Protein – Building Blocks for a Healthy Life Artwork

Healthy California

Are you ready to take control of your health and create lasting, positive change? This podcast dives deep into the root causes of poor health and explores simple, practical steps to improve your well-being from every angle.

To achieve true health, we need balance in all areas of life, including:
✅ Physical health – Nutrition, movement, and disease prevention
✅ Mental health – Managing stress, mindset, and emotional well-being
✅ Environmental health – How our surroundings impact our health
✅ Financial health – Money habits that support a stress-free life
✅ Social health – Building strong, supportive relationships
✅ Spiritual health – Finding purpose, connection, and inner peace

Each episode will provide insightful discussions, expert interviews, and actionable tips to help you live a healthier, more fulfilling life.

🎧 Tune in, take control, and start your journey to total wellness today!

Show More

Healthy California

Protein – Building Blocks for a Healthy Life

August 29, 2025 • Linda Brown, MPT • Season 1 • Episode 27

0:00 | 28:28

Send us Fan Mail

In this week’s episode, we’re diving into the world of protein—one of the three essential macronutrients alongside carbs and fats.

Proteins are often called the building blocks of life, but what does that really mean? Think of amino acids like Lego pieces—when linked together, they create the structures your body relies on every day. From building muscle and repairing tissues to producing hormones, enzymes, and antibodies, protein plays a vital role in growth, immunity, metabolism, and longevity.

We’ll explore the different types of proteins in your body—structural, contractile, transport, and more—plus the dietary proteins you need: complete, incomplete, and complementary sources. You’ll learn why quality matters, how much protein you should aim for, and why myths like “too much protein damages your kidneys” aren’t the full story.

Whether you’re eating animal protein or pairing plant-based sources, you’ll walk away with clear, practical tips for meeting your needs. Protein doesn’t just fuel athletes—it supports everyone.

Join me as we uncover how eating enough of the right protein can help you build strength, improve metabolism, and live a longer, healthier life.

References:

Hudson, J. L., Baum, J. I., Diaz, E. C., & Børsheim, E. (2021). Dietary Protein Requirements in Children: Methods for Consideration. Nutrients, 13(5), 1554. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13051554

Thank you for listening to Healthy California.

If you have tried all my suggestions and are still having trouble with your health, and would like an appointment with me, please email me, text, or call me via the contact information below.

My contact:

Linda Brown, MPT, Doctoral Candidate Functional Nutrition

916-426-2543

linda@heal-throughfood.com

www.heal-throughfood.com

Hello and welcome to Healthy California podcast. My name is Linda Brown and I am the host of Healthy California where my goal is to help educate you on your daily choices. So we all can become healthy. I believe you, your family, your neighbor and your community are all looking for.

Better ways and simple ways to return to being healthy.

Many of you have health issues or have family that's going through tough times that seemingly have no answers. It's frustrating. There are questions about health, environment, foods, exercise and lifestyle, and it can be all overwhelming. And who do you believe and where is the science behind it?

This podcast will unravel the mystery behind being unhealthy and talk about little things that we can do in our lives to make a positive change in our health from all angles.

So to be healthy, we need to have physical health, mental health, environmental, health, financial and social health, and, of course, spiritual health. Let's answer some of these questions to get healthy. What good is just listening to a podcast? I will give you resources as well. Ways to take steps and make positive changes in your life to becoming healthy. This is a journey, not an assignment, so be kind to yourself.

OK, welcome back, California. Thank you for joining me. My name is Linda Brown. I am the host of healthy California. And this week we are talking about protein. Last week I talked about fat and before that I talked about carbs, those are our macros. When people talk about macros, they're talking about protein, fats and carbs. So today we are talking about proteins. We have a lot to talk about.

Proteins are often called the building blocks of life.

But what does that mean? Why is that important and why is it so important for our health and longevity and daily function? And how much should we eat? Every one is on high protein. This and high protein that and is that necessary? Well, let's dig into that.

So what is the definition of protein? What is it actually and why is it the building block? Well, they call it the building block because if you think about Legos and you put a bunch of Legos together, it actually will build something. And that's how protein works. So if you think about a Lego structure each individual Lego.

