I am delighted to connect with Angelo Keely today, the Co-founder and CEO of Kion.
Angelo started Kion in 2017, aspiring to create an unparalleled and healthy work culture within a high-growth consumer products company dedicated to motivating their customers to continue along their journeys to personal health.
In our conversation, we explore the advantages of essential amino acids (EAAs), their role in muscle function, how they differ from branched-chain amino acids, and their impact on metabolic processes. We explain the importance of sourcing around essential amino acids, address concerns related to muscle loss, caloric restriction, and fasting, and discuss how EAAs support overall muscle health. Angelo also shares his insights on caffeine, creatine, omega-3s, stress management, and sleep.
Stay tuned for today’s informative and engaging conversation with Angelo Keely.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:
What amino acids are and why they are essential for our bodies
How essential amino acids differ from non-essential amino acids
Why resistance training and consuming nutrient-dense meals are the key to stimulating protein synthesis
Why branched-chain amino acid supplements are not as effective as EAA supplements
Some factors to consider regarding loss of muscle mass in aging individuals
How essential amino acids are lighter and more effective for protein synthesis in middle-aged individuals
The importance of adequate protein intake when fasting intermittently
How hormonal changes during perimenopause can lead to anabolic resistance, making essential amino acids more beneficial for women than men
How creatine supports muscle energy, and why it is particularly beneficial for women in perimenopause
The benefits of omega-3 supplements
Why getting enough sleep is essential sleep for middle-aged women.
Bio: Angelo Keely
Angelo is the co-founder and CEO of Kion, an active lifestyle, supplement, and functional food company dedicated to helping people fully experience a fun and active life by providing pure, energy-enhancing solutions.
“As we age, our body's ability to digest protein diminishes and we are not as good at breaking down proteins and extracting the amino acids from them.”
-Dr. Angelo Keely
Connect with Cynthia Thurlow
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Check out Cynthia’s website
Submit your questions to support@cynthiathurlow.com
Connect with Angelo Keely
On the Kion website
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:00:02] Welcome to Everyday Wellness podcast. I'm your host, Nurse Practitioner Cynthia Thurlow. This podcast is designed to educate, empower, and inspire you to achieve your health and wellness goals. My goal and intent is to provide you with the best content and conversations from leaders in the health and wellness industry each week and impact over a million lives.
[00:00:29] Today, I had the honor of connecting with Angelo Keely. He started Kion in 2017 with the dream of building the healthiest, most inspiring work culture at the heart of a fast growth consumer products company that would be focused on motivating customers to go further on their personal health journey. Today, we dove deep into the benefits of essential amino acids, the role of muscle, the impact of macros, what differentiates essential amino acids from branched-chain amino acids, the impact of catabolism versus anabolism, why the sourcing of essential amino acids is so important, the role of caloric restriction and concerns over loss of muscle, the impact of fasting and how EAAs can play a role in supporting muscle health. His thoughts on caffeine, creatine, omega-3s, the stress response, sleep, and more. I know you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did recording it.
[00:01:32] Welcome, Angelo. I've been really looking forward to not only discussing the topic of essential amino acids, but also the role of protein and why it is so important, especially for women, as they are navigating perimenopause and menopause.
Angelo Keely: [00:01:47] Thanks for having me, Cynthia. I'm excited to be here and really excited to have this conversation.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:01:51] Yeah. So maybe starting the conversation around what are essential amino acids? Or what actually are amino acids in general, I think people understand that protein is broken down into amino acids, but what exactly do they do in the body and why are they so important?
Angelo Keely: [00:02:08] So I think what you just said is a great starting point when you just identify that amino acids are-- they're the building blocks of protein. So you could say, “If you broke apart protein, what would you get? You would get amino acids.” Or if you were trying to build a protein, how would you build a protein? You would do it with amino acids. And the reason why these are so important is really, it's at the heart of why protein is so important. When you compare protein to the other two macronutrients, fat and carbohydrates, it's a very different thing. And the reason for that is because carbohydrates and fat, their primary role in the body, why we eat them, is to be used as fuel. And you can choose which one you like better. And there's lots of different reasons and science for--there's so many different directions to go with that.
[00:02:52] But fundamentally, if I eat some carbohydrates or I eat some fat, it's like putting, say gasoline in my car or charging my car to be able to run it and giving it fuel, or maybe if I bought energy from the electric grid for my house or had natural gas to run my house. Whereas protein can be used like that, but it's really not its primary role. And I think we'll get to that more later when you talk about fat loss, because it plays a very key role for that, but rather, it's like, let's say I got in a little fender bender with my car [laughs] and the bumper was broken, and I need to fix that bumper. That is actually more how protein works. There's a part of your body that's broken or that doesn't work quite as well or it needs to be replaced or fixed, or you want to remodel your bathroom, right? Or you want to fix something inside your house, you actually need the raw materials to fix that. And the way that our bodies are built is that they're actually built out of protein. So, while over 50% of our body is water of the part that is physical, solid mass, over 50% of that is protein.
[00:03:54] And that means all of your vital organs, your skin, your hair, your nails, your eyes, but obviously your lean muscle. So actually, all your muscles made up of protein, but other things that we don't think about that are actually physical in our body, like enzymes, hormones are made up from proteins. And even the neurotransmitters in our brain that the chemical messengers through which we experience emotions, those are amino acids, or they're the metabolites of them. So, all these come from proteins. And the way that proteins function in our body is kind of similar to a way our car works or our house works. They don't just last in their current condition forever. The proteins actually start to not function as well and they start to break down. And that could come from an injury, like you bump into something or you get hurt, but even just really your skin itself and heart tissue and all these different parts of your body are made up of all these little proteins. And after a while, each little protein is not as healthy as it used to be. It's not as young as it used to be in protein terms, not like in our lifetime terms.
