Protein
 
Protein is made up of amino acids. The nine essential amino acids are histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptotphan and valine. When you consume protein, your body needs to break it down and rebuild these acids to suit human conditions. (For example, chicken is chicken muscle which needs to be broken down and made into human muscle.) There are essential (your body needs them) and non essential (your body can create its own) amino acids. Protein containing all of the essential amino acids in sufficient quantities is known as complete protein. This group includes meat, fish, eggs, and soya. Incomplete protein doesn’t have sufficient quantities of all nine amino acids and is found in sources such as fruit, nuts, pasta, and rice.

You need protein to grow and repair your muscles, connective tissue, organs, bones, hair and nails. It’s important to eat enough, because if your body doesn’t receive sufficient protein, it starts to use its own sources from your body for repairs.

Every time you exercise, you damage or micro-tear your muscle fibres and break protein down into amino acids to use as fuel. This process stimulates your muscles to adapt by becoming faster, bigger or stronger. The heavier the resistance, the more this happens, so you need to ensure that you have adequate protein sources to allow rebuilding.