Is there anyone on here that has made gains while eating an 'ordinary' protein diet? ie. no supplements of any kind, no ridiculous amounts of milk or cottage cheese, tuna etc.
I'm pissed off at the price of all this shit and am paranoid that if I start eating more "normally" I will lose all size. I also feel slightly pathetic having my life revolve around eating stuff that doesn't taste good.
When you say "ordinary protein diet" are you talking about a "low-carb diet" or are you simply talking about a diet without protein shakes ("ordinary protein" meaning, whole food sources)?
I was a Bill Phillips disciple for many years in the 90's and had been convinced that up to 75% of my daily caloric intake should come from MRP shakes. It did take quite a while to break that mentality. I still feel the urge every now and then, because it was drilled into my brain so much.
I'm now a much bigger believer in solid foods. When these guys talk about the "Protein Intake Effeciency" and "Protein Effeciency Ratio" and how much protein your body can actually absorb at one time; well, I'm not going to say there's a magic number there. But WHATEVER the number may be, it would be FAR GREATER with solid food protein versus shakes/whey.
The reason is simple: if you eat 50 grams of protein from chicken breast or steak, it's going to take your body hours to digest it - and that doesn't mean, in a few hours, all 50 grams will be digested. It means that at a steady-rate-of-digestion for a few hours straight, you'll be absorbing and using protein. On the contrary, 50 grams of whey protein will be digested in less than one hour, and I severely doubt your body would be able to use it all.
So whole food protein = a higher PIE or PER or WHATEVER you wanna call it!