Luke Hines on protein: best foods, daily quotas & supplements

Published Oct 16, 2024, 2:00 PM

Chef, author and TV host Luke Hines takes a deep dive into protein from how much you should be eating to high-protein foods and whether supplements should be included in your daily quota. 

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Well, hello there, thanks for joining us today on Extra Healthy Ish. Yes, this is the big sister podcast, Too Healthy Ish from Body and Soul. I am the host of Felicity Halle and joining me via our online studio. Here's in Melbourne. I am in Sydney. Is chef, author and TV host Luke Heines. We're talking all things protein today. Yes, it's a hot topic in the nutrition world. He is going to share exactly how much we should be eating, the best foods to consume, and whether supplements should be included in our daily dose. Luke, thank you for joining us again on Extra Healthy Ish.

How are you?

I am really good, Felicity. I'm looking forward to having this chat. We're talking about some of my favorite buzzwords in the health and fitness world.

It's such a buzzword, isn't it.

But before we start on that one, that buzzword, how are you staying extra healthy ish right now in your life?

All?

Right?

For me, the keyword at the moment, especially as we lead up to the silly season.

Is balance. I don't know about you, but.

Everyone starts getting a little bit crazy and overwhelmed as we head towards Christmas. Deadlines are looming, school holidays are about to be upon us, and also all those events where people are getting on the booze and maybe they're not eating as healthy as they'd like to. For me, balance enough sleep, getting good quality nutrients, training my body so that I don't get the overwhelmed And are.

You good at that?

Because often we can go out and say, oh, I'm just going to stay in balance, and then all of a sudden, you're at the Christmas party or I tend to have a rubber arm sometimes when it comes to that, and I like living the ish.

Yeah, I mean ish is important. Yeah, I think you can't be to one way or the other. I think when you go exit streams with health, you end up getting down that authorexic path where you don't want to be socializing. You're scared of ordering out at a restaurant. We really want to avoid that. But on the other hand, we don't want to be boozehounds where we just live on an IV drip of alcohol between December and January. That balance piece that you and I like to promote, that's where it's at.

That's the sweet spot.

Because you can eat well, train hard, but still catch up with your friends and family and relax a little bit, because wellness isn't just about the gym, and it isn't just about cooking healthy food. It's about feeling good and hanging out with friends and family that makes you feel good, that fills your soul cup up.

Yeah, absolutely, and if you have a drink in there as well, that's okay as well. But let's talk about that buzzword protein. Remind us what is protein? Why do we need it? All?

Right?

So put simply, protein is one of the key macro nutrients.

We've got three of them.

There's protein, there's fats, there's carbohydrates. Now we need protein because it helps repair and restore our body everything from our muscles, our cells, our tissues. We need protein to thrive and survive. Protein isn't just something for the gym bros to get massive, men and women and everything in between. We need protein to thrive and to survive. But you can't just have protein. You need to also have those healthy nutrient dense fats and good quality smart carbs as well. But the reason we're talking about that buzzword today, protein is that new data from the guys at my Fitness pel has revealed that September is the time where ossie start to really take notice and want to make change when it comes to their health and fitness goals. But what came out of that data is that eighty percent of those users logged that weight loss was their goal.

When they kind of kicked back into gear.

Now, I go, all right, it's all good to you know, weight loss can be almost a little bit of a dirty word in the health in fitness industry at the moment, because you don't want to just promote and celebrate weight loss.

You want to celebrate safe weight loss.

You want to help celebrate reducing body fat and increasing lean muscle mass, because not all weight is created equal. I don't want someone to go lose muscle mass. I think they could lose body weight if they're carrying too much visceral fat. That would cause them health issues. But we've got to be really careful around the terminology, especially so that we don't trigger anything in anybody. Now, the best way to achieve sustainable, healthy weight loss is by celebrating and increasing good quality protein. And that's why it's such a hero because when you eat protein, especially from well sourced places, you're going to feel fuller for longer, and it helps you lose weight without having to do much work.

Why does some many of a struggle to well not only understand what our body needs when it comes to protein, but also eat it.

