Words of Wellness with Shelly

Shelly Share's: Optimizing Your Daily Protein Intake for Better Health and Aging

• Shelly Jefferis • Season 2 • Episode 80

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Navigating the world of nutrition can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to protein—how much do you really need? Join Shelly as she dives deep into protein requirements and sharing why most people aren't getting nearly enough of this essential macronutrient.

The science is clear: your daily protein goal should match your body weight in grams. For a 180-pound person, that means aiming for 180 grams of protein daily. Drawing from Dr. Paul Arciero's groundbreaking research on protein pacing, Shelly explains why strategically spacing your protein throughout the day dramatically improves absorption and utilization. This approach—consuming protein within an hour of waking, with each meal, and before bed—transforms how your body builds muscle, maintains metabolism, and supports bone health.

Shelly walks you through her personal protein protocol that makes reaching these goals surprisingly simple. From morning protein shakes to strategic meal replacements and carefully planned dinners featuring organic protein sources, this system eliminates guesswork while maximizing nutritional impact. You'll discover why certain protein sources, particularly undenatured whey, offer superior absorption and how pre-bedtime protein consumption supports overnight recovery and enhanced fat burning.

Whether you're focused on aging well, optimizing your metabolism, or simply improving overall wellness, this episode provides practical, science-backed strategies to transform your approach to protein intake. Ready to revolutionize your nutrition? Take this one simple step toward better health today—your future self will thank you.

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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.

Thank you and God Bless!
And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day!

In Health,
Shelly Jefferis

Speaker 1:

protein intake and making sure that you are getting enough grams of protein. It's really important, especially as we age. It's really important for our muscles. It's important for our metabolism. It's important for our bones. It's just important for overall health in general.

Speaker 1:

Do you get confused by all of the information that the bar does every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing, what foods you should or should not be eating, how to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelley Jeffries and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more to share tips, education and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you, to bring in guests who can share their journeys so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will. We all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives, full of energy, happiness and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today.

Speaker 1:

Hello friends, welcome to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries and I will be your host, and if this is your first time tuning in, thank you for being here and for those of you who have been here and have supported me along this journey. Thank you so much. It means more to me than you know, and I'm hopping in today just to talk a little bit about protein, the macronutrient protein. Do you get enough? Do you know if you're getting enough grams per day and what does that look like? I know for many people they are not getting enough, and you know, for a long time, many years ago, I would say, there was a really big carb craze, and I remember back in the day, many years ago, when I was teaching at the gyms and also I was in the middle of competing and we would eat our chicken breasts and we would eat some protein, but more often than not we would start the day with our bagels, right? And I look back at that now and go, oh my gosh, but we did not know any better, right? But when you know better, you do better. So I want to just ask all of you if you are getting enough protein and what does that look like? The recommendation the current recommendation is to get approximately the number of grams to match your weight. So for someone who is 180 pounds, their goal would be 180 grams of protein.

Speaker 1:

Now, this might be new for some of you, but there is science that supports this and if you go back and listen to a couple episodes that I have done with Dr Paul Arciero, he talks about this a lot and he has done a ton of research in this area over 30 years of research in the area of performance, metabolism, nutrition and protein and from what he has found, he will also share that, even if you have fallen short, let's say you have a day where you're at the end of the day, you realize you have fallen short and you have not consumed enough protein. He said it is totally okay to consume 80, 90, 100 grams in one meal, even though that's not something you would make a habit of doing. But he said it's totally okay and he has done a, like I said, a ton of research in this topic. He is also the brains behind protein pacing. What is protein pacing? It's exactly what it sounds like Having protein periodically throughout the day where you're pacing it. Throughout the day, where you're pacing it you're having. Within an hour of waking, you have a serving, you have approximately 30 to 45, 50 grams of protein per meal, and then you have another serving of protein within two hours before you go to bed. And that is protein pacing. And so it's basically like it says you're just pacing out throughout your day a certain amount of protein, now various types of protein, for sure, and they do not all get absorbed as highly as we would like.

Speaker 1:

Get absorbed as highly as we would like, and with Dr Paul's research, he definitely has found that whey protein is the highest as far as absorbability is concerned, specifically undenatured whey protein. And then from there you can of course have your, and then from there you can of course, have your lean meats, you know, your chicken breast, your we have a lot of times have ground turkey breast, your meats, your eggs, your fish. There's definitely other sources of protein, but he has found through his research that undenatured whey protein is one of the highest, best sources that you can consume and cleanest, and also it absorbs very much higher than many of these other sources that we consume. So, of course, variety is important. So you still want to consume these other sources, like I said, the meats, the eggs, the yogurts.