In our body, we would call that an amino acid and you put a bunch of amino acids together and it builds proteins and it builds structures in our body. If you can picture one individual Lego, that would be an amino acid and you put a bunch of them together. Well, let's say there is 20 different shapes of Legos in our body that applies because we have 20 different amino acids.

20 different amino acids make up our body. Everything in our body that is a protein that is made by a protein is made-up of only 20 different amino acids. It's crazy to think about that. And of the 20 amino acids or 20 different shapes of Legos, if you can picture that.

Nine of them are considered essential. Essential amino acids mean that we actually have to consume it through food. Our body won't make it. We have to consume it. We need amino acids to build proteins.

And So what do proteins do? Well, proteins are responsible for growth.

Building muscle repairing tissue, making hormones, making enzymes.

Supporting immunity and transporting nutrients does a lot of things actually, and that's just that's just a few things.

There are different types of proteins.

So of the 20 amino acids, amino acids build proteins, and they're they're made different types of proteins. So antibodies, antibodies are a protein. Antibodies are part of our immune system enzymes, enzymes catalyze reactions in our body, they break things down.

Or help things react faster so digestion, detox are DNA replication. That's all enzymes that make that happen and enzymes.

Enzymes are proteins, hormones, hormones are protein. They are a messenger protein like insulin growth hormone. Those are all proteins. We have structural proteins like skin collagen in the skin. Collagen is a protein in the skin. Keratin is the protein in our hair and nails.

And they're structural. So they give substance to our body. Actin is one of the proteins in our muscle fibers. Then that gives our muscle fibers actually have a structure to them, right.

We also have transport proteins which carry molecules like oxygen. Hemoglobin is a protein that carries the oxygen molecule, and last week I talked about lipoproteins Lipo, meaning fat. Protein is attached that as well. So that's our our transport proteins. We don't store proteins, but we have storage proteins like ferritin, ferritin is a protein that stores iron in our blood. Casein is milk.

And then we have contractile proteins that enable movement like myosin and actin in our muscle. So we have we have many different types of proteins and you put them all together and it builds this wonderful body that we have so that's the different types of proteins.

But then we have different dietary proteins we have to actually consume and the different dietary proteins are complete proteins, incomplete proteins and then complementary proteins.

So a complete protein just means that it contains all 20 amino acids. It is a complete protein in the sense that it can make pretty much anything in your body that's a complete protein, contains all 20 amino acids, including the nine that are essential.

And animal products like eggs, fish, dairy have the right amino acid ratio and then some plant sources like quinoa and soy also have the right amino acid ratio as well, and you would consider quinoa and soy also complete proteins. You just have to take in much more of them, of those type of plant based proteins to make it the same as an animal based protein.

So that's a complete protein. It contains all 20 amino acids, an incomplete protein just means it's missing one or two or many. So an incomplete protein. Many of those proteins are plant proteins.

They don't have all 20 amino acids.

And then you have complementary proteins. Complementary proteins just means that you have part complete and incomplete. You put them together and they become complete. So for example, if you pair beans and rice, they will make a complete protein if you put them together, or hummus and pita. Same thing.

So why is this important? Why does protein matter? Well, we need it for growth.

We have growth hormones, we have DNA replication, so we need it for growth.

We need it for our immune system. Antibodies are proteins. If you think about children that are malnourished, they're growth is stunted and they may be getting sick more often because they are unable to make the antibodies they need to fight off disease.

Let's say we need protein for muscle health.

So muscle health proteins can prevent sarcopenia and support strength. Sarcopenia just means muscle wasting.

That means your muscles are decreasing in number and decreasing in size.

And this happens in aging, but it doesn't have to happen that fast. There's many reasons people get sarcopenia. Let me draw a picture real quick.

There is atrophy, hypertrophy, and sarcopenia. And then there's hyperplasia. So atrophy means that your muscles are getting smaller.

Atrophy means that your muscles are getting smaller, so if you hear someone saying my muscles are atrophied, that happens. If you think about like putting your leg in a cast and then you take that cast off and the muscles have gotten smaller, that's atrophy. Atrophy doesn't mean that the number of muscle fibers decrease.

Just the muscle fiber itself got smaller. The same amount of muscle fibers are there.

