Words of Wellness with Shelly

Shelly's Shares: Protein Power: The Building Blocks of Wellness

• Shelly Jefferis • Season 2 • Episode 97

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Wellness isn't complicated, but sometimes getting back to basics is exactly what we need. In this essential episode, Shelly dives deep into one of the most misunderstood macronutrients: protein. Drawing from over three decades as a health professional and educator, Shelly shares why current science has dramatically shifted our understanding of optimal protein intake.

You'll discover why the old recommendations fall short and how consuming approximately 0.8-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight daily can transform your wellness journey. This isn't just about building muscle—protein serves as the fundamental building block for cell repair, tissue rebuilding, immune function, hormone regulation, and even helps with weight management by keeping you satisfied between meals.

Shelly breaks down the concept of "protein pacing"—strategically timing your protein consumption throughout the day, including before bedtime when your body actively repairs itself. You'll learn about complete proteins containing all nine essential amino acids, quality sources from both animal and plant-based diets, and the potential consequences of insufficient intake: muscle loss, weakened immunity, and compromised skin and hair health. As we age, protein becomes even more crucial for preserving muscle mass that naturally diminishes over time.

Want to know what protein sources have worked for Shelly personally over the past decade? She is happy to share her recommendations for high-quality options and invites you to reach out with your questions. Whether you're new to wellness or looking to optimize your current routine, this episode provides the science-backed fundamentals to help you thrive. Subscribe to Words of Wellness for more insights that cut through the noise and focus on what truly matters for your health journey.

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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:

Do you get confused by all of the information that bombards us 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. Hello, friends, and welcome back to Words of Wellness.

Speaker 1:

My name is Shelly and I am your host, and I'm going to be sharing today. Shelly's Shares is what comes out every Monday, just a short episode that I share, whether it be a personal wellness experience, a journey or some information in education, and what I realized is that through my years of coaching, mentoring, teaching, I always want to come back to some of the basic information, and sometimes I have to remind myself to do that, because I think it's really important to have the reminder of some of just the basics that still hold true all these years later. And what I wanted to share today and talk about? I wanted to share the basic nutrients. The essential nutrients that our bodies need on a daily basis include the macronutrients, which include protein, fat, carbohydrates, and then we also have our vitamins, our minerals and our water. And today I want to focus on protein.

Speaker 1:

Now, I have shared about this before and it's kind of I don't want to say a hot topic, but it is becoming more widely known the importance of protein, the role that it plays in our bodies, and I have always, through the years, told my students and my clients the protein is important for your body to rebuild, for your tissues to repair, your cells to rebuild, and much of that takes place throughout our sleeping time, but also we need protein during the day, for sure. And why is protein important? Well, it is essential, like I said, for our cells, for repairing our tissues. It also is important for our muscles, our bones, our skin, our hair, and for many years I would share that. We need carbohydrates and fat for energy and long-term energy Protein. We don't really want to dip into our protein for energy, necessarily, because protein has a role, an important role to play in our body and again, that goes back to the repair. So proteins are the fundamental building blocks of the body, helping with, again, the cells, the tissues, the organs. It's important for repair of our body If we have injuries.

Speaker 1:

It helps for recovery after exercise. It also helps with our enzymes and our hormones and helps to regulate different, various bodily functions. Protein also serves a role when it comes to our immune system, to support our immune system. But what can happen? It does help us to feel full and satisfied after meals. And if we do need protein, our bodies will resort to using it. Now what I usually will share is, in certain instances where our body has maybe used up carbohydrate stores, used up fat, then it may resort to protein. And I like to use the example of running like a marathon or doing some long-term exercise event that uses a lot of energy. Once we again use up our fat stores, our carbohydrate stores, then our body does resort to the protein. But we really want to have that protein used for these specific other roles that I'm sharing with you. And also protein can help with muscle growth and strength.

Speaker 1:

