Protein for Ladies: Half 2 Plus How you can Use Aminos, BCAA’s, Collagen and Creatine

Betty Rocker (00:15):
What’s up, Rockstars Coach Betty Rocker here. Thanks so much for tuning in to spend some time with me today. So as promised, I’m going to continue our conversation from last time where we went over some of the important benefits of protein and the amino acids. It breaks down to how important it is for women, especially to include it with each main meal throughout the day. Plus, I went over some suggestions for how much you need and how that changes as we age. Now, last time I also talked about protein powders and shared some tips with you about choosing a good one for yourself. But there are a lot of products out there besides protein powder that contain amino acids. So today I wanted to tell you about the differences between a protein powder and then things like collagen or creatine and amino acid formulas like BCAAs or an essential amino acid formula because you know, it can be hard to know the difference between all that stuff.

(01:18)
So for starters, as a recap, we were talking about how there are 20 odd amino acids that have a lot of different jobs, and of that pool there are nine that your body can’t make on its own and needs to get from food. So we wanna make sure we’re including protein in each main meal. And if we’re not eating complete protein sources, which are protein sources that include all nine of those essential aminos that we’re eating, a combination of foods throughout the day that include them all to just cover our bases, right? And a protein powder is like a protein in your food that you eat. Your body breaks down the protein during digestion to extract the amino acids from it. Ideally, we’re gonna choose a protein powder that contains all the essential amino acids. So we’re covering our bases and getting more for our money.

(02:11)
And remember I said last time you don’t “need” a protein powder. You can get your protein from your food and your daily meals. But you know, for those who find it convenient or use it as a way to boost their daily protein intake, it’s a great and easy option. I definitely recommend checking out that last episode if you haven’t listened to it yet. As I go over all the tips for choosing different kinds and a lot of different types that there are and what you might wanna consider when making your choice. And the reason I point out that your body, you know, digests protein powder like it does food, is because supplements like BCAA or an essential amino acid formula are typically going to be in what’s called their free form, which means your body can access them right away rather than needing to digest them first.

(02:59)
This is why they’re often used as a workout supplement because you know it’s not easy to digest and eat during a training session. And remember, when we’re working out, we’re actually breaking down our tissue, creating that inflammatory response that the body then is gonna need to recover from when we rest and refuel. And this is why exercise is a stress to the body. And one we wanna consider adding to our system when we’re not already in a stressed or inflamed state. Ideally we come to a workout rested and recovered so we can more easily handle the stress that the workout creates. So one of the things the body’s gonna need for the repair process is amino acids. And this is why I was saying we need to ensure we’re eating enough protein in general and including protein with each meal and not skipping meals around our workouts because we need those amino acids for muscle tissue repair and growth.

(03:52)
And if we’re constantly working out, which is breaking down our muscle and then skipping meals, we’re gonna stay in a deficit for our muscle to be able to recover, let alone get stronger. And this becomes really crucial to pay attention to if you’re say over 40 or in perimenopause or post menopause because we don’t absorb the amino acids from our protein as easily as we get older, meaning we need more of them to do the same amount of work as before. This can be a really big contributing factor in muscle loss. So what’s the difference between A B, CAA and an essential amino acid formula like my rock and restore for example, while the branch chain amino acids or BCAAs for short are three amino acids that support our muscle tissue and the repair process, and those are leucine, isoleucine, and valine and essential amino acid formula is gonna contain all nine of those essential aminos that your body can’t make on its own, which include the three BCAAs.

(04:57)
And this is one of the reasons I actually chose to create an essential amino acid formula rather than just A B, CAA by itself. I was very specific about including an optimal dose of leucine, which is one of those three BCAAs in this formula because it’s the most muscle supporting of the three, which really helps your body repair and decreases soreness after you train. And also because it crosses the blood brain barrier and really helps to support cognitive function. And a lot of women start to experience things like brain fog and fatigue, especially as they approach menopause. And it can also be a PMS symptom as well. And as we talked about last time, you know, just having enough amino acids in our system can really help support that neurotransmitter activity. It was just reading a study from 2020 where they had men and women who were 55 and older and they split them into two groups for 12 weeks.