Hypertrophy means that the muscle fiber has gotten bigger. It didn't. You didn't grow more muscle fibers. The muscle fiber itself got bigger. That's hypertrophy. So when you see muscle bound people walking around and they have these big biceps, that's hypertrophy. Their muscles are big.

But not necessarily more muscle fibers.

And then their sarcopenia.

Sarcopenia is a process where you lose the number of muscle fibers and the muscle fiber decreases in size and this can be dangerous because it's hard to get that muscle fiber back once you lose it. And some people say you you can't get it back, which I don't agree with.

But as you get older, yes, it is almost impossible to regain the number of muscle fibers.

So you don't want to lose muscle fibers if you have atrophy where your muscles got smaller doesn't necessarily mean that you lost the muscle fiber, you just lost the the size of the muscle and you can get that back and that's important because 80% of our blood glucose.

Close to our muscle. If we don't have muscle, where is that blood glucose going? So that's important. And the amount of muscle on your body is a big determiner of longevity. So you're going to live longer if you have more muscle

So that's why protein matters. Protein also matters because it's part of our metabolism and weight management. We're going to be able to keep our metabolism a little bit higher if we eat protein and weight management, because protein is satiating than carbs

So you will get fuller faster when you eat proteins. It also requires more calories to burn proteins during digestion. Protein is important because we need it for digestive enzymes and to break down food and to build other proteins. So we need proteins in our diet so that we can build other proteins and we're building these other proteins by using it to grow, to heal, for making our immune system works. So we we need to replace the protein that we're using up in our body.

We need it for hormone production, enzyme production. If we don't have enough protein, our hormones are not going to be as efficient as they can and the hormones are just signalers, so they're not going to signal what they need to be signaling. We need protein for wound healing and recovery. So a lot of times when you go in for surgery, the Doctor will tell you to eat a little more protein after your surgery because you are healing and with inflammation, protein production or protein synthesis actually decreases.

But protein breakdown also increases. So when we have inflammation in our body, whether it's from surgery or a systemic inflammation, we're not going to build protein. But we're also going to break down protein as well. So we don't want to have inflammation in our body.

And you've heard me say this before, pretty much in every podcast, inflammation is the reason for a lot of disease processes.

So what happens when you don't have enough protein?

Pretty much everything that I had mentioned about why we need protein and why it matters all that applies. So what happens if you don't have enough as a child, your growth will be stunted. Healing will be slowed down, healing from a surgery, or pretty much anything that needs to be healed and healing also includes just systemic inflammation in your body. Your body was meant to heal itself. That's what our body does. It heals, it heals ourself. But if we don't have enough protein, that's not going to happen as easily. And if we don't have enough protein then our immune system is going to be compromised because we can't make antibodies. We can't build muscle and if we're not building muscle, we're we're losing it. Muscle doesn't just stay static if we're not building it, we're losing it. So even if you don't work out, you're pretty much not stressing the muscle.

And it has no reason to be there. So it's going to start, you're going to start losing it. Our metabolism will slow down if you don't have enough protein.

Our hunger will increase because protein is more satiating, so if you don't have enough protein, you're going to be hungry.

And then you're going to reach for the carbs, and your digestion is compromised, which then leads to inflammation, inflammation we just said is going to also stop protein production.

You need to have a good digestive system so that you don't have an inflamed state. Protein will help your digestion because you have digestive enzymes.

So then the question of the century is how much protein do we need? Protein is all over the world as far as in every social media, there's always protein bars, protein powders, people that are telling you that you need to be having a lot more protein and some of that may be true. 00:14:53

The general guideline for the recommended daily allowance is .8g per kilogram of body weight. That's the minimum.

So what is? How do you do the math on that right .8g per kilogram? Well, the easiest way to, and that's the minimum you need. That's if you don't work out, you're just trying to merely exist.

The easiest way to think of it is 1/2 a gram per pound of body weight. So if you're 100 lbs, you're going to need 50 grams. If you're 200 lbs, you're going to need 100 grams of protein. The amount of protein you need is dependent on the needs of your muscle activity. The more you're using your muscle, the more protein you're going to need if you exercise more, you'll need more protein than this. Half a gram per pound, you're definitely going to need more than 1/2 a gram per pound.

