ban for the length we deem fit, and you will lose your status in the community. When you come back, you will have to go through a return interview and you will start fresh as a Padawan Gaymer on probation.

A grave offense will mean your immediate kick from our Discord and a ban will be decided by our team of Mods, Admins, and Super Admins. You’ll receive an email informing you of your ban and our definitive decision.

We may ask for your opinions, thoughts, and ideas in polls and voting events.

We at Queer Your Game think strongly about the ethics of our project. We believe in transparency and in taking in different perspectives. To that end, we regularly consult with outside professionals in different fields and we are in the process of recruiting different individuals for our reference and sensitivity group.

Join Queer Your Game 👉 http://bit.ly/QYGDiscord

#GaymersUnite #QueerYourGame #QYGAbout #Gamers #Gaming #Gaymers #Gayming #GamingCommunity #Video Games #LGBTQ Games #LGBTQ Gamers #Queer Gamers #Trans Gamers #Women Gamers #Community Guidelines #LGBTQIA+#LGBTQIA

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veganrawfitness · 4 years

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Weight Loss At Work: Non-Food Rewards

The e-mail comes out at noon. “To celebrate your hard work this week, there is cake and ice cream in the big kitchen at 3 today. Be there!”

The universal reward for hard work always seems to be food: cake and ice cream, a catered lunch for in-service training sessions, pizza for the overtime crew, bagels, and cream cheese to brighten up a bleak Monday morning.

Food seems to be the perennial favorite for any kind of work reward because it is universally accepted. Some of us (we hardcore dieters) may pass on the sweet stuff but usually find something allowable. In a world where two-thirds of us are overweight or obese, is there nothing else available as a gift that cuts across all individual interests?

Recently, we had a whole week at my company devoted to employee appreciation. The primary rewards were, of course, food but other things were added: a company baseball cap, a hiking water container, a lunch bag, and a handwritten note of thanks to every employee from their supervisor. The cap was a bust for those of us with any modicum of fashion sense; the insulated flask and bag were food-related, and the handwritten notes were superfluous – good supervisors show their appreciation of hard work constantly while a handwritten note from a harsh supervisor, no matter the “thanks” stated, means diddly squat to a resentful employee.

The HAS to be something else, doesn’t there? We human beings have few things totally in common and eating is the primary universal. Other common bodily activities such as urination and defecation are not easily translatable into some kind of reward system. We are all involved in physical activity, to some degree, but that is often more a chore than a delight.

When it comes to our other senses, we all differ so much that one person’s pleasure is another person’s pain: music, perfume, pictures, or massages are differential tastes rather than general givens.

Money is almost always acceptable but the small amounts that would be individually generated to replace a free dessert or snack would be so minimal that their reward value would be insignificant.

So what can those of us on a permanent diet, and alarmed about our coworkers’ increased girth, suggest?

How about plants? Small individual pots or a larger department shrub would save our waistlines while adding to the health and aesthetics of our environment. I calculate, just within my call center, that if a plant had been given to each department, instead of an edible goodie, for celebrations over the past 5 years, that I would now be working in a lush rain forest of exotic plants where the stale re-processed air-conditioned air would be purer, more humid, and a thousand times fresher. Morale booster and health benefits in one fell swoop!

How about the gift of time? In our overly busy pressured lives, who would not be immensely grateful for a free hour here or there. Rotate it through each department, letting one or two people leave early on a Friday afternoon. That would mean something and would carry no cost so upper management should be ecstatic.

Instead of a handwritten note, how about getting Supervisors to perform their subordinates work duties for an hour or so, once in a while? Can you imagine the morale boost for an employee to get off the telephone, or the machine, or the computer, and shoot the breeze with friends for an hour while their duties are performed by their supervisors? And if mistakes are made – so much the better. It creates a sense of equality and inter-relationship between workers and supervisors that is generally lacking in a corporate environment.

How about free “Get out of jail” cards for every line worker? Each person gets one free card and additional cards can be given by supervisors for outstanding work, ensuring that the better workers have more cards. The cards can then be used as excuses for small transgressions – coming in a little late, leaving early, making minor mistakes. With the use of the card, a worker avoids verbal coaching, warnings, or being put on report. And let employees use their cards for coworkers who may need them – think of the team building that would accomplish!

Flexibility of hours, assignments, and days, is another area where workers will universally respond: not to money, or food, but to the accommodation of individual needs. Give each employee a wish card and then allow them to use it to get something they need.