[00:04:53] And so, what happens is each of these little proteins in our body, once they get old enough to where they don't function as well as they used to, they'll actually break down. They'll break apart. And when they break apart, they break apart into these things you mentioned earlier, amino acids. And some of the amino acids are still useful. It'd be again like maybe if you were remodeling your house and you took apart your bathroom, there might be like, “Ah, the mirror's really great, I'm going to keep that mirror. But like the tiles, yeah, I got to throw it away.” So, some of the amino acids you throw away, you actually pee them out. And some of the amino acids you can keep and you can utilize them to rebuild proteins. But now the obvious thing is, “Okay, well, I lost some of the amino acids I need to rebuild this skin tissue or this piece of my heart. Like literally my heart is made up of these proteins. Where can I get the amino acids from to rebuild that heart tissue, that skin, that muscle?”
[00:05:41] That is why we consume protein. When we eat protein in our diet we digest the protein, it breaks down into these amino acids, they go into our blood and they become the building blocks of the new proteins in our body. So, if you don't eat protein, you can't have hair, you can't have skin, you can't have functioning organs, you can't have muscle. So that's why protein is such an essential nutrient. So, I think that maybe gives the context of a protein and amino acids. But I didn't quite get into like essential amino acids, what makes them unique. But was that a good kind of diving in point?
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:06:15] No, that was great. And I think for people that are listening, helping them understand that the role of protein is not just about building muscle. As you kind of very appropriately and astutely described, there are many, many functions of protein, and it can show up in different ways. If you're not consuming enough protein, not just a loss of insulin sensitivity. For some people, their hair, skin and nails become problematic. I mean, there can be many, many contributing factors to why? or how it can show up when we are protein deficient. And I think so many individuals are, I'm sure you probably see this in your own business, that when you're talking to people, there's just this lack of awareness about how important protein needs are, especially as we're getting older.
[00:06:57]: So, when we're looking at different types of amino acids, helping women understand that this is the role of protein that we have to consume enough in our diet. The essential amino acids are things we must consume, we can't make them on our own. And so perhaps exploring a little bit about essential versus non-essential amino acids, because I think this is an important distinction to be made. I know that whether someone is omnivore, carnivore, someone who's plant based, helping people understand that sometimes you can struggle to get the particular amino acids that are going to be very, very helpful, that you cannot create on your own in your body.
Angelo Keely: [00:07:34] There are two really important points to make about essential versus non-essential amino acids. The first point is in the name itself, essential. And the definition of that and why the word essential is used is because you have to eat it. So, your body can actually make the non-essential amino acids. It can convert the essential amino acids into the non-essential amino acids as they are needed. That doesn't mean that you would want to only consume essential amino acids, your body can just utilize non-essential ones through proteins that you eat. But that's the primary point, that you could be eating different sources of protein that are technically not a complete protein. Complete protein means that it has a sufficient amount of the essential amino acids to actually be utilized by your body in a way to build new proteins.
[00:08:19] So it's not just protein that matters, it's protein that's rich in these essential amino acids, because, again, your body can make the non-essential ones. I think that's actually maybe the more common theme that people might be familiar with talking about anyone who's experimented with a plant-based diet or vegetarianism, or any ideas that are not eating an animal-based diet, is that these plant-based diets, the proteins, are typically not complete proteins on their own. Some are, but many are not. But I think the maybe more provocative and more interesting story about essential amino acids, and this is particularly as we age. It would also be really relevant to performance-focused people like athletes and/or to people who are really trying to lose fat but maintain muscle. But it becomes especially relevant as we age, is that essential amino acids are also the chemical messengers that promote new protein synthesis.
[00:09:10] So, this is one of those subjects that is not like, “Oh, we have five studies on this, we have hundreds of studies on essential amino acids.” And so, we've actually done, not me, but the research community has done studies on consuming only essential amino acids, consuming essential amino acids plus non-essential amino acids, or consuming only non-essential amino acids, all in the amounts that they would exist in beef protein. And what is very clear and evident is that the essential amino acids stimulate all of the new protein synthesis. The non-essential amino acids stimulate none, zero. So, if you only consume non-essential, you get no stimulation of protein synthesis. If you consume a mix of them, you get the same amount as if you just consumed the essential. So, what is this thing stimulate protein synthesis that sounds sciencey and fancy.
[00:09:57] Really, all it means is that when you put the essential amino acids into your body, either through consuming a whole food or through a supplement, it actually tells your body, “Let's go build new proteins, let's find the older skin proteins and replace them with newer ones. Let's go find the less functioning muscle, lean muscle proteins and rebuild them. Let's go and actually build new proteins and get rid of the older ones and build new ones.” it's not just that like your body needs it as a building block to help build new proteins. It's actually like, maybe the contractor that you hire for your house to actually get everyone to do the work. So, it's not just the materials, it's the messenger, it's the thing that's actually getting the work done. And the reason why this is so important as we age is because it gets harder to get our body to do that. Exercise, resistance training, protein that we eat is less efficient and less effective as we age in doing that. And so, all the more reason to really be thoughtful about our diet and being able to consume higher amounts of essential amino acids in whole food protein, potentially in supplementation, in order to tell our body more frequently to rebuild these old proteins, to rebuild old skin, to rebuild old muscle tissue, etc.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:11:11] Well, it's really interesting to me because I don't know if you have a particular threshold. I know that when I look at my teenage boys, who are very athletic, understanding that it requires a lot less protein to trigger that development of all those muscle-protein synthesis, versus me and my husband, being middle-aged individuals, requires more protein. And do you have a particular threshold when you're discussing this, talking about this? Is it 30 g, is it 40 g of protein that for you personally you're aiming for with each meal, or while you're consuming essential amino acids to ensure that you're getting adequate muscle-protein synthesis that trigger for the actual development, the follow through in terms of creating new proteins, enzymes, etc.
