If you follow any fitness blog or listen to any personal trainer, they will all agree on one thing. Protein is important. Not only is it important for building and repairing muscle fibers after exercise, but it actually has thousands of other essential roles in the body, including the production of antibodies for the immune system, manufacturing hormones and enzymes that are involved in most reactions in your body, aiding in the digestion and absorption of food, maximizing the transport of oxygen to the tissues and providing structure from muscles, tendons, ligaments, organs, bones, hair, skin, and all other tissues. For body composition purposes, protein is actually the most important dietary macronutrient. The reason for this is that muscle is literally made out of it. If muscle is the car, then protein is the metal out of which the parts are built.

Protein not only provides the building blocks for muscle growth. It also supplies the amino acids needed to reduce muscle breakdown. So in essence protein both builds new muscle and saves existing muscle from being lost. Both functions are very important in maximizing muscle and minimizing fat. Let's now look at what happens when you consume protein. About 90% of the protein you eat is broken down into amino acids and becomes part of the amino acid pool that the body draws upon when it needs to build or repair muscle or any other tissue.

Unlike carbohydrates, and fat, which the body can store for later use amino acids have no form of starch in the body. So it's important you have some protein every day. But wait before we continue, let's clarify one thing. What are amino acids anyway? amino acids are the building blocks of protein and are necessary to support muscle growth. amino acids are usually categorized as essential and non essential.

There are eight essential amino acids but you don't really have to worry about them too much. Just understand that your body cannot create them and they must be obtained from foods and or supplementation. On the other side and non essential amino acid can be produced in the body by reconfiguring other amino acids.