So when you see people on social media saying that you need to be eating all this protein, that might be true, especially if you are active. So people that work out a lot need more like a one to one ratio 1G of protein per pound and that's a lot. But they're burning through that.

And protein quality matters. I don't want you just to go and buy protein powders and protein bars. Please don't do that because protein bars is just candy bars with the horrible protein in it, so the quality of your protein matters complete. Protein matters incomplete as well, but you also need to have a complete protein profile that matters, and you need to have a good balance of your protein.

So let's say you have 3 ½ Ounces of chicken. That's a complete protein profile and it's going to take 4 cups of quinoa to equal the same amount of protein that that chicken.

You have and of course you can pair them. That's fine. A lot of times people think that I can eat plant protein and yes you can for sure, but you have to eat a lot more plant protein to equal the amount of protein you would get from animal protein. And it's it's totally doable.

It's just you have to think about the carbs you're taking in. The amount of carbs you're taking in when you are eating plant based protein. So like rice and beans,

You have to eat twice as much rice as you do beans to get that balanced amino acid profile. Because rice is low in lysine and higher in methionine, lysine is an amino acid, methionine is an amino acid and beans is the opposite. So beans are going to be higher in lysine and lower in methionine. So you put them together and you have this perfect amino acid profile in your diet. Complete amino acids, and they pair well, if you think about eating twice as much rice as beans, though, that's a lot of carbs if you think about it, which is fine if you're working it all off.

So quality matters. Please don't go out and buy protein bars, because that's packaged foods you don't want to eat a bunch of packaged foods.

So just good quality real food. So what's the best source of protein? Well, the best source if you're talking about complete amino acid profile would be animal protein. So chicken, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt, lean beef.

However, again, quality matters right? So chicken needs to be antibiotic free. Hormone free fish needs to be wild. Same thing with eggs. It needs to be antibiotic free, hormone free. All of your animal based protein needs to be clean though antibiotic and.

Hormone for you. So think about that and then your plant based proteins, lentils, beans, chickpeas, quinoa and amame tofu nuts seed.

They are all a good source of protein and with nuts and seeds a good source of fat as well. You can get a lot of really good delicious plant based proteins. What are some common myths about protein? Well, here's a myth. Too much protein damages your kidneys. That is not true. When you eat more protein than you're used to, you need to drink a lot of water.

You need to drink more water when you're eating a lot of protein.

And you only have to worry about your kidneys working over or being overworked if you already have kidney disease.

But if you don't have kidney disease, then yeah, eat protein to prevent kidney disease. And again you have to drink more water.

Here's another myth. Vegetarians and vegans can't get enough protein that is absolutely not true. You can pair your proteins together. Usually, when you pair your proteins, it's going to be some sort of legume with some sort of a grain.

And be mindful that when that happens, you're going to be eating a lot of carbs.

But it's absolutely possible for vegetarians to get enough protein. Protein powders are essential. No, that's not true. That's a myth. Protein powders are not essential.

They're convenient, but they're not necessary and they're not real food. I want you to always think about real Food First. The kind of food that God created is the kind that you should be eating. That's how I see it.

And yes, if you are having a hard time getting your protein in, then put in a protein powder. I will use a protein powder every now and then. When I make my smoothies because it's it's a simple way just to stick some protein in there. I eat about 100. I try to eat about 100 grams of protein a day. That's just me because of my my weight and the amount of workouts I do, so it's not hard for me to get 100 grams of protein. Well, because I love to eat for one thing. But I also am I eat animal protein and when I'm having a hard time getting enough protein, I might just make, I just might throw protein powder in my smoothie.

However, I don't depend on that. That's not what I depend on for my protein. That's a convenient thing. So those are just some myths. Here are some tips getting protein.

When you are at a restaurant or you're eating out, eat your protein first. Actually, not even just eating out in general, eat your protein first. Always eat protein first. This reduces cravings and it regulates your blood sugar. But when you're at a restaurant, what's the first thing do they bring you bread?

And bread is delicious.

However, you're better off putting butter on bread than just eating the straight bread. But eat your protein first, so if you can not eat the bread and when the your dinner comes out, you eat your protein first. Always.

And then aim for like 20 to 30 grams of protein per meal just for muscle health. Figure out what your protein needs are and if you're doing like half a gram of protein per pound of body weight, figure out what that is. Add a little bit more.