Angelo Keely: [00:11:58] This is a great question, and it's pretty nuanced because it really depends on the essential amino acid source, whether you're consuming it in a mixed meal, whether you're consuming the protein on its own, whether you're taking a protein powder, whether you're taking an essential amino acid supplement. What I would say is that, for a middle-aged adult or older, outside of consuming a protein powder or an essential amino acid supplement, you are going to stimulate very little protein synthesis from the food itself. It will actually come much more likely from exercise, like from resistance training. And I’ll just give you an example. And all this is very well-documented research. International Society of Sports Nutrition did a great review of all the research last October. Look into all this but there’s an article from 2020 in nutrients that compared all these different protein sources, etc.
[00:12:47] But basically 70 g of beef protein as part of a mixed meal. It's like about 12 oz of steak. But let's say you're eating with broccoli and potatoes and other things, stimulates as much muscle-protein synthesis as less than half that amount, 30 g of beef protein just eaten on its own. And the reason for that is because what we have uncovered, particularly in the last 10 years, is that the higher amount of essential amino acids that you can get in your blood at a peak concentration is what stimulates the protein synthesis on its own outside of like doing exercise. And maybe just to clarify, like if you go and you lift weights, you are stimulating protein synthesis. You're communicating to your body, “Hey, I want to not only rebuild these muscle proteins.” There's a whole-body protein synthesis. I want to rebuild proteins throughout my body. That's why resistance training is so great and exercise overall is so great. And then you eat proteins and it helps support that process.
[00:13:45] But from nutrition alone, if I just eat the steak, there's very little protein synthesis that gets stimulated just from eating the steak as part of a meal. That said, if I eat half of it, even less than half it, but I eat it on its own, it gives as much as if I had eaten it as part of the meal. Now here's what's really mind blowing. If you then compare that lean beef protein to a whey protein shake, like you just take a whey protein powder and you consume that. That whey protein powder is three times the muscle-protein synthesis of the lean beef on its own. So, whey protein powder stimulates so much more protein synthesis on its own outside of exercises. It's not like I need to go lift weights first. Like just consuming it will stimulate three times the amount as that lean beef. And why is that? It's because something like a whey protein isolate has all the carbs stripped out, the fat stripped out, it's highly digestible. It just is immediately available. I mean, not immediately, but in terms of a whole protein source as close to that as you can get and something that's food like, you just digest it and the essential amino acid gets into your blood much more quickly than it does from the lean beef.
[00:14:52] But then if you compare that to essential amino acids, and this is actually all this data that I'm giving right now is with a young adult population. So, assume people in your 20s, if you consume essential amino acids as a free form, essential amino acids, basically what that means is that you’ve fermented these essential amino acids out of a natural food source and you've got only the essential amino acids. So, like even in a whey protein isolate, half of it is the non-essential. In the essential amino acids supplement, it's only the essential amino acids and you can really optimize the exact portions, etc. That is three times the impact of a whey protein isolate. So, the scale of eating beef as part of a mixed meal or beef on its own, or whey protein shake or an essential amino acid supplement, it's very different based on the quantity of the essential amino acids in the food source and how digestible it is and how immediately it can hit the blood.
[00:15:45] And just to kind of blow your mind though, in older populations, and this has been repeated with really like, say 60-year-old women, the essential amino acid supplement is six times the impact of the whey protein isolate, more than six times. 3 g of essential amino acids stimulated as much muscle-protein synthesis as 20 g of whey protein. So your question was, “What's the threshold? How much should you eat, why and how?” I think that, maybe my bigger picture recommendation would be is eat high quality, awesome meals, with whatever works with your diet, whatever your eating window is, eat good high-quality protein and ideally, like vegetables and fruits, things that are rich in micronutrients. Try to eat amounts that feel good to you. We can go more into like, well, how much protein per day would you want to eat? And then outside of that, if you're really trying to optimize, stimulating protein synthesis outside of exercise, just on its own throughout the day, it would be to consume, either a whey protein shake or even better, an essential amino acid supplement. And what’s the threshold for that, for an essential amino acid supplement, the minimum is really 3 g of which 40% is leucine, but up to 15 g in a linear fashion its better. So literally 15 g is five times as good as 3 g.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:17:03] It’s so interesting because I think we’ve been conditioned to believe that its food, food, food, food and that’s going to be superior to a supplement. But what I’m hearing you say is that in terms of digestibility, absorbability, readiness to utilize in our bodies, the essential amino acids are going to be superior to whey protein, are going to be superior than sitting down and we were not discouraging anyone from eating food. But I find that absolutely fascinating because on a lot of different levels women in middle age seem to really struggle with protein. If I have a patient doing a diet recall and I'm looking through their data, almost always they're chronically undereating protein, so they're putting themselves at a disadvantage already. And so, for anyone that's listening and they're curious, what is it about leucine that's so important for the stimulus? Because you mentioned that 3 g of essential amino acids will give you, correct me if I'm wrong, 40% of your leucine threshold. So, what is it about leucine that's so important for this entire process?
Angelo Keely: [00:18:11] Just to clarify, 3 g of essential amino acids with 40% of that formula being leucine.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:18:18] Okay.