What does all of this accomplish? It allows for employee rewards without fats and carbohydrates. Now isn’t that worthwhile?

P. S. I’m recommending this to my company. I’ll let you know if they buy it!

The post Weight Loss At Work: Non-Food Rewards appeared first on Vegan Raw Fitness.

source https://veganrawfitness.com/weight-loss-at-work-non-food-rewards-2/

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fitnessexpert00-blog · 5 years

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Will a high-protein diet harm your health? The real story on the risks (and rewards) of eating more protein.

New Post has been published on https://fitnessqia.com/awesome/will-a-high-protein-diet-harm-your-health-the-real-story-on-the-risks-and-rewards-of-eating-more-protein/

Will a high-protein diet harm your health? The real story on the risks (and rewards) of eating more protein.

Will protein help me lose weight? Should I eat it at every meal? Could too much injury my kidneys? At Precision Nutrition, our inbox is filled with questions about the pros and cons of feeing more protein. In this article we’ll defined the record straight, so you can finally separate the facts from the fiction.

++++

Maybe you’re a protein promoter.

You buy protein powder in “bucket with a handle” format. You know the protein counts of every food you eat.

After every workout, you jam those amino acids into your cells. You swear you can feel them get swole.

Or perhaps you’re a protein avoider.

Maybe you’ve heard bad things.

Like: Protein will damage your kidneys.

Or: Protein will give you cancer.

Or simply: We all eat too much protein.

Perhap you want to lose fat. Or gain muscle. Or be healthy.

You only want to do the right thing and eat better. But with strife information about protein, you don’t know what to think.

Or, if you’re a fitness and nutrition coach, you’re wondering how the heck to clear up the disarray about protein among your clients.

Let’s get into it. In this article, we’ll explore :P TAGEND

What are high-protein diets? What does the evidence say about high-protein diets and health? Does protein source matter? How much protein is right for me?

How to read this article

If you’re just curious about high-protein diets:

Feel free to skim and learn what it is you like.

If you want to change your body and/ or health:

You don’t need to know every detail. Just get the general idea. Check out our advice at the end.

If you’re an athlete interested in performance:

Pay special attention to the section on athletic performance. Check out our advice for athletes at the end.

If you’re a fitness pro, or interested in geeking out with nutritional science :P TAGEND

We’ve given you some “extra credit” material in sidebars throughout. Check out our advice for fitness pros at the end.

Why protein?

A quick intro if you aren’t a nutrition pro :P TAGEND

Protein is one of the three major macronutrients that induces up the food we eat.( The other two are fat and carbohydrate .)

Protein itself is made up of amino acids.

Amino acids are the building blocks for most stuff in our bodies. They’re like Legos that can be broken down and re-assembled in different ways.

Unlike extra fat( which we can store very easily on our hoboes and bellies ), we don’t store lots of extra amino acids. Protein is always get employed, recycled, and sometimes excreted.

If we don’t get enough protein, our body will begin to plunder it from proportions that we need, such as our muscles. So we have to constantly replenish protein by eating it.

We need protein.

Protein is so important that without it, we die or become seriously malnourished.

( This protein-deficiency disease is known as kwashiorkor, and we often see it in people who have suffered famines or who lives on a low-protein diet .)

All your enzymes and cell transporters; all your blood transporters; all your cells’ scaffolding and structures; 100 percent of your hair and fingernails; much of your muscle, bone, and internal organs; and many hormones are made of mostly protein. Hence, protein enables most of our bodies’ functions.

Put simply, you are basically a piling of protein.

No protein , no you.

How much protein do we need?

Short answer: It depends.

Let’s look first at the current Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA).

The RDA for protein is 0.8 g/ kg( 0.36 g/ lb) — the more you weigh, the more protein you need :P TAGEND

A 150 -lb( 68 kg) person would need 68 x 0.8, or about 54 grams of protein a day.

A 200 -lb( 91 kg) person would need 91 x 0.8, or about 73 grams of protein a day.

That generally works out to about 10 percentage of daily calories coming from protein.

However.

RDAs were originally developed as a way to avoid malnutrition — to represent the minimum amount of a nutrient we need to not die( or get sick ).

“You’re not dead” is not the same thing as “You’re kicking ass.” The RDA for surviving may be different than what is necessary thrive.