And then have 1/3 of that during your breakfast? 1/3 of it during lunch and and 1/3 of it during your dinner. It's better actually, to eat most of your protein at the beginning of the day if you can have most of it for breakfast and then for lunch would be ideal. And then make easy snacks like hard boiled eggs or easy Greek yogurt. Have that. That's easy.

Handful of nuts peanut butter on a on celery. Those are just easy, easy snacks and then like a protein shake, you can make a protein shake, but I would rather you have real food. Real Food First always.

And then here are some closing thoughts. When we think of protein and trying to get enough protein, we typically think about that's just diet for athletes. That's not true. Actually, we don't typically get enough good protein. We might get protein like in our shakes and in our candy bars and whatever. But but we do need protein.

If I were to prioritize food though, I would say fiber first. Have enough fiber first, not first. In your eating process, because it's better to eat your proteins first. But priority wise you need to get enough fiber.

And then you need to get enough protein.

And then you need to get enough fats and then you need enough carbs. So in the order of priority fiber than protein than fats than carbs, proteins is very important. We need it for every process in our body.

But we also don't get enough fiber and remember that quality matters.

Quality of the protein. I'd rather you get it through real food than through processed food.

And keep your plate colourful with Whole Foods. Pair your protein smartly. Stay consistent with it and then also not having anything to do with protein necessarily, but if you're eating out or if you have a tendency to eat a bigger meal then go for a walk afterwards. That's going to regulate your blood sugar as well.

So knowing that you need more protein and knowing that it helps.

Prevent sarcopenia, the muscle wasting it would be a good idea to move to move those muscles and increase the demands of protein on your muscles.

That's what's going to keep you healthy. More muscle increases longevity.

And more muscle will keep your blood sugar lower because you have 80% of your blood glucose going to your muscles, so you have to have muscles for it to go to, right? So you can have a strong body, strong mind and a stronger life. If you eat more protein, have more protein in your diet.

And I came across a scripture verse this morning that I wanted to share with you, and it's from Proverbs 3, five and six. And it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

And the reason why that applies, I think to this week's podcast is because it reminds me that we go to social media to get our dietary wants and needs. We go to social media for protein tips. We go to social media.

For our supplements and we forget that in the Bible it doesn't have anything like that. We have animals and plants and drinks that we can have. Like I say that because I I'm thinking of wine.

But but everything in moderation and I think that we need to be thinking more of our diet as something that was created for us, the plants and animals that are out. They were created for us to take care of and consume and make us stronger. And we have a responsibility to take care of our world, take care of our family take care of plants and animals and we also have these beautiful plants that are there for us to consume over the power bars that are in front of us.

So if you really want to improve your diet, you know you can go to the Bible for what you're what you can eat, and I can guarantee you there are no power bars in there. So anyways, that's what I thought about when I read that scripture this morning is trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding or the understanding of the world.

And that means social media. So anyways, that's all I have for this week and I hope you learned something. If you feel like you know someone that would benefit from learning a little bit more about protein, then please send this podcast to them and I will be back next week. And I hope you stay healthy, California.

Thank you for joining me today. I hope you learned something new health care and treatment should focus on being proactive and preventative, emphasizing the importance of addressing the root cause of a disease or illness.

While the US has an excellent trauma medicine system, no helping patients when problems arise. Our goals should be to prevent disease before they happen. That's why this podcast is so important.

If you're needing further guidance or have questions on a particular matter, you can find my contact information in the show notes where you can set up a 15 minute consultation. I also recommend you adding a functional nutritionist, a functional medicine practitioner, and a physical therapist to your healthcare team.

This podcast reflects my personal opinions based on extensive research and education.

It is not intended for medical diagnosis or treatment and should never replace the advice from their doctor or other health care professionals.

To continue providing this free information, I rely on your support. Follow subscribe like and share this podcast with your family and friends or on social media. Don't forget to turn on your notifications to stay updated whenever I have a new episode released, educating you and empowering you to take back your health is my ultimate goal by gathering knowledge and implementing small but impactful changes, you can reclaim your well-being.

This is a journey, not a quick fix, so be kind to yourself and I'll be there to help you got this