Angelo Keely: [00:18:19] So it'd be a minimum of 1.2 g of leucine in that type of formula. And there's like other analyses of what the leucine threshold is in whole food. But like this is pretty clearly illustrated in essential amino acid supplement like, “What the minimum is?” So, the reason why leucine is so important is because as we've discussed, this chemical messenger idea, like the kind of contractor of the house that actually gets everyone to do the work, leucine plays the primary role. It can't do everything on its own. But very clearly when you increase the amount of leucine in a formula, so like when they added leucine to whey protein isolate and they increased it by 25%, it like doubled the amount of protein synthesis it produced. And that's because the leucine, it plays this primary role. Now if you took the leucine on its own, it wouldn't do anything. And that's actually the history and the story of branched-chain amino acid supplements.
[00:19:14] So branched-chain amino acid supplements are just three of the essential amino acids. It's leucine, isoleucine, and valine. And because in earlier science we uncovered like, “Wow, it seems like if you just jack up the leucine, it's really good.” We realize, “Oh, it's not just the leucine, but you also need the other two.” It's kind of like two brothers or sisters, which are isoleucine and valine. If you have those three, then it seems like you can get this big spike in muscle-protein synthesis. But then what we realized is it immediately crashes. So, you get the spike and then it crashes and you actually don’t get any benefit. And its potentially, not only is it not anabolic, it even makes you lose muscle because it provokes the body to think it wants to build all these proteins, but then the body doesn’t have enough of the other amino acids and then maybe even provokes muscle tissue to break down to supply the blood with the other amino acids. Sorry, if I like nerded out too much on that one.
[00:20:04] But in short, leucine is this like primary stimulant of, not like a caffeine stimulant, but a chemical messenger role for protein synthesis. That's actually one of the things that makes something like-- and this is not all essential amino acid supplements. These are ones that follow the science and the literature. If you increase it to these higher amounts of 40%, that is how you get these really impressive benefits.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:20:30] Yeah. I’m so glad that you touched on branched-chain amino acids because inevitably that’s a question that comes up that people will say, “Oh, I’ve been taking BCAAs.” And I did a YouTube video, I think at the beginning or the end of last year, talking about supplements that are not worth your money because of what I knew about EAAs being superior to that. And so super helpful to have that discussion. So, let’s talk a little bit about anabolic resistance. Let's talk about catabolism. So, again, going back to this kind of natural evolution that north of 40 we are more prone to sarcopenia, this muscle loss with aging, this can be accelerated by many things. But I think for a lot of women in particular, helping them understand what are the things that help build muscle? What are the things that catabolize or break down muscle? Because this is a very important distinction and can help kind of reaffirm why we were having this conversation to begin with.
Angelo Keely: [00:21:25] I’m going to speak to both men and women and then the distinctions of women that make them more unique. For both men and women, as we age and it actually starts at 30. You’ll notice it much more at 40, but the process begins at 30. At 40 though, is when you can really start to lose muscle mass year over year, and particularly lose strength. You may actually maintain some of the muscle mass, but you really lose strength. And strength doesn't seem like a big deal. It's like people like, “I'm not trying to compete as a strength-based person.” It's like, “Well, when you're 70, you'll wish that you had not lost 5% of your strength every single year for the last 20 years.” And the reason why this happens is because our body's ability to digest protein diminishes. We are simply not as good at breaking down the proteins and then extracting the amino acids from them.
[00:22:11] But the second thing that's even maybe more important is that our sensitivity to those amino acids to stimulate new protein synthesis also becomes reduced, and becomes reduced more and more every year. And it’s an interesting thing because we see the exact same thing even happen with resistance training. So, people who did resistance training, meaning they lifted weights, let’s say in their 20s, 30s, in their 40s, and then in their 50s, the results that they actually do muscle biopsies, where they measure the stimulation of new protein synthesis at the location of the muscle itself from doing bicep curls or leg extensions. It's much less than it used to be. And it makes sense if you think about it. Historically we didn't live till past 50 and now we're living much longer. And our bodies were not built in such a way, or weren't programmed in such a way necessarily to want to build and maintain our muscle, to build and maintain a lean physique, to stay fit, to stay active, to be able to ride our bikes in our 60s. there wasn't something that was in the plan originally but now it is, now it is possible.
[00:23:16] And so instead, our bodies would just like kind of start to actually use the protein more as just like converted into sugars, and use those sugars as like an energy source instead, which is not as efficient. And obviously then actually leads us to gain more fat than to use that protein to build more muscle. And all of that is kind of the story of what we call anabolic resistance. And all anabolism means is like growth building, right? And so, we become more resistant to growing and building and maintaining our muscle as we age. And I think it's for me, someone who has his parents in their 70s, almost 80s, like I think it's the most important thing to think about. There's lots of other important things to think about, heart health and avoiding other types of diseases, but the ability to maintain that lean muscle and to figure out what are the strategies and techniques via exercise, diet, supplementation to do that is what is going to help.
[00:24:13] I see it now with my parents and why I know is going to help me and my wife and all of our friends to maintain higher activity levels, to be able to regulate blood sugar. And people don't realize our muscle regulates like 80% of the sugar that we consume to be able to overcome disease and injury. It is such an important asset to invest in for long-term wellness and health. And also, at the same time for vanity too. It's the thing that's going to keep us more fit and vibrant and with body compositions that we like. So, it's kind of like an obviously thing to want to focus on as we age.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:24:49] Yeah. It’s really interesting to me, and certainly for me, talking about muscle and metabolic health is really at the forefront of a lot of the discussions that we have on this podcast. But helping individuals understand that insulin resistance starts in our muscles. So, as you are losing muscle mass, you are also losing insulin sensitivity. And I echo a great deal of what you’re saying, because my parents or my father just passed away, but my mom is in her 70s, and over the last couple of years, I kept saying, “My parents look like they’re getting a little bit of the dwindles.” They’re not as active. They’re losing a great deal of muscle mass, and it just becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy. They feel less strong, they feel less steady on their feet, so they become less physically active, which just accelerates this process. And I think that it’s really to the benefit of this burgeoning podcasting field that people have the ability to learn and access really great helpful information.