The RDA is also a very general recommendation. It doesn’t take other things into account, such as :P TAGEND

How much total energy( i.e. calories) we feed or need Our carbohydrate uptake When we eat the protein Our biological sex Our age How active we are What activities we do How “eco-friendly” various protein sources are

The Institute of Medicine( US) indicates a huge range in individual protein requirements — from 0.375 g/ kg to 1.625 g/ kg body weight( 0.17 to 0.74 g/ lb body weight ).

In other terms, our hypothetical 150 -lb person might have protein needs ranging from 26 to 111 grams per day.

Well that narrows it down nicely, doesn’t it !?

Let’s take a deeper look: Amino acids

Protein in our food is made up of many different building blocks, or amino acids.

Most people focus on Recommended Daily Allowance( RDA) for total protein, but they don’t think about how much of each amino acid they might need.

If your diet isn’t differed enough, you may be eating enough total protein, but not enough of a specific essential amino acid.

Every day, you need this much of these essential amino acids:

14 mg/ kg of histidine 19 mg/ kg of isoleucine 42 mg/ kg of leucine 38 mg/ kg of lysine 19 mg/ kg of methionine+ cysteine 33 mg/ kg of phenylalanine+ tyrosine 20 mg/ kg of threonine 5 mg/ kg of tryptophan 24 mg/ kg of valine

Of course, you don’t need to spend hours in your kitchen with an eyedropper of lysine solution, carefully calibrating your intake.

Just eat a variety of protein-rich foods and let nature do the rest.

What does a high-protein diet look like?

People often assume that “high protein” entails “low carbohydrate”. In fact, you can eat more protein without making any drastic changes to other things in your diet.

Many types of diets can be considered high-protein. “High protein” is a bit of a relative concept; there’s no clear rule.

The average protein intake for adults in the US is about 15 percentage of calories coming from protein.

The Institute of Medicine suggests that up to 35 percent of total calories is an OK proportion of protein for healthy adults.

And most researchers would say that once you get more than 25 percent of total calories from protein, you’re in “high protein” territory.

Here’s what high- and low-protein diets might look like for a given meal.

The upper tolerable limit( UL) of something tells you how much you can eat without having health problems.

Currently, there’s no established UL for protein.

Does that mean you can eat as much protein as you’d like without any negative side effects? No. It just entails researchers haven’t figured it out yet.

But we do know that feeing up to 4.4 g/ kg( 2 g/ lb) body weight didn’t cause any short term health problems in clinical studies.

Let’s take a deeper look: Calculating maximum protein

The Institute of Medicine suggests that high protein uptake, where about 35 percent of your calories comes from protein, is safe.

What does that mean in grams per kilogram body weight( or g/ lb body weight )?

Say you’re 74.8 kg( 165 lb) and reasonably active. You need about 2,475 calories per day to maintain your weight.

If you get 35 percent of your total energy intake from protein, you’d be feeing about 866 calories from protein each day.

1 gram of protein has 4 calories. So 866 calories is around 217 grams of protein per day.

That’s about 1.3 grams per pound of body weight, or 2.9 g/kg.

Will eating a high-protein diet hurt me?

For years, people have been concerned with the safety of eating too much protein.

Will eating too much protein explode my kidneys?

How about my liver? My left femur?

The most common health concerns of feeing more protein are :P TAGEND

kidney injury liver damage osteoporosis heart disease cancer

Let’s explore these.

Claim: High protein causes kidney damage.

This concern about high protein and kidneys began with a misunderstanding of why doctors tell people with poorly functioning kidneys( usually from pre-existing kidney disease) to a eat a low-protein diet.

But there’s a big difference between avoiding protein because your kidneys are already injury and protein actively injury healthy kidneys.

It’s the difference between jogging with a violated leg and jogging with a perfectly healthy leg.

Jogging with a transgressed leg is a bad idea. Doctors would probably tell you not to jog if your leg is broken. But does jogging cause legs to break? No.

That’s the same thing with protein and kidneys.

Eating more protein does increase how much your kidneys have to work( glomerular filtration rate and creatinine clearance ), only like jogging increases how much your legs have to work.

But protein hasn’t been shown to cause kidney damage — again, just like jogging isn’t going to suddenly snap your leg like a twig.

High-protein diets do result in increased metabolic waste being excreted in the urine, though, so it’s particularly important to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration.

Verdict: There’s no evidence that high protein diets (2.2g/kg body weight) cause kidney injury in healthy adults.