(05:55)
And one group was given an amino acid supplement that contained the essential aminos and the other group was given a placebo and then they tested their cognitive function before and after the study. And guess what they found? That’s right. The group that took the amino supplement had significant improvements in cognitive function. Now this study was done because it is understood that under consuming protein is a potential risk factor for dementia. So they wanted to study the impact that taking an essential amino acid blend would have on these participants. And their conclusions were that taking the aminos led to improved attention, what they called cognitive flexibility and psychosocial functioning, which is expected to really prevent cognitive decline. So one of the reasons I think we don’t hear much about under consuming protein more often, or you know, why it’s not something people are aware of is because of that RDA we talked about before.

(06:56)
And that a lot of people are kind of basing their recommendations on this very low figure that recommended daily allowance came from a study done on sedentary men and it was meant to provide a baseline number, not necessarily a number that is for active individuals who are going to have a higher turnover of muscle breakdown and repair than say a sedentary person. Or for older adults who are experiencing say, muscle loss, that figure is pretty low for active women and for women who are over 40, especially like I was saying, because our protein needs just, they increase as we age and the body doesn’t absorb those amino acids as easily as it used to from our protein sources. So we just need a little bit more to do the same amount as before. So if you weren’t eating enough before and your needs go up and you’re eating the same amount as before and it’s low, your body may really struggle.

(07:57)
And you know, sometimes I feel like people are just getting mixed messages from their healthcare providers and from different sources about protein. You might be hearing that you’re getting enough protein if you’re basing your recommendations on this RDA, which is super low and it’s just meant to cover like baseline survival needs if you’re a sedentary man. But what about women and what about activity level? You know, I’m gonna go off on a tangent here because outdated or mist contextualized ideas really persist in our culture frequently and they don’t serve women. For instance, the BMI, which stands for body mass index, was developed in the 18 hundreds by a Belgian guy who was going after the statistics of Belgian men’s ratio of height to weight. So he could determine the average man, not woman man. And also one culture’s body mass index for one gender is not an accurate representation of the genetic differences of the world’s diverse population.

(08:59)
So it just seems kind of problematic to me that doctors are continuing to use the BMI as an indicator of obesity when there are just better methods available. You know, methods that don’t rely on an outdated one-sided data point I, I mean, you know, we could simply use like the body composition of individuals on a case by case basis as a better reference. Like actually taking a look at body fat percentage and lean mass or muscle tissue. And there’s a ton of tools out there that the average consumer even has access to, like smart scales for instance, that use bio impedance to determine your muscle to fat ratio. And they give a pretty good range of information. And if you use them over time, you can really get a great look at your progress and a really great range of information. And it’s far better than you know, just looking at your overall weight for example.

(09:53)
And I just feel like this is what really sends the wrong message. We’re so trained to think that weighing less is the only answer that matters in our health. And while that may be true to some extent, the answer is just more nuanced, right? It’s, it’s about increasing your lean mass or muscle tissue, which as we’ve talked about, has so many benefits to us from both a metabolic perspective, which supports fat loss to a capability and strength perspective. It’s amazing. We don’t focus on it more as a culture and especially as we age. My point is we’re getting these BMI measurements and we’re told we need to lose weight and yet we don’t always have the best framework for a healthy, sustainable way to go about that. Or an understanding of our body tissue and the differences between muscle and fat and how our body composition is going to be something that’s more important and serve our health interests in the long run more than just our weight on the scale.

(10:51)
Right? And this is exactly why I’m talking about protein because women are reported to consume less protein than men overall. And I hear from so many women about sugar cravings, which can be greatly reduced by simply including enough protein in our meals throughout the day. And you know, then we’re also dealing with things like greater instances of depression and the brain needs amino acids for neurotransmitter function and brain function in general. So depriving ourselves of this essential key element of our diet tends to make us way more reliant on carbs and fat. It makes it harder to avoid cravings and snacking, which also then doesn’t supply the muscle tissue with the building blocks it needs for that tissue repair. So we’re not fueling the muscle or the brain. So our body breaks down the muscle. We have to access the amino acid stored there, lowering our lean mass.