[00:25:46] And so much of what you're saying is, “This is under our control.” So much of what we're doing right now is under our control. And so, if anyone is listening and trying to figure out where to put their resources in terms of, do they buy whey protein isolate, do they buy bone broth protein, do they buy pea protein? Or do they think about essential amino acids? I know a lot of what you talk about is why essential amino acids are so much more effective and efficacious. And to me, sounds like this is definitely an area where people, if they're thinking about purchasing protein powder. We're not suggesting don't, but really understanding that you're going to get more from what you're purchasing by considering the addition of essential amino acids. And correct me if I'm wrong, what you're saying is that you can still have your meals, but adding in some essential amino acids either around meals or in a feeding window can be particularly effective for helping to offset some of these, you know, the physiology of aging, if we're not actively working against it is going to become a problem eventually.
Angelo Keely: [00:26:53] Yeah. I think that supplementation is the definition of it is in its name, right? [chuckles] It's to supplement, it's to support in addition to meals. And as we age, the main idea of supplementation too, it's like if there's something we can't get from our diet or if there's some unique circumstance in our life that maybe makes it more difficult to get from our diet or increases our need for something, and that is, I think, why you would start to think about supplements. And supplements, I would put all these in the same category. That could be a bone broth protein, that could be a whey protein isolate, that could be essential amino acids. All of these are good options. None of them are bad. And they'll all be helpful and thoughtful and supportive for you. I think then it just comes down to, “Well, what's going to be most efficient, effective for what I'm trying to accomplish and do and what fits into my lifestyle.”
[00:27:44] So, I'm particularly a big endorser of if you're going for a protein powder, to go for a whey protein isolate. And the reason for that is because compared to, say, like a bone broth protein, it does have a superior essential amino acid profile specifically for stimulating protein synthesis. And again, that's not just muscles. That's collagen-related things like skin and hair but it's also your organs, things related to your immune system. Overall, it has a superior essential amino acid profile. It's also very adaptable to different types of uses. Like you can mix it with fruit and it tastes great. You can put it in waffles or pancakes. You could mix it into yogurt. You can put it basically in anything. It's almost flavorless. And if you get a high quality one, it's like a very subtle delicious milk, you know, subtle flavor.
[00:28:33] That said, if you want, like, I just want the best bang for the buck in terms of, like, I want the most amount of protein synthesis. And I don't want to, like, have to feel like I want to eat one more thing. Because whether it's bone broth protein or whey protein, I said it is a bit more filling. It's a supplement, but it's more like a food. Essential amino acids are just awesome because they are so light, they don't make you feel full. And there's so many more times effective. And I think a general rule to think about is, say, from like 30 to 60, whatever decade you're in, it's that divided by 10 more times effective than protein. So, for example, if you're 30, it's three times as effective. If you're 40, it's four, 50, it’s five, 60, six times, 70, seven times as effective as, like, a whey protein. So, you start to see it's like, “Wow. I can consume less of this supplement and get so much more impact, and it doesn't fill me up.” And if you're someone who's interested in fasting, it's really supportive of fasting lifestyle because it doesn't break that fast. And you'd have it as like a fruit flavored very light drink or as capsules.
[00:29:40] And it still enables you to have all these other benefits of giving your digestion a break, of not indulging in another meal yet, etc. And so I think, if you're looking for the best bang for the buck and something much lighter, the essential amino acid supplement makes sense. If you're looking for protein powder that's more adaptable like a food, I would recommend the whey protein isolate. And, but if you really like bone broth protein, it's a good-- it's also a great supplement. There aren't, like, I think, bads in any of these options.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:30:09] No, thank you for that. And I think for so many listeners, a lot of the concerns that come with middle age center around changes in muscle mass versus fat mass, especially women in menopause. And so navigating, reducing calories, whether it's with intermittent fasting or just having smaller meals, the challenge is always, it goes back to that, when you lose fat, you also have the propensity for losing muscle. This is where these GLP-1 agonists, which coincidentally, I just talked about on my most recent podcast, this is the concern that many clinicians are having is that, yes, patients will lose weight, but more often than not, they're at the expense of losing fat, they are also losing muscle mass. What are your thoughts on this in particular? Not so much the drugs themselves, but women that are looking to lose fat mass, but not at the expense of muscle loss.
Angelo Keely: [00:31:00] There's also very clear science on what happens to our bodies when we restrict calories and how that impacts fat loss as well as muscle loss. And what we have seen pretty clearly is that a 30% caloric deficit, even just for five days. So, if to maintain my current body composition, it was 2000 calories a day and I restricted 600 calories a day. So, I cut it down to only eating 1400 calories a day, which I think kind of typical personal training science around this would be like, “Okay, so that's, and I'm, you don't have to follow the math, but just trust me, I'm good enough in my math there'd be 4200 calories in a week, seven days times 600 calories, right?” That'd be a little more than a pound of fat that you would lose in a week has kind of been like the idea, or a little more than a pound you would lose in a week. Because you restrict 3500 calories, you lose a pound of fat. But what we've seen is that with a 30% calorie deficit you need to increase your essential amino acid intake 300%.