Claim: High protein causes liver damage.

The liver, like the kidneys, is a major processing organ. Thus, it’s the same deal as with kidneys: People with liver injury (such as cirrhosis) are told to eat less protein.

Yes, if you have liver damage or disease you should eat less protein. But if your liver is healthy, then a high-protein diet will not cause liver damage.

Verdict: There’s no evidence that high-protein diets (2.2g/kg body weight) cause liver damage in healthy adults.

Claim: High protein causes osteoporosis.

Eating more protein without also upping your fruit and vegetable intake will increase the amount of calcium you’ll lose in your pee.

That finding made some people think that eating more protein will cause osteoporosis because you’re losing bone calcium.

But there is no evidence that high protein causes osteoporosis.

If anything , not eating enough protein has been shown to cause bone loss. Bones aren’t merely inert sticks of minerals — a significant proportion of bone is also protein, largely collagen-type proteins.

Like muscle, bone is an active tissue that is constantly being broken down and rebuilt. And like muscle, bone needs those Lego building blocks.

Women aged 55 to 92 who eat more protein have higher bone density. So feeing more protein improves bone density in people most at risk of having osteoporosis.

( Eating more protein plus adding resistance training: Doubled win for bone density .)

Verdict: High protein diets do not cause osteoporosis, and actually may avoid osteoporosis.

Claim: High protein causes cancer

Unfortunately, we still don’t have conclusive human examines on the cause of cancer and the role of protein.

There are surveys that asked people how much protein they ate over their lifetime, and then looked at how often people got cancer. The research depicts a connection between protein intake and cancer rates.

But these studies are correlational surveys and don’t demonstrate that protein is the cause of cancers. Plus, some researchers have gone so far to say that analyses “il rely on” subjects to recall what they ate are basically worthless because human memory is so inaccurate.

A big part of the proposed cancer and protein link comes down to confounding factors, like :P TAGEND

where you get your protein from — plant or animal how you cook your protein( i.e. carbonized grilled meat) what types of protein you’re eating( e.g. grass-fed steak versus a hot dog)

And so on.

In other terms, we can’t say that any particular amount of protein causes cancer.

Verdict: Limited evidence that protein causes cancer; many other confounding factors.

Let’s take a deeper look: Protein and cancer

A study from 2014 looked at protein and cancer risk. It was widely misinterpreted as proof that eating a lot of protein caused cancer.

First, it was actually two studies, one asking people questions and following them for years; and one that fed mouse a high-protein diet and implanted them with cancer.

With the human study, researchers looked at people’s self-reported protein intake and their rates of cancer over the following 18 years.

They found that people aged 50 -6 5 who ate diets high in animal protein (>= 20% of total calories) had a 4-fold greater hazard of dying of cancer over the next 18 years compared to people who ate a moderate amount of protein( 10 -2 0% of total calories ).

( Just so you get an idea, smoking increases your risk of cancer by 20 -fold .)

Then, it gets more interesting, because for people over 65, eating more protein lessened cancer danger by more than half. In summary:

Eating more protein from 50 -6 5 years old was associated with a higher risk of death from cancer, but over 65 years old that association was reversed.

The second part of the study is where people truly misunderstood what the study had proven.

Researchers fed mouse a high-protein diet( 18% of total calories), then implanted cancerous cells. They found that the high-protein diet increased tumor sizing. This is not a amaze, since protein increases IGF-1( an anabolic protein) that stimulates growth in pretty much all tissues, including cancerous tissue.

Higher protein diets stimulated cancerous growth in mice.

So, while eating more protein might increase the size of existing tumors( depending on what treatment someone is undergoing), this study does not show that high-protein diets cause cancer.

Claim: High protein causes heart disease.

Eating animal-based protein daily is associated with an increased risk of fatal coronary heart disease( 70 percent for men and 37 percent for women ), whereas plant-based proteins aren’t linked to higher rates of heart disease.

This suggests that where you get your protein from may matter more than how much protein you eat.

However, just like cancer, the link between heart disease and high-protein diets is from questionnaires rather than a double-blind randomized analyze( the gold standard in research ).

There are many confounding factors. For one, consider the type of animal — does seafood cause the same issues as red meat, for example?

We don’t yet know the whole story here.

Verdict: Limited evidence that protein causes heart disease and the source of protein is a major confounding factor.

Let’s take a deeper look: Protein source

A new study in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) looks not only at protein intake, but where people got their protein from.