(11:46)
And if we’re getting too many carbs and fat, it’s storing extra in our fat cells. And if we’re pushing ourselves too hard with our workouts because we don’t realize this is happening, we may be contributing to more inflammation in the body that can then elevate our cortisol and our stress response. And this all leads to gaining more body fat. So back to BCAAs and essential amino acid formulas, you could use either of these types of formulas during a workout to help boost your intake of those specific aminos that your body needs for the muscle tissue repair. I think I had mentioned before that like I had just decided to make a complete essential amino acid formula because I found it to be like the most versatile and useful, uh, formula that there would be. But either of these types of formulas would be great and whether or not you need them, you know, I would say this is a bonus supplement.

(12:43)
If you’re eating a well-balanced diet and really prioritizing your protein with each meal and you’re getting a wide range of amino acids, this is not something that you need. It’s more of like a nice to have the people who would really benefit from using it would be anyone who’s strength training regularly or you know, working out a lot. Uh, maybe anyone who’s not getting enough dietary protein in or is maybe concerned they’re not getting all the essential amino acids in the foods that they’re eating. And for my ladies who are active in, in perimenopause or post menopause, I would, I would say this would be a, a good thing to have as well. I really started using it and wanting to have it in my own rotation as I hit perimenopause because I knew my needs for amino acids had just really increased, right? I drink my rock and restore aminos during a workout.

(13:32)
Typically though I could use them at any time of the day and I tend to use them on days that I’m training, but I also have been known to use them on non-training days as well just to cover my bases. Now one other thing that I throw in with my aminos is creatine. Here’s another one I have learned a lot about in the last few years and I really prioritize it in perimenopause and I’m gonna continue to prioritize it post menopause. I probably would’ve benefited from it earlier too, just with the way that I exercise and especially back in college when I was a vegetarian. So I’m just saying it’s a great supplement for women of all ages, but there is some actually exciting newer research for women that shows the benefits of creatine for women being able to, you know, better hold onto their muscle as they age.

(14:23)
And specifically for post-menopausal women, which is who they studied in one of these studies. So that’s pretty cool. And creatine is actually something our body makes. It’s a combination of three amino acids and most of it is stored in our muscle cells, but some of it is also concentrated in our brain and our central nervous system, we can actually eat foods that contain creatine like meat or fish or dairy or take it as a supplement. And the majority of our creatine is stashed in our muscle cells. So when you’re doing like a higher intensity exercise like resistance training with a heavier load or explosive cardio like sprinting or jumping or plyometrics, it separates to help generate an energy producing ATP molecule that gives you more power and more power means you can go harder for just a little longer in your workouts, which adds up to better results, like being able to strengthen your muscle tissue more effectively and support your bone density, both short and long-term.

(15:26)
Studies of creatine use in active women show improvements in strength and power plus lean mass development. And this is also really beneficial for women in the menopause years As we start to lose our estrogen. There’s a pretty direct correlation with the loss of our muscle and bone density, but with the regular practice of strategically timed resistance training and explosive cardio, if say you follow my training programs that have those custom sequences for women in per and post menopause plus upping your protein intake, you can bypass the muscle loss and actually gain strength and lose body fat during these life stages. And creatine supplementation can give you an edge in this process with its support for ATP by helping to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress. I had mentioned before that we also store some of our creatine in the central nervous system. And that’s actually interesting too because these are some of the amino acids that have an important role to play in our mood and our neural function.

(16:29)
There’s evidence that creatine supplementation can support depression symptoms in women. And this may be partly because it’s been reported that women have 70 to 80% less stores of creatine than men do, and of course are reported to consume lower amounts of dietary protein compared to men. We were talking about how creatine is found naturally in some high protein animal-based foods, but that our body can also make creatine from amino acids. If we’re not eating enough dietary protein in general in any form, it’s going to be that much harder for our body to like synthesize the creatine for our muscle and our brain function. Now we make less creatine during certain times in our life too, like during our period during pregnancy and postpartum and also post menopause. And I was just thinking about, you know, mood swings that happen around our period and incidences of postpartum depression if we’re low on the building blocks that support our neurotransmitter activity and impact things like depression, you know, low intake of dietary protein could really just exacerbate our symptoms.

(17:40)
Now this doesn’t mean you need to be going out and getting a creatine supplement because remember we make creatine naturally with amino acids in food. But if you think you’re maybe under consuming dietary protein or you feel your needs for it may be greater than what you’re getting, a supplement could be a great way to ensure you’ve got what you need or help give you the edge in your training. I just throw mine right in with my rock and restore aminos and I use, uh, creatine monohydrate, which is the best studied form of creatine. It’s just a, you know, white powder that dissolves in water or anything and you can take it daily, you know, make sure you’re drinking plenty of water in general and follow the recommended serving, which is about five milligrams. Usually you can dose up like some people like to, um, do large amounts up to 20 um milligrams daily as they build it up in their system.

