”˜How Much Protein’ by Brad Pilon Book Review

One of the questions I get asked regularly is which books I recommend. I usually answer that I don’t like books because they generally have an abysmally low information density, are rarely referenced and are almost always outdated. This is true for books in general, but it’s especially true for books about health and fitness.  I prefer to get most of my knowledge from scientific journal articles. That way I can interpret the facts myself in their relevant context and in relation to the other literature on the subject.

However, there are exceptions, so I decided to write a few book reviews on books that you may not know but may be worth reading, starting with the books by Brad Pilon. If there’s a book you’d like me to review, post it in the comments section and I’ll take a look at it if I haven’t read it yet.

Enter Brad Pilon

Most of these exceptions are people rather than products. Brad Pilon is such an exception. I’d never taken any serious interest in the guy until relatively recently when I accidentally came across some quotes on his publication on protein, which interested me enough to buy his book How Much Protein? In it he cites much of the same research I did in my article on protein requirements for bodybuilders and came to pretty much the same conclusions. Unlike most people, he also analyzed the research in sufficient detail to see that the hype on workout nutrition is mostly based on the wrong kind of studies and that protein needs actually decrease with training age. He also impressed me with his realistic views, his perspective on the difference between natural and PED using bodybuilders and for seeing that it’s completely nonsensical to base your macronutrient requirements off a percentage of your total caloric intake.

If you’ve read all my articles, you’ll already know most of the main conclusions, but Pilon goes into far greater details than I did and covers many related topics that I didn’t. For example, he also covers how often you should eat protein and if there is a limit to the amount your body can absorb in one sitting. He also talks much more about the theory of how protein leads to muscle building and how this process is affected by various hormones and meal timing. Also, there’s no filler material and it being an eBook, Pilon regularly updates his books, so it doesn’t suffer from being out of date or low on information density (the book has about 10 pages of references).

My Verdict

If you’re satisfied with the knowledge from my article on protein requirements, don’t buy this book, because it most likely won’t change your mind on how much protein you should eat. However, if you’re still skeptical or want to know more about protein requirements and related topics, I recommend this book as your first source of information. It’s only $9.99 for a 3 day subscription, after which you can decide if you want to purchase the book including free future updates, so you don’t have much to lose.

You can buy How Much Protein here. This takes you to one of those extremely cheesy sales pages, which seems completely inappropriate for a scientifically referenced book to me, but just scroll down all the way to the bottom of the page to the huge ”˜Add to Cart’ sign and then you can download it immediately after paying.