Yeah, a lot of people don't know how much they need or how important it is. So a general rule of thumb that I do with clients is one to two grams of protein per kilo of body weight. Now, if you're a male who's hitting the gym heaps every week, you're probably on the higher spectrum of things. But if you're just in, you know, an everyday person occasionally going to a fitness class and staying fairly active, one to one point five grams per k love body weight is a really safe amount to have. It can be confusing even giving you those stats, there's going to be people listening going, I don't even know.

What you get said?

What does that mean? What does that look like?

Yeah, you can download my fitness Perl. It's free.

It's in the app store and the Google Play. You can put in your age, your activity level, and your goal. And what's awesome about it is it actually individualizes how much protein you need to not just survive, but to thrive in a day. And when it comes to health and wellness, honestly, knowledge is power. If you understand how many macronutrients you need and what you're where you're getting them by logging your food, you will be a maze. So many people guess, they estimate, they estimate how much protein's on their plate, they guestimate how much fat, protein, and carbs they're having in a day. And if you genuinely do want to lose weight or simply achieve your health and fitness goals, you have to log it. You do, and that's not being over the top. I genuinely don't think logging your food in my fitness pell is extreme because you don't have to do it forever. It gives you the tools to move forward in your life, to go, hey, I'm not getting enough protein. Oh, I'm not getting enough fat, I'm not having enough carbs to actually achieve my goals.

And I's supposed you can just do it for a week or to see where you sit.

I think people sometimes associate food tracking or nutrition apps with deprivation.

And it couldn't be further from the truth.

Once you start putting it in there, you go hang on now I know why I'm tired all the time, or while I'm not recovering from my exercise, or why I've constantly got cravings because you're not eating enough, You're not nourishing yourself enough, You're not giving yourself enough nutrients.

We'll be back after this short break with more from Luke. So where can we get protein from? I mean many of us know the chicken and the beef, and give us some best foods to eat, and particularly some plan based ones because they're often the ones that we don't realize or understand or actually know what they are.

So we could go through initially, some of my key heroes when it comes to birds is obviously chicken and turkey. They're fantastic choices. You've got beef now, always up for grass fed if you can. You know from healthy cows. Pork is a good source of protein. But when it comes to pork, depending on the cut, it can also be quite high in fat. So you can actually get pork steaks and pork filets which have all the fat kind of cut off them so it's more of a white looking meat. But it's actually a good quality source. Now, a lot of people don't eat enough seafood, and when they do eat seafood, they only lean into one particular type. So think about things like snapper and barral mundy for your whitefish. Ocean trout and salmon are great for your redfish. But also don't forget about shellfish and seafood in general. So you've got kalamari, also, oysters, clawn.

They're quite hefty on the proteine.

We're getting to that season now where we're starting to enjoy more seafood in Australia.

I say proce because that's one of my favorites.

They're so they are so good.

I have a crawn tommyum soup on the weekend and the prawns were chunky and juicy and it was spicy, and it is everything I.

Was transported to Thailand. But I digress.

Plant based protein is an interesting on felicity because a lot of people go, how do I get protein from plants? So, of course beans, pulses and legumes, but let's have a look at what those are. So beans, all different types of beans, black beans, red kidney beans, even a good quality tin of baked beans is a fantastic source of protein. Chickpeas are really really good. Lentils are fantastic, but also we could be looking at things like tofu and tempe.

They're all good sources.

Now, if you are one hundred percent and pure plant based, I can't recommend enough to make sure that your protein combined. So protein is made up of amino acids, right, and we want to get the broad spectrum of those amino acids so that we're having a complete protein in our day. Now, animal proteins, they're a complete protein, but not all plant based proteins are complete proteins. So what you want to do is you want to have some beans, some nuts and legumes, also some tofu and tempe, so that we're getting variety. That nutrient density and that diversity is when you get the full spectrum of those nine amino acids.

It's funny you just mentioned the humble baked bean, and I've really got into these lately. I went and bought about ten tins and I'm like, right, family, yeah, you're getting into the baked beans.

I mean I had them growing up.