[00:32:08] So that means eating three times as much protein as you were eating before to maintain your current body composition. Or significant supplementation with like protein powders with essential amino acid supplements, again would be the most efficient or effective in order to not lose muscle during that period. Otherwise, you will also lose muscle, you won't just lose fat. And what I think people don't realize is that you can actually lose a pound of muscle with a 750-calorie deficit, whereas you can lose a pound of fat with a 3500-calorie deficit. And so it's like, “Well why does that happen? Why is my body wanting to burn more muscle than fat? Or, but I have more fat to burn than the muscle? Like what's going on here?” Well, I think in very basic terms, if your body thinks it needs 2000 calories to just maintain itself today and you restrict some of those calories, it's going to start to think when it sees protein. Maybe I shouldn't use that protein and the essential amino acids in that protein to help rebuild the muscle and maintain the muscle.
[00:33:03] Maybe I should just, even though it's not as efficient, I'm going to convert it into sugar via gluconeogenesis. And instead, I'm going to use it as an energy source, even though it's not what your body really wants to do, it's prioritizing using it in that way instead and not using it to build muscle. So, you have to consume so much more protein or so much more essential amino acids in order to ensure that you're not losing muscle, you're only losing fat. And I would just say though, “It is doable.” So a person in my office, this is a man, but I actually can go back and give a really interesting example of women as well. 40 years old, had a shoulder injury, but wanted to get more. Like, he really just wanted to get more cut. It's pure vanity,-
[laughter]
[00:33:40] -but great, but it's all good. He wanted to lose fat, so he started counting calories, and tracking his macros and doing all that, but increased his daily use of essential amino acids, key on aminos, every day. And he was able to lose 25 pounds of fat in three months and lost zero muscle mass. And he was able to do that. And we know this because he was getting body composition examinations, etc. And so, we actually tracked it the whole time. And it's kind of, like, unheard of, like, “How did you do that?” Well, he increased his daily essential amino acid so much to do that. But if you're not doing that, if you are taking a GLP-1 and suddenly you don't have appetite and you're able to just-- It's actually pretty easy to just eat a 1000 calories a day, or you're going the old school method and you're doing the discipline and the willpower, and you're just watching everything you're eating, you're tracking it, and you're somehow able to restrict calories that much. It doesn't matter. Either way, you're going to start prioritizing the use of the protein that you're eating for energy instead, because that's what your body's going to do, and you're going to lose a lot of muscle.
[00:34:46] And I'll just name it, when you lose that muscle, it's not like you can just put it back on. And so, in this whole grander context that we're talking about, it's like, “If you have lean muscle, you have a toner physique. If you have lean muscle, you're able to regulate blood sugar. If you have more lean muscle, you're able to stay more active. If you have more lean muscle, you're able to have much better outcomes with potential future diseases and injuries.” The idea of sacrificing that muscle is just dangerous, I think. It's really dangerous for people's health. So again, whether you're doing it through a traditional method of calorie counting or macros or through intermittent fasting, which is another way to achieve consuming less food every day, or through a GLP-1, you really want to be considering how am I hitting these much higher targets of essential amino acids? And that could be through eating really high essential amino acid-rich foods, through doing supplementation, etc., in order to overcome that, because otherwise you're just going to lose lot of muscle. And it's going to be a bummer. [chuckles] I don't know how to say it.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:35:43] I think because we have this toxic diet culture, I think so many people are perhaps overly fixated with what numbers on the scale than they are about understanding the repercussions about not just losing fat, but also concurrently losing muscle mass. And this is why, as someone that has an intermittent fasting kind of platform, talking about OMAD, the concerns about OMAD, one-meal-a-day and the concerns are that you're going to eventually get to a point, if not immediately, at some point, where you are losing muscle mass at the expense of not consuming enough food in your work, with your clients or interacting with your community, what are your thoughts on adequate protein intake for those that are intermittent fasting? So, obviously, there are people that eat for a caloric deficit, but may have a wider feeding window. There are people who very clearly are doing time-restricted eating. What are your thoughts about the one-meal-a-day phenomenon?
Angelo Keely: [00:36:42] So taking a step back and just talking about daily protein intake and then talking about how you would ideally consume it throughout a day. And I think maybe answering it more within that context. I think that the younger you are and the less ambitious with your health goals, the less any of this really matters. [chuckles] The more ambitious you are with your health goals. Like, “I want to be more physically vibrant or I want to look that much more fit.” And the older you get, the more important all the information about to share is. And so that's again, it's not like there's a right or wrong. It's all kind of what your goals are and what you're trying to achieve. I think that aiming for the recommended daily allowance of protein is approximately 0.4 g of protein per pound of body weight. But I would say that's the minimum threshold to not have issues like hair loss, organ [laughs] malfunction, serious mood disorders, really have serious medical conditions. And that would be if you weighed 100 pounds for simple math, that'd be 40 g of protein per day.
[00:37:49] I would say, for people that want to live more vibrantly, for an athlete, for someone who's 40 or older, I would be trying to aim for 100 g of protein per day. So that's 1 g of protein per pound of body weight. Then the question becomes, and if you weigh 200 pounds, it'd be 200 g of protein per pound of body weight. And the reason for that, and this is all within, again, I think within a certain amount of calories per day that actually nurture your body. So, it's not like you eat as much as you want of all the other foods, and then you eat this on top of that, like it's within whatever a daily allowance of calories is that fits your activity levels and your weight, etc. Then the question is, “Well, how would I distribute that?” And there are certain, you know, goes back to your question earlier about what's the threshold of protein and how much to eat for protein synthesis. I think there's also, like, “How much protein can my body use, just like generally in a certain period, right?” Not necessarily am I maximizing how much protein synthesis it spikes, but like, “How much can it use in a given period before it stops using it as much for rebuilding proteins and it starts using it more as like an energy source?”
