The Protein Mistake Making You Hungry, Tired, and Soft - Cynthia Thurlow

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]So talk to us more about the protein leverage hypothesis. I'm a huge fan of of that concept. I've done a bit of reading um into it and and anecdotally, I mean, I feel like when I'm when I'm uh undering protein, I tend to be hungry for everything else and um and I tend to eat to to meet my protein requirement, which usually today means reaching for ultrarocessed foods in my pantry >> because it's easy. I mean, I always say to women, you know, one of the things that happens in that transitional time in our lives, uh, we have a a hormone that is secreted in the brain. It's called follicular stimulating hormone, and it's it's kind of yelling at the ovaries, release an egg, and as it's going up and up and up, and estrogen's going down, it kind of magnifies this protein leverage hypothesis. And I always explain it to patients that, you know, your body is really smart. It's looking for a solution for real problem.

[00:00:50]If you're not consuming enough food in general, it is going to ensure you continue to eat. And generally what happens if you're not consuming adequate protein, which helps with satiety and helps with maintaining muscle mass, um, and so many other benefits, your body's like, hm, I'm going to get the calories that I need from probably fat and carbohydrates. Now, are fat and carbohydrates bad? Absolutely not. the unprocessed variety, but that's generally lending itself to, you know, it's like that cookies look good, the ice cream looks great. Um, it's this pantry eating that people are consuming, you know, late into the evening and not understanding why that's happening. And it's because they're undernourishing their bodies. And that's a bigger message that, you know, as women are making this transition, so many of us, myself included, because this did happen to me. It's like you start to think, oh well, if I eat less and exercise more, because of course that's what we're taught and that's what we teach to our patients, that's going to be effective for middle-aged weight gain. It's couldn't be farther from the truth. And so I think women get to a point where they're chronically undernourishing their bodies at the expense of adequate protein intake, not realizing what the long-term detriment is of that, which is not just loss of skeletal muscle mass.

[00:02:00]It's the bigger issue with loss of metabolic flexibility, loss of insulin resistance. you become insulin resistant and that's when the visceral fat piece comes on. You know, women are told they're having non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. You know, it becomes this domino effect unfortunately. So, protein leverage hypothesis is part of every conversation to help women understand.

[00:02:19]I'm not saying it has to become your second job, but it is very very important that you're hitting your protein macros. And if you can't hit them, we need to figure out why.

[00:02:27]>> So, how much uh protein should women be eating over the course of the day? I would say 100 grams a day distributed over two to three meals. I think it depends. Some patients um you know they want two meals a day and so they're eating 50 grams of protein. It maybe they started at 20 and so we're slowly increasing their protein intake. But that is the goal. Um I know that there are people out there who advocate for more protein, but I would say realistically most of my patients I just try to get them to eat more than where they are. So let's get a baseline assessment. You're eating 60 grams a day. Okay, let's get to 70. And so slowly increasing it and helping them understand like what are the benefits that you're noticing? Their sleep is better, their hair is better, they feel like they're able to work out harder in the gym. Um, you know, they're more satiated, so they're not looking in the pantry at 9:00 at night and wondering why they're derailing their diets. Uh, so I think that there's a lot of benefit, but wrapping their head around eating more protein for a lot of people, it forces them to eat differently. Well, look, the dietary guidelines were just updated for the first time in decades to reflect the the necessity, the the the growing body of literature showing how protein is crucial for aging. Well, I mean, we now have a dietary a recommended daily allowance for protein.

[00:03:37]That's 50% more than what it has been for the past 40, 50 years.

[00:03:42]>> And what's ironic to me is when I say to women, you actually need more protein now than you ever did. Like I look at my very athletic teenage well young adult sons and I'm like they could probably sneeze at 10 grams of protein and trigger muscle protein synthesis. I'm like guess what? We need more. We need more to be able to trigger the same response. And so again helping women understand I'm not doing this to punish you. I just want you to understand the science so that you're doing all the things that you can do to ward off losing muscle so you don't lose independence. Like that's really I I can see that it's closer, you know, that whole aging process is closer to me now than it was when I started in medicine.

[00:04:20]>> But I think a whole lot more about like you don't want to lose independence.

[00:04:23]Like if that's what the end result, if that's what I have to say to you to make you understand why it's so important to eat more protein, you don't want to be dependent on someone else to take care of you.

[00:04:32]>> Well, what do you say to women who are hearing, you know, terms like muscle protein synthesis and fear that it's going to make them big and bulky? It is physiologically impossible for a woman to be big and bulky unless you are consuming a lot of anabolic steroids andor super physiologic doses of testosterone. So let me back up and say what does that mean? Steroids like if you're using steroids like some bodybuilders use. Yes, if a female used anabolic steroids at very high doses, you could get bigger and bulkier. if you were using superphysiologic dosing of testosterone, you could get more androgenic. And I do see some of that.

[00:05:10]Um, and I sometimes am uh, you know, I sometimes humbly as a as a clinician, I just kind of, you know, observationally looking at someone saying, you're on a lot of testosterone, but that is unusual. That is not going to happen naturally. That is not going to happen with your uh, your onetenth of a dose of Androgel. That is not going to happen with your compounded testosterone. um that big and bulky comment. It's like if anything you want to be strong and you want to be healthy and that's not coming from normal physiologic dosing of testosterone.