And then I think sometimes you know, in the health and wellness space, and you'll be like this, look, you get lulled into thinking, oh, I have to make that. Oh I need that like fancy recipe. Oh I need to do that.

I need to do that. I but you actually don't.

No, I am with you.

I'm loving the baked beans are having a massive moment in my kitchen right now, and you.

Know what I love about it.

If you look carefully, you can get some really good ones. The ones I'm getting at the moment, they're not from any fancy specialty stores. They're from your mages. But they don't have added sugar, they have no numbers, no feelers, So just read your labels.

Yeah.

Simple swaps is one thing that.

We talk a lot about at My Fitness Peal because a lot of people think when they're losing weight that they have to cut out their favorite foods, and it couldn't be further from the truth. I actually created these incredible high protein Ossie pub recipes for the My Fitness Peal app. So if you do go in there and you're looking for food that tastes like summer, we're talking about a palmi, We're talking about a burger, We're talking even about a sticky date pudding. I've given it the Lukin's Health Affied healthy Ish version, and what I did was removed things from packets that are processed. I've increased the nutrient density by upping the protein, and I'm giving you all the same flavors that you love, so that if your goal is to lose weight, you don't feel like.

You're missing out.

And your goal doesn't even have to be to lose weight. Your goal could simply be live healthier and eat great food that tastes.

Awesome, increase your PROTEC. How do you make a sticky date putting nutritious and healthy?

That's the question. What did you do there?

So, both in the actual pudding and the caramel sauce, I have snuck in in tarhini.

Interesting.

Yeah, a really good quality source of healthy fat in there. So that takes out a lot of things like heavy cream or anything else that we're used to being thick and decadent. But then what we're doing is we're topping it with a really good quality, high protein yogurt. But we've also made it refined, sugar free, gluten free, and everything from scratch, So you're reducing any inflammatory markers that you might get from a store bought packet version, and you're increasing the nutrient density and the protein.

And I'll tell you what. I know what I'm going to make the sufternoon.

Does it taste as good?

Better? I'm going to say better. I'm going to say better I do.

And I know I'm biased, but you've got to You've got to check these recipes out.

It's it's my Aussie pub classics. Done good.

I like it.

Tick Okay, we're talking about protein. Everyone's buzzing about protein. So can you eat too much?

Like?

When?

When?

When does the doll you know you can becomes eating? Oh my goodness, how much am I really eating?

It would be really hard to get to the point where eating too much protein affected you in any way. And they'll tell you why. Protein keeps you feeling full of for longer, And it's the type of thing that your body goes, I am full, I have had enough. You won't want to overeat protein because it is such a nutrient dense food. But the worst thing that will happen, and I mean if you simply eat too much protein that your body can actually consume, and they say that it's about thirty grams of protein per hour that you can actually utilize and absorb. Anything else is either going to be spent out the other side of your body as waste, or worst case scenario, you have so much protein it'll be similar to when you eat too much sugar, it'll.

Be stoughed as fat. So but that is a really hard position to be and it is quite tough.

What's your take on supplements, I mean, bar shakes, giant tubs of powder. Can this add to your protein quota? Or is this particularly if you are working out or running a half marathon or whatever you're doing. Is this something then you should factor into your diet.

I'm not off sucks. I'm not as long as they're real food based. There's a lot of green washing out there, and by green washing, I say fancy packaging that makes you think it's healthy. If you are in a position to be at home and cook from scratch and make all of your meals nutrient dense, awesome, you probably don't need supplements.

If you're someone who's busy on the goal.

A lot has busy family life, kids, work, career, and you're traveling. Supplements are the perfect stop gap to get in there to make sure that you hit your macro nutrients in a goal. Now, there's some weeks where I'm not traveling anywhere felicity, and I'm trying to cook all my food from scratch, and I have my beans, and I do this, and I do that. But there's other weeks where I'm living out of a suitcase and the only way to achieve a lack of exhaustion, to repair my muscles after training, to not reach for takeaway food is to have good quality supplementation. And hey, isn't it better to have a protein sashet in your ready to go than being stuck in the middle of nowhere or an airport and the only option is takeaway. I much prefer to supplement Just read, read your labels, remove the process and refine sugars, make sure the protein's there and it's good quality fat. If there's any numbers or ingredients you don't understand, leave it on the shelf.

