[Doug8796]

Do you guys count Non-protein sources into your total protein amount IE: Peanut butter, Oats, Veggies? Ive been told not to, and was just checking.

[jonny21]

Of course you count it.

[EasyEJL]

wow, who told you not to? calories in vs calories out = mass gained or lost. and the macros are based on what goes in, not what source they come from.

[Doug8796]

well if i have extra cals to fill i was wondering if i should just eat more protein (if im eating 2x bodyweight and some of the protein is coming from incomplete amino acid sources like beans/nuts/oats)

[EasyEJL]

you can. while cutting its not a bad idea. better than getting the cals from carbs, thats for sure

[EasyEJL]

just to add about the "incomplete proteins", so long as you get a mix of different types of proteins, some being incomplete doesn't matter. more or less from the 7 EAAs your body can make any of the other necessary AAs. so even if some amount of your proteins are incomplete and missing one or another of the EAAs, so long as they are made up elsewhere its fine. Really only a few of them (Leucine being one) are really rate limiting - your body needs x amount of them to process y amount of other ones. thats why you always see BCAAs as a 2:1:1 ratio - you need 2 grams of leucine to every gram of isoluecine + valine..... less leucine than that and the amount you take in of valine doesn't matter, it can't be used for anything but caloric burn. As an extreme example, if you took in a kg of valine, but only took in 8g of leucine for that whole day, only 4g of that valine could be used for muscle building...

Thats why some guys dont do BCAA supplementation, but just add leucine. Its a little bit cheaper, and its the most important one to have an abundance of. For bulk here at NP its $27 vs $35 for BCAAs. I think doing BCAAs are better, to make sure you get enough of the other 2 as well, but adding some extra leucine on top of the BCAA mix isn't a bad idea either.