Weight management you guys really important Again, like I mentioned earlier. Management you guys really important Again, like I mentioned earlier. Protein helps our bodies to feel satisfied, so we don't we don't get as hungry and we don't overeat as often. And another real big benefit is having a little bit of lean, easily absorbable protein before bed, maybe an hour before you go to bed, because that again helps with our metabolism. It helps with repairing your body, your tissues, your muscles and it can also help be a boost for our metabolism. So really, really important. Protein also can help with blood sugar regulation, our bone health, our cardiovascular health. So so many different benefits and what I wanted to make a point of sharing today. So many different benefits and what I wanted to make a point of sharing today, through the years, years ago, when I would share with my students about the ratio of how much protein to consume, those percentages and ratios have shifted through the years. Now it might have always been what we know today, but we didn't have the science to back it up. We didn't know that we needed a little bit more protein than maybe we were told many years ago. And now it's recommended that we consume approximately 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of body weight. So for a person that weighs, let's say, 150 pounds, their goal would be to consume close to 150 grams of protein per day. And I will tell you that's not something that I knew many years ago, and I've been teaching in kinesiology, nutrition and wellness for 30 plus years. But now the research does support this that our bodies need this protein and it's so important for the different reasons that I have shared. Now, what happens if we don't get enough protein? Well, it can lead to just various health issues, but it can include muscle loss, which we do not. That's the last thing we want to have happen. We do not want to lose any of our muscle. Naturally, as we age, we do lose a little bit of muscle, so we want to do everything we can to preserve that muscle, and that includes consuming the proper amount of protein. Another risk with not consuming enough protein is it can weaken our immune system and it can also lead to potential problems with our skin and our hair. So it's really important that we consume the proper amount each day. Again, it's so important. It helps to repair our cells and to make new ones, and we need that to be happening every single day. Now, when it comes to sources of protein, we have our protein that we can get from dairy products, cheese, yogurt. We have eggs, we have our meats, our chicken, our turkey, and then we also have our whey protein, which is one of the highest absorbable proteins that we can consume, as long as it is a clean source of whey. And so that's what we really want to make sure that we're consuming clean, lean proteins. And then, when it comes to protein powder, it needs to be a very clean, sourced whey protein that we are consuming. Now, some of you might be vegan. You might be consuming a plant-based diet, and that is fine. You can still get protein in through a plant-based diet. You just have to be a little more creative with your food choices, with your food combining. And then also, there are very high quality plant-based proteins out there. You just have to do a little bit of legwork to find the ones that will work for you, that are going to provide you with the high level of protein that you want and your body needs. So I hope that you find this valuable. Again, I wanted to hop in here. Mondays are just short, brief solo episodes where I share about a topic and I wanted to hop in here and just do a quick overview just to share the different essential nutrients that our bodies need daily. And then I wanted to focus on the macronutrient of protein. You hear a lot of talk about protein nowadays and yes, it is important. And yes, you do need approximately one gram per body weight daily, and yes, it's beneficial to spread it out throughout the day to protein pace, as we know it to be called. Get up, have a little bit of protein within your first hour of waking. Have 20 to 40 grams of protein with each meal and then perhaps have a little bit of protein an hour or two before you go to bed. Protein pacing is amazing. Now here's the thing If something happens and you have a day where maybe you haven't consumed enough protein throughout the day, it is okay to consume a large amount in one sitting if you need to do that. We just don't recommend you do that daily or regularly, but the science does show that that is you need to do that. We just don't recommend you do that daily or regularly, but the science does show that that is totally fine to do that. So I hope you find this information valuable. And again, look at some of my past episodes. I have done a couple episodes with Dr Paul Arciero and he has done a ton of research in this area. He is the brains behind protein pacing. And also, if you'd like to know what I do on a regular basis and what protein I consume and have consumed for over almost 11 years as far as a protein powder is concerned, please feel free to message me. All my contact information is in the show notes. I'm always happy to share what I do, what's worked for me, and I also am happy to answer any questions that you have. So, again, hope you find this beneficial and make sure, again, you are getting enough protein in your day to day nutritional consumption, because it is so important for so many reasons that I have shared today. So keep it going, everyone, keep pacing, keep consuming your protein sources. Again, when it comes to meats, make sure they're lean proteins. You can have low-fat dairy products, you have eggs and you also have your whey, and again, I recommend a whey-based protein that's from grass-fed cows, that's undenatured. Plant-based protein that's from grass-fed cows that's undenatured. And then, if you are on a plant-based diet, you can certainly find plant-based proteins and do a little bit more creative food combining to make sure you are getting your complete proteins. And that's something that I didn't highlight here. But you do want to make sure that each protein you consume is complete, that each protein you consume is complete, which means it contains nine essential amino acids. Our body does manufacture some amino acids, but there are certain ones we must get from our food and that's where the protein comes into play, and there are nine essential amino acids that we have to get from the protein that we consume. So you just want to make sure that the proteins you consume are complete proteins, which means they contain those nine essential amino acids. So that is it for today. I hope you have found some valuable information. As always, take some time for yourself, do something for your wellness on this day and we will see you next time on Words of Wellness. Have a wonderful day everyone. 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 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.