Have you got any other hacks?

Because I think your point about being busy and often, you know, if I'm thinking I need to just measure my protein load, that's another thing I need to do. How can we or perhaps how you mean? You're you're a professional, so it's you, it's in your psyche anyway, you're an expert. But how can the rest of us make sure that we do get enough protein in our day, all right.

So, I mean one of my first rules I give clients is create a palm size or a fifth size worth of protein on your plate in every meal. Now everyone's got a different sized fifth, and everyone's got a different sized palm, so that might vary from person to person. I think the best way to make sure it's right for you is to track it. I don't think there's any harm in tracking your macros. You can download my Fitness Pel for free. You can put in your age, your gender, your activity level, and it'll tell you how much protein you need a day to achieve your goal. And I think when you've got that knowledge, it's really really powerful because then you can input your food. You can track what you're eating throughout the day.

It's easy.

You can scan barcodes, so a lot of people think that it's quite manual that you've got to work out, oh, how many grams of this? I could scan my favorite tin of healthy baked beans into the my fitness pl app and it will come up with every macro nutrient in there, including the serves, and say I've had two serves of the beans that day, I can input it it goes against my daily total. And then towards the end of the day, I can go ooh, I'm low on protein, but I'm high on carbs. So my next meal, I might try to make it more protein heavy, lower on carbs.

I hit my macros and.

I think, you know, you said something in there. You are in charge of your own health. You have to empower yourself with knowledge, and I think reading labels and really understanding what you're consuming. Focus on it for a couple of weeks, especially at this time of year, and we're all kind of cleaning out our health, so to speak. And that knowledge is in there, so you'll know next time when you reach.

For a whatever food it may be, or whatever it is. You know.

Yeah, yeah.

I did a big weight loss challenge straight after COVID. I put on ten kilos and I wanted to lose ten kilos. I thought, being in the industry, I would know what to do, how to do it, and I should do this right. But I was still overeating without tracking. So once I started using my fitness fell I was like, hey, it's incredible that those very generous swigs of olive oil, even though it's a very healthy food are adding up to my daily caloric intake, and I'm wondering why I'm not shifting any weight. Even you can even over eat healthy foods like absolutely, it's all about that energy exchange, how much you're moving, how much you're eating. But also hormonal balances they come into play, stress, anxiety, all sorts of stuff like it's not as simple as Okay, I'm going to eat some fruit today and I might lose weight. You've got to sleep better, you've got to practice mindfulness, you've got to try to reduce your stresses in your life.

It's a holistic approach.

Now, don't be listening to this going soberwhelming, Luke into the city.

I'm finding this a lot.

No, I think you've simplified it. Yeah, I've done a good job.

When you start doing it, it feels easier. It really does.

There's things that I know my younger self right now would go what are you doing? And they're just second nature to me. Yeah, you know, because it becomes habit and routine.

I just reach for the prawns.

Oh hello, anyway, Luke, I'm joining you one day for that prawn tommym soup down in Melbourne.

Good, Yeah, it's I'm your in Melbourne. It's an incredible place, soft a little side street. You'd never know it was there, and it's authentic. Typhoon and I in Protein.

A winner, Luke, thank you for joining us on Extra Healthy.

Thank you, Felicity.

Would you like to join us for that tomm Yum prawn soup? It sounds delicious, doesn't it. How are you with your protein intake?

Have you got it sorted?

Or perhaps you do need some help? I think we all need help, right, We just need reminders. That's what we need when it comes to nutrition and health and wellness, and of course this podcast is the place to come for it. You can subscribe to this podcast, make sure you are you can rate and review, of course you do that wherever you well press play on the podcast. Head to Bodyansoul dot com dot if you need any more info. Hey, If you do have any ideas for upcoming guests or topics, dm me at Felicity Harley. You can also follow us on socials at Body and Soul or of our prenudition which is at your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow Stacks Tweldfish