More than 131,000 people were asked :P TAGEND

how much protein they feed; and if it came from animals or plants.

This study took over 35 years to do( starting in the 1980 s ).

What they found :P TAGEND

Eating more animal protein was associated with a higher risk of demise … if you were also doing something else that was a risk factor.

Such as :P TAGEND

smoking being overweight not exercising drinking alcohol history of high blood pressure low intake of whole grains, fiber, and fruits and vegetables

Eating more plant protein was found to be associated with lower risk of early death.

What does this entail?

You might believe at first glance that you should eat less animal protein, since this study seems to say that animal protein is bad for you.

But there’s more to it.

If you’re doing everything else “right”, then eating more animal protein doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Likely, it’s not the animal protein on its own but a lot of lifestyle things that come with feeing more animal protein.

For instance, this study began in the 80 s. At that time, nearly every doctor told their patients to eat less fat and meat, and to avoid eggs.

So if you were a somewhat health-conscious person, then you’d likely be feeing less animal protein compared to someone who was less health-conscious( or if you ran against your doctor’s advice) — but you’d also likely be engaging in a bunch of other health-supporting decisions and activities.

The problem with these types of studies, called correlational studies, is that you can never be sure whether the associations are caused by one onto the other or if they’re simply happening at the same time.

Protein quality matters

Most people to be considered how much protein, but they don’t believe all that much about the high quality of its protein they’re eating.

There are huge differences in the chemical makeup of a given protein source, and how valuable that protein is nutritionally. The higher a protein’s quality, the more easily it can give your body the amino acids it needs to grow, mend and maintain your body.

The two big factors that make a protein high or low quality are:

Digestibility:

How easy is it to digest? How much do you digest — and absorb and use?

Amino acid composition:

What amino acids is it made of?

A high-quality protein has a good ratio of essential amino acids, and allows our body to use them effectively.

Amino acid composition is more important than digestibility.

You can have way more protein than you need, but if the protein you’re eating is low in an important amino acid( known as the limiting amino acid ), it causes a bottleneck that stops everything else from working( or at the least slows things down ).

High-quality proteins have more limiting amino acids, which means the bottleneck is lessened and our bodies can use that protein source better.

Let’s take a deeper look: Measuring protein’s worth

Scientists use many ways to calculate protein quality, or how well we might digest, assimilate, and use a devoted protein.

Here are a couple.

Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS)

PDCAAS is calculated on a ratio of limiting amino acids and a factor of true digestibility to give you a value that lets you know how much of a devoted protein is digestible.

The higher the score, the higher the quality of protein.

PDCAAS is the current gold standard for quantify protein quality, but there are a few other protein quality scoring techniques that we cover in the Precision Nutrition Level 1 Certification program.

Indicator amino acid oxidation( IAAO)

When we don’t have enough of a particular indispensable amino acid, then all the other amino acids, including that indispensable one, will be oxidized( i.e. basically wasted) rather than used for stuff like repairing tissues.

It’s kind of like a team athletic: You can’t play without the goalie, so all the players sit around twiddling their thumbs, even though they’re all great players in their own right.

But if we’re getting enough of that particular amino acid, then we won’t find all that oxidation. We have a goalie and the rest of the players can play.

So, you want the IAAO score to be low, indicating that all your amino acids are doing their jobs to rebuild you.

Thus far, the IAAO method seems like a very useful way to judge the metabolic availability of amino acids from different protein-containing foods, and to determine total protein requirements for all kinds of people.

New assessment techniques like IAAO are giving us a more precise idea of protein use, which means that we may insure recommendations change in future.

Most likely, based on these recent findings, the RDA for protein will increase — i.e. physicians may tell us to eat more protein.

“Complete” and “incomplete” proteins

Back in the day, scientists used to talk about “complete” and “incomplete” proteins.

If you had a plant-based diet( i.e. vegetarian or vegan ), you were told that you had to eat a mixture of incomplete proteins( i.e. protein from a variety of plants) at each snack in order to meet your needs.

We now know this isn’t true.

As long as you eat a mix of different protein sources, you’ll get all the amino acids you need. No need for mealtime protein algebra to make sure you’re getting all your amino acids.

That being said, many plant-based sources are less protein-dense than animal sources. So if you choose not to eat animal products, you’ll have to work a little harder to get more protein from a wide variety of plant sources to make up the difference and satisfy your protein needs.