[00:38:53] This is kind of getting out of the context of intermittent fasting. I would say that trying to consume protein about every three to four hours is the most ideal thing specifically for building and maintaining muscle mass and for overall whole-body protein synthesis. That doesn't mean that it's the right solution, absolutely. And there could be other reasons why you would have a smaller eating window, etc. But ideally, you'd be consuming either protein or essential amino acids via supplement every three to four hours, because that's how long these protein synthesis spikes last. And if you go more than that many hours, what happens is your body does not have a sufficient amount of essential amino acids in the pools within your body, within the blood to keep rebuilding the proteins. And so, what it does is there’s only one place it can get those amino acids and that’s your muscle.
[00:39:54] So you actually start to break down your muscle, which is your reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body to supply the blood with amino acids to help rebuild your heart tissue and your skin and make enzymes and make hormones, etc. So, the younger you are, like, the less important it is. It's not like you're not as stressed. You don't have all this anabolic resistance, etc. The older you are, I would try to have more meals with protein in it than less meals. That said, if you're intermittent fasting and let's say you're compressing it to say, an 8-hour window or a 9-hour window, you could have three meals during that period. And then during the other periods you could take essential amino acids a couple times per day. And I think you'd be great. You'd be like, “You'd be fine.” If you're compressing all of your food into that one meal and you're doing the OMAD thing, it's like, I'm again, the younger you are, the less important it is, the older you are you think you're going to lose muscle mass and it's maybe not like yes, technically, in one day you are literally every day you do it. Now, it's not going to be like noticeable in that one day, but over a year, two years, three years, I think it's not the wisest sustainable practice if your goal is to build and maintain lean muscle. But maybe you have other goals or other interests.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:41:08] No. I think you so eloquently stated that. I know that whenever I speak out against OMAD out of concerns for loss of muscle mass, we usually get a little bit of hate. But it's really from the place of helping educate people about, “Why muscle is so important?” And I think you did a beautiful job kind of illustrating that. Let's pivot and talk about other supplements. Are there supplements that you really like to discuss, recommend for women in perimenopause and menopause, as an example, like creatine monohydrates, one of my favorites. What are some of your favorites that you like to talk about, recommend and/or use?
Angelo Keely: [00:41:45] I will answer this and I realize that I didn't answer I think clearly enough how it's also different for women as they age and why perimenopause and menopause makes their situation different. And I'll try to answer it briefly so I can get to your question here. Another important thing to acknowledge, similar to like when we're cutting calories is when we have certain types of stress responses. So, if we get injured and that could be, you know, we run into something and we hurt our knee, right? There's an element of like, actually our knee now has more injured proteins that have to be rebuilt. But also, our whole body is in this kind of like stress response to being injured. And in that stress response, our body again deprioritizes building and maintaining lean muscle. And so, this happens when we undergo situations of disease. It's why there is significant muscle loss when people are struggling with cancer. It's not just from the diet aspects. It's literally from like the stress response and not being able to utilize the protein and the amino acids in them to build and maintain muscle.
[00:42:42] Well, there are elements of perimenopause, menopause, where there's such fluctuations in the experience, where it's affecting your sleep and it's affecting mood, and it's affecting all these different aspects of your life. To where there's a general amount of stress that you're undergoing in that period to where your body is deprioritizing the utilization of the amino acids even more than maybe your husband of the same age. He has the same situation where he's not. It's not prioritizing stimulating protein synthesis as much, but there's a lesser degree of stress than you are experiencing from those hormonal changes themselves. So, I think in this context of someone in perimenopause, for example, the benefits of essential amino acids will be even greater than they would be for your husband of the exact same age. They will also beneficial for him. But you're potentially struggling with even more anabolic resistance during that period than he is. So, what are other supplements that also support that?
[00:43:41] Creatine is another great one. Creatine is unique. It's actually technically an amino acid as well, but it's not of the same sort that we've been describing here. It's more purely of like a chemical messenger sort. It's actually a form of energy. So, creatine is something that exists in nature, in meat sources. So, if you're on a plant-based diet, then you're definitely not getting enough of it. And what it is, is people may be familiar with like aerobic exercise or anaerobic exercise. And these are actually just exercise that's defined by how your body converts energy, how it creates the ATP, whether it needs oxygen or it doesn't. And so, they're different forms of energy based off of whether you're going for a slow jog or you're pushing it really hard. Well, there's actually a third energy system called phosphocreatine energy system, and it's at the level of the muscle itself. And it actually utilizes creatine inside the muscle to convert energy very quickly.
[00:44:35] So you use it for bursts of strength, and you can think about it, like doing bench press, but it's even like, as you get older, like standing up really fast you know? And so, when you consume creatine as a supplement, it loads up the cells and the muscle with even more of this creatine to have larger phosphocreatine stores, that allows you to perform more types of tasks more easily, and thus it supports resistance training, etc. And I think that's primarily why it supports human outcome studies of actually developing more lean muscle and being able to maintain that lean muscle. There's also been interesting studies of how it can improve cognition, improve sleep, and I don't think we're really clear yet on why and how, but it seems mechanistically to be very similar. It's basically like loading the cells with this energy source that makes it more accessible to perform actions more quickly. So, I think that's a great one.