Speaker 1:

And when it comes to the morning protein and the evening especially, you want it to be something that's going to be light and absorb quickly into your body. And I usually in the morning will have a scoop of just a pure protein powder, and then same thing before I go to bed. It will just be strictly a protein powder. Or I have a Greek yogurt that I really, really like. That's high in protein, so I have a little bit of that. So there's definitely options.

Speaker 1:

But I want you to just kind of be thinking about what does your day look like and are you consuming enough? And, like I said, you think about your body weight, and then your goal is to be consuming that number of grams approximately, give or take. It's not going to be always right on target. But I find, for me personally, the protocol that I follow makes it really doable and simple to get in all the protein. And what does that look like? Well, with the wellness company that I'm partnered with, we have clean, clean, pure protein powder and we also have meal replacement shakes that provide all of the nutrients and the minerals and the probiotics and the enzymes everything that your body needs and it's a complete meal.

Speaker 1:

So what does a typical day look like for me? I get up, like I said, and I usually will have a scoop of our Isopro, our undenatured whey protein, and you mix it in water and you're good to go. I have a scoop of that, maybe a scoop and a half, give me about 20, a little over 20 grams. And then, as my morning goes on and after my workout, then I will come back and I will have my meal replacement shake, and that will be anywhere from 36 to maybe 46 grams. And then my snack. I will have either another shake or I will have a protein bar at some point, and then I will also have some fruit, usually a little bit of yogurt for protein, and then for dinner we will always have either chicken breast, ground turkey breast, meat or, on occasion, we will have fish, either salmon or some other kind of fish and we usually will purchase organic when it comes to meat and I know that it can be a little bit pricey. But what we tend to do is, when we see something on sale let's say chicken breast, that's on sale we will stock up on it. Sale let's say chicken breast, that's on sale we will stock up on it.

Speaker 1:

And for years ago I made the decision the more that I started to learn about our food system. There were certain foods that I said we need to get these foods and only use organic, and so that is the dairy and meat. For sure we purchase those organically. So those are the meats that we usually have in our dinner, whether we have turkey burgers or tacos or spaghetti, or my husband grills chicken and we have it over salad and that's kind of a typical dinner that we have, and those are usually the meats that we personally eat. It doesn't mean you can't have, like, a steak or red meat. I just personally don't care for red meat. My husband likes it, so he will cook it on occasion and usually he'll cook it when I'm out of town because I don't eat it, but those all are great. And of course, like I said earlier, eggs. You know those definitely are sources of protein.

Speaker 1:

And then, for me personally, what I will usually do before bed like about an hour or so before I go to bed I will have some of our tri-release protein, which is protein that's released at three stages, so you have the quick release in the body and the muscles, and then you have the medium and then you have the slow release, and for me personally, I really like that before I go to bed because I know it's just working all throughout those hours of sleep and when you have a little bit of protein before bed it can help you sleep. It definitely helps boost your metabolism, which then can also help boost your burning of fat. So it's really great and I usually do that routine. That's kind of my normal routine on most days and it might be adjusted a little bit, especially when I'm traveling, but that's for the most part what I will do over the course of a day, and so I hope that that helps and if you want to know more about the protein that I use, please feel free to reach out. You know my contact information is in the show notes and I'm always happy to share what I do and what I use, and it's really worked amazingly well.

Speaker 1:

It's something that I have used, it's been a part of our family's nutrition for over 10 years and it really, really makes it simple. There's no food prep, there's no guessing every day what am I going to have. I mean, yeah, we do do that a little bit with our dinners. You know what do we want to have for dinner, but as far as the rest of the day goes, and breakfast, my meal replacement shake is my breakfast and it's the most incredible source of nutrition that I could even ask for, in just a little under 300 calories. So, again, if you would like to know more, please feel free to reach out.

Speaker 1:

And I hope you find this helpful when you are planning and looking at your own personal protein intake and making sure that you are getting enough grams of protein. It's really important, especially as we age. It's really important for our muscles, it's important for our metabolism, it's important for our bones. It's just important for our overall health in general. So I hope you have found some value in this and, again, please feel free to reach out if you have questions and if you'd like to know more about what I do on a regular basis. I'm happy to share my contact information is in the show notes. Feel free to reach out to me on Instagram and and I'm happy to share what I, what I've been doing for the last over a decade. So I hope you find value in this and, as always, take time to do something for yourself and your own personal wellness on this day and have a beautiful, blessed rest of your week. Everyone. See you next time.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did, and if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review words of wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening and if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy and blessed week. Thank you.