[00:05:42]>> Yeah. I think people forget that muscle protein synthesis is um it's it's required to maintain your muscle.

[00:05:49]>> Correct.

[00:05:50]>> Like it doesn't grow muscle like on its own. You need to be resistance training hard over the course of years to grow meaning a meaningful amount of muscle.

[00:05:59]>> Yes. Um, but you still need to stimulate muscle protein synthesis regularly on a not just on a daily basis, but regular on a regular interval throughout the day to adequately maintain your muscle mass.

[00:06:11]>> Yeah. And I think again it goes back to that whole conversation like ultimately, yes, it's about muscle, but what is it really speaking to? We want you to be independent, a strong independent middle and older aged adult. And I think, you know, the thing that struck me, and I I talked about this recently, um, what struck me during the pandemic was I I went a period of time without seeing my parents. And my mom was in her 70s and my dad was in his 70s. And the first time I saw them after it had been probably six months, I was like, gosh, they're so frail. They had lost so much muscle mass during the pandemic. And so I I go back to what are the things we don't want to have to deal with? I don't want to lose my independence. I want to be able to drive my car and go up and down the stairs and carry groceries and get off a toilet. All those things we take for granted can be problematic if you lose too much muscle.

[00:06:59]>> And from an aesthetic standpoint, like again, muscle doesn't make you bulky, right? Like, >> no. Makes you look lean and strong.

[00:07:05]That's why I don't let anyone help me with my bag on a plane. You have these very chivalous men and I'm like, "Thank you, but no thank you. I need to be able to do this myself, but thank you very much. I appreciate that."

[00:07:15]>> It's so true. Do you um What about protein distribution? like do you make a recommendation for how to distribute that over the course of a day?

[00:07:23]>> Yeah, I'm not a fan of OMAD if that was what you were kind of leaning towards.

[00:07:26]So, I I think that two to three bololises of protein I think is probably ideal. Um, you know, when when you look at the the research on OMAD, which is one meal a day for those that are unfamiliar with it, and sometimes is kind of tucked away nicely into the intermittent fasting kind of genre of options. Um, I I genuinely worry about people being able, women in particular, to be able to get 100 grams of protein into one meal. I don't know any women that can do that. I I I can't do that. I get to 60 and I'm like, my body's like, "We're done." Um, so so I think two to three distributions of protein over the day. And for some patients that may be two meals and a whey protein shake, and I'm totally okay with that. I'm not someone that's going to pass judgment.

[00:08:08]And even myself, I occasionally have protein shakes when I'm having a really busy day. It's like I need 30 more grams of protein and to be able to close my feeding window. This is a great way to do it.

[00:08:18]>> Yeah. What about have you changed your stance at all um over the course of writing the book doing this research on fasting? Because I feel like that's another message that a lot of women get is like intermittent fasting is some sort of like holy grail.

[00:08:30]>> Yeah. You know, as someone who's known for intermittent fasting, I very transparently have talked about how um my my focus of uh my relationship with fasting changed enormously when my dad got sick and died in 2024. And so my evolution has now really been myopically focused on building muscle. And so the the way that I had to build muscle was I had to have three meals a day. So I need three bololises of protein to be able to build muscle. And so intermittent fasting is one of many strategies that I think can be very impactful, very important. I still believe in the value of it. I do a lot less of it because I'm trying to focus myopically on building muscle. Now what I prefer to think of it now is digestive rest. So everyone can do 12 hours of digestive rest. That's good for the gut. It's good for mental clarity. It's good for a variety of things. It's a little less on the severity side than inter formal intermittent fasting. And so for a lot of my women that are in the same boat where they're trying to build muscle, we start talking a lot more about digestive rest.

[00:09:34]>> Yeah. I think um as a as a tool, it it's it can be very useful. Um especially, you know, when you think about what it is that people tend to eat post dinner.

[00:09:45]It's usually not lean chicken breasts.

[00:09:48]It's not a protein shake that you're drinking while you're watching Love Island. What does it tend to be?

[00:09:53]>> Junk.

[00:09:54]>> Junk. Exactly.

[00:09:55]>> Yeah. So, I think for for some people they'll say, uh, okay, my guardrails are still on. I want to have a 10-hour feeding window. I'm like, whatever you need to do. Try to aim for two to three meals a day, getting enough protein in.

[00:10:06]And if you are using that digestive rest terminology, that's great. If you want to say that I have a 10-hour eating window and I'm still doing, you know, light intermittent fasting light, I think that's great.

[00:10:18]>> Yeah. Um, very, very important stuff. I think in in light of you know what we now know about muscle and its impact on longevity health span I think it's um the the the big lever is hitting your protein target every day and if that means if you get home from work late and you've you're outside of your feeding window or whatever you still want to hit your protein target right >> absolutely I mean this is where I think you know protein shakes essential aminos I think can be very helpful for buffering and certainly as I'm traveling that's usually what I'm doing especially if I'm on an airplane and I'm going to eat airplane food, which I don't think anyone does.

[00:10:55]>> Yeah, it's usually so bad.

[00:10:56]>> Yeah.

[00:10:57]>> Hey, if you like that video, you need to check out this one here, and I'll see you there.