To increase muscle mass along with regular exercise, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommends that a person consume between 1.2 and 7 g of protein per kg of body weight per day. For a 130-pound woman looking to gain muscle mass and strength, it's 71 to 100 g, and for a 150-pound man, 82 to 116 g. Since amino acids resulting from muscle protein degradation are reused as mentioned above, suppressing muscle protein would also decrease the amount of building blocks available for the new muscle protein. Over the course of a longer period of time, 22% more muscle protein would be synthesized after each workout, making a significant difference.
Meals containing 40 grams of protein seem to be a sensible approach, even if the upper plateau is around 30 grams, where larger amounts do not increase protein synthesis even more. The substantial decrease in protein degradation observed after high protein intake cannot be directly related to a certain amount of muscle protein. If you're overweight and trying to reduce body fat, I recommend that you try to consume your target body weight in grams of protein. Evidence suggests that, in fact, there is a limit to the amount of protein that can be used per meal to build muscles.
If you regularly train full-body exercises, you could benefit from increasing your protein intake after training. If you can't get enough protein through diet alone, you can add protein powders to help increase your intake. In fact, if plasma amino acids are continuously elevated, protein synthesis returns to baseline values, even with a greater availability of amino acids. It doesn't have to be more complicated than spreading your daily protein intake throughout the day with moderate portions of protein of between 30 and 40 grams each.
The more proteins and carbohydrates consumed in the context of a single meal, the better the protein balance, that is, the difference between protein synthesis and protein breakdown. The current recommended daily dose of 0.8 g per kg of body weight of protein is based on the amount needed to maintain nitrogen balance and prevent muscle loss. For example, a relatively fit 180-pound man should try to consume between 108 g and 198 g of protein a day to gain muscle. According to the NHS, the daily reference protein intake is 50 g, but that doesn't take into account the differences between people, so it doesn't change if a person measures 6 feet 9 or 4 feet 4, nor does it take into account the difference in need between a person who weighs 80 kilos and one who weighs 200 kilos.
After protein intake, plasma amino acid levels must decrease before protein synthesis can be stimulated again by another protein intake.