(18:36)
But this really may not be necessary, especially if you’re just already eating protein, plenty of protein in your meals and you just wanna get that edge and boost up a little bit. Just start taking it daily and I’ll share a link to the one that I use in the show notes page for you if you wanna check it out. And there’s a whole article about it on my blog if you want more of my tips and my experiences with using it. Now, speaking of white powder that dissolves in anything , I also use a collagen supplement and that’s also one that I make. Here is another totally bonus supplement that you do not need. It’s just another of those that’s a nice to have, especially as we age because we make less collagen than we did when we were younger. And this is one of those things that contributes to how we age and see things like less skin elasticity and volume in our face, maybe more fine lines and wrinkles.

(19:29)
It’s also one of the building blocks you need for cartilage and bones, for strong joints and connective tissue. And collagen actually contains quite a few amino acids, but it has three in higher concentrations and they specifically support our bone skin and our joint health. Collagen is not a complete protein in the sense that it doesn’t have all the essential amino acids your body can’t make on its own. And that’s why I don’t really count it towards my total daily protein intake. I just use it as a bonus and I typically throw it right in with my rock and restore and my creatine though, I could also put it in just about anything. And you know, collagen can make its way into your diet with foods like bone broth, slow cooked organ meats, kidney pies, baked beef hearts, whole crustaceans, whole fish soups and stews. But you know, some of those foods harken back to a a different time.

(20:27)
And if you’re not regularly eating those types of foods, you may not be getting any of that goodness into your body. So a supplement can be helpful. When I was making the one in my product line and testing it out, one of my tests was that it was so finely hydrolyzed that if I stirred it in a glass of water, it would fully dissolve and not change the color of the water or be visible in any way. And that’s how my full body collagen is and how it came out. It’s a very pure and clean collagen with no additives, just collagen peptides. And you can put it into like anything. So whether you use mine or something else, just read the label of what you’re getting and look for a hydrolyzed collagen, which just means it’s broken down to the smallest particle, which makes it easier for your body to absorb and use.

(21:13)
One of the other reasons I use collagen is to support good gut health. Collagen’s gonna really support the gut lining and the intestinal epithelial cells that help your body absorb nutrients and support a healthy immune system. And like I was saying before, as we age, we just don’t produce as much collagen and we need that collagen for, you know, our joints and skin and bones, but also the cells that line our intestines for good gut health. And aside from aging, a lot of people don’t have enough collagen due to a poor diet. And your body can’t make collagen if it doesn’t have the building blocks, the amino acids, right, to create them. So there’s a theme going on here, right? We need to eat enough protein for the amino acids because as you can see, we just need them for so many things that impact our health.

(22:03)
So it just makes me think about, you know, how much is going on inside our bodies on autopilot, right? That we don’t even think about. And that if we can support that internal team of workers who are all working nonstop every day to support our health and our lives, we really do experience a better quality of life. And that, you know, doesn’t mean that you need supplements. I just wanna stress that point. Like you do not need to buy all of these things. You can totally get what you need from intentional eating. I really do see them as a bonus and they can be super beneficial for people with specific needs and specific goals. So even though I myself make and produce a lot of neat things, I’m not here to make you feel like you’re not doing enough or that you don’t have what you need.

(22:48)
I just want you to know more about the building blocks that your body needs and why, and that these convenient shortcuts exist in case you need them sometimes or anytime, and that they’re there. And if you do invest your money in these things, that you get a high quality product that actually does what you need it to do and it supports you. So that’s it for me for today. I hope that this was helpful. And remember, you can find all the links to the things I was talking about over on the show notes page for this [email protected], and you can find lots of helpful articles and tips about supporting your body at every age, whether you’re in your cycling years in perimenopause or post menopause. So be sure to check out the women’s health section and all of the great free resources like workouts and recipes and so much more. And thanks so much for spending some time with me today, rockstar. It’s always a pleasure to connect with you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. So till then, I’m Betty Rocker and you are so awesome, flawsome, and amazing. Bye for now.