[00:45:26] And I think the other one that's pretty clear of reducing all-cause mortality is omegas. So, omega-3s are just, I mean, they're a rockstar. [chuckles] They're rockstar again, like hundreds of studies and people who consume them through whole food diet or through supplementation have higher amounts of these omega-3s in their blood basically have a reduction in all-cause mortality. I can't remember the exact figures. It's like 15% or 20% or something. It's pretty impressive. And that's for cardiovascular health, that's for brain health, it supports with recovery from exercise. The list just goes on and on. So, I think those three are all pretty solid, scientifically validated supplements specifically for women.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:46:04] Yeah, it's interesting. Creatine is one of my absolute favorites and I've been experimenting. You actually need a larger dose to cross the blood-brain barrier. So, whether it's for sleep architecture or even jet lag, that's where I found creatine when I travel has been particularly beneficial, but needed at a much higher dose, like 10 g. And that's actually where the research seems to be heading. I love that you included the omega-3 so many benefits, the anti-inflammatory effects of omega-3s. What are your thoughts on caffeine as an energy source, as a nootropic agent? What are your thoughts there?
Angelo Keely: [00:46:41] So it definitely has many, many studies, hundreds proving itself as a performance enhancer. Like it enhances the performance of exercise, it enhances the performance of cognitive tasks like it works for achieving that. In terms of it providing energy, it doesn't actually provide energy, it actually blocks neurotransmitters in the brain to where we don't sense our tiredness as much. It modulates or changes our brain chemistry in that way. So, I think it clearly has performance benefits. I think also if you look at things like coffee, there’s a lot of really significant antioxidant benefits of coffee, specifically. I think it’s important to make sure you consume really high-quality coffee. That’s like a whole nother conversation around coffee supply chain and roasting. There’s a lot in that. But I think it has a lot of benefits in that way. And then the only other thing just to consider is like moderation, like really what is the proper dose to create maybe like exercise-- If you take it before exercise, if you drink some coffee before exercise, which I do.
So I'll admit it, like I love coffee. I mean Kion makes a coffee, so like clearly an endorser of it as a product. I love having an espresso in the morning and then like doing exercise in my home gym. I like that and it motivates me and it creates this whole positive of experience and I don't think it negatively affects my sleep. And so, it's overall positive. I bet though that if I had or I know from past experience if I have too much, then it's not good, [chuckles] right. I can feel anxious, I can have other types of issues. But I think overall caffeine for the right people in the right dosage can totally be a positive supplement/drug.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:48:21] Yeah, it's interesting. In clinical practice I used to have patients, I would ask them, “How much caffeine do you consume?” And they would say, “One cup.” And I would say, “How big of a cup?” [Angelo chuckles] Inevitably they would say one cup, what they meant was 20 oz three or four times a day. And so, I agree with you that it can be a beneficial supplement/beverage to consume. It's obviously polyphenol rich. There are lots of benefits to bitter teas, the plant-based compounds in coffee as well. I would love touch on sleep because I know this isn't something you enjoy discussing. And obviously, for my community, sleep is one of those challenging topics, doesn't need to be. But in terms of vis-a-vis some of the hormonal changes that are occurring for women as they're navigating their middle age years, add in the stress response as you mentioned, women become less stress resilient at this stage. What is the purpose of sleep from your perspective, based on your exposure to the research? What is it about sleep that is so very important for women to understand and why they need to prioritize it?
Angelo Keely: [00:49:23] Well, that's a great question, and that is another really deep and big one. [Cynthia laughs] You know, I think, not to make it oversimplified, but in the very simplest terms, it is recovery. So, you can think about it in terms of, like, rest. But if you think about stressing a system throughout the day, and you stress it through physical interactions, you stress it through emotional and intellectual and relational interactions, that system needs a time to just rest all those functions and to integrate and to heal. And I think that is really just like the fundamental aspect of sleep. There's so many different physical functions, and then when you get into, like, brain functions around it, like, neurology of it is super fascinating and there's so many different ways that it impacts, but I think just it will impact everything. Identifying what is the right amount of sleep for yourself, setting yourself up to have good restful sleep, where there's enough deep sleep and REM, and achieving that on a regular basis will prove to have significant impacts on your day-to-day mental health, emotional health, cognitive function, and physical health to very significant amounts. Your metabolism, your ability to maintain positive behaviors, your ability to muscle function, exercise function, like so many things. So really, I couldn't undersell or oversell how important it is.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:50:51] And it's interesting for me, I think if women maybe don't appreciate, and it could be middle-aged men, or just people in general, helping people understand that during deep sleep, as an example, this is when the glymphatic system is activated. This is this waste and recycling process that goes on in the brain, gets rid of tau proteins and things that have the potential to go on and create other forms of disease. When the hippocampus is helping to consolidate memories, really, really important. I always kind of touch on sleep in a lot of podcasts, because I just want to reaffirm why sleep is so therapeutic. It is not just time to be in bed and decompress. It is so much more than that. I've so loved our conversation. Please let listeners know how to connect with you. How to learn more about Kion Amino Acids. These are the amino acids that I myself take and my family takes and I've so loved this conversation. And I know it's taken a bit of time to get us connected schedule wise, but I'm so glad we were able to make it happen today.
Angelo Keely: [00:51:50] Thanks, Cynthia. Me too. Yeah, it was a great conversation. I love being able to engage with someone just as experienced and thoughtful as yourself so we can really just get into more nuance and have a really just awesome conversation. I think to learn more, really the best place to go is on getkion.com. That is my company's website. We have tons of educational resources, just really great information. I think there's also a special offer specifically for your audience, which is at getkion.com/cynthia.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:52:18] Awesome. Thank you again for your time today.
Angelo Keely: [00:52:20] Thank you.
Cynthia Thurlow: [00:52:21] If you love this podcast episode, please leave a rating and review, subscribe and tell a friend.
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