Rethinking Protein While Healing

Over the past year, protein has become one of the most talked-about nutrients in the wellness world. It’s everywhere—protein powders, protein chips, protein cereal, protein water. Headlines often suggest that we should all be consuming more: “The More Protein, the Better?” or “Are We Eating Too Much Protein?” Depending on where you look, the advice seems completely contradictory.

This confusion can feel even heavier when you are healing from chronic pain, fatigue, inflammation, or nervous system overload. Your body is already working harder than most people realize—repairing tissue, rebalancing hormones, and navigating stress responses that have likely been running for years. So the question becomes:

How much protein is actually supportive when your body is healing—and how do we avoid both under-eating and over-fixating?

To understand what’s helpful, it’s useful to look at where our protein recommendations originally came from, and why many people in chronic pain may need a different approach.

The earliest guidelines for protein were based on studies measuring nitrogen balance—a way of determining how much protein someone needed to avoid deficiency. In the late 1960s, researchers like Miller and Payne used nitrogen tracking to calculate the minimum levels a person needed to prevent muscle breakdown or malnutrition.

This research informed the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) that most people have heard of—which is about 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.

But here is the key:

The RDA was never intended to represent the amount required for optimal health.
It represents the amount required to avoid deficiency in generally healthy adults.

Avoiding deficiency is a different goal than:

So when we hear “0.8 g/kg is enough,” what we’re hearing is:
This is the minimum to keep you from declining—not necessarily what helps you rebuild.

Chronic pain isn’t just about the part of the body that hurts.

When pain persists over time, the body is in a continuous state of repair and inflammation management. The nervous system becomes more alert, muscles tighten to compensate, and the body cycles through stress hormones more frequently. All of this increases your need for amino acids—the building blocks of protein.

Protein supports:

This is why many researchers in metabolism and exercise science suggest that protein intake closer to 1.2–1.6 grams per kilogram can be more supportive for people who need to rebuild tissue or maintain muscle—especially during periods of recovery.

For older adults, or those who have lost muscle over time because pain limited movement, some research suggests protein needs may be even higher—not endlessly higher, but consistently and steadily supported.

The goal is not more and more protein.

The goal is enough protein, consistently, to give your body what it needs to restore itself.

Recent articles have raised concerns that our society has gone overboard with protein—adding it to processed foods, oversupplementing, and treating it like a cure-all.

This is a real issue.

Protein itself is not the magic.
Your body can only use protein effectively when:

A protein shake without enough energy intake won’t repair muscle.
Protein chips don’t replace real food.
Eating 160 grams of protein a day doesn’t rebuild muscle without gentle, consistent movement.

So the misunderstanding goes both ways:

What heals is the whole pattern, not a single nutrient.

Even the best nutrition plan cannot rebuild muscle or reduce pain without movement. Not intense workouts. Not “push harder.”

Gentle, safe, gradual movement.

Large research studies have shown that cardiorespiratory fitness is strongly connected with long-term health and reduced mortality risk—across age, sex, and background. And this holds true whether someone is young, older, in a larger body, or has a history of illness.

Movement doesn’t have to look like what we see in fitness culture.

For people healing from chronic pain, movement must be:

This could be:

Muscle heals through reassurance, not force.
The nervous system needs to trust the body again.
Protein helps that process—but movement is what gives your body the signal to rebuild.

You don’t need perfection. You need repeatability.

Here’s a structure many people find helpful during healing:

This is not a diet.
This is rebuilding your relationship with your body.

Chronic pain can make us feel betrayed by our bodies.
But your body has never been working against you.
It has been protecting you, even when that protection became over-sensitive or overwhelming.

Protein is not a trend to chase.
Movement is not a punishment.
You do not need to earn your right to feel well.

Healing is not about force.
It is about nourishment, safety, patience, and re-learning how to listen inward.

Your body wants to heal.
Your job is to give it what it needs to do so.

Slow. Steady. Kind. Consistent.

Rebuilding is possible.
Not overnight. But over time—yes.

Callahan A. The More Protein, the Better? The New York Times. April 2025.
Hoyle A. Protein — are we all eating too much? The Times. July 13, 2025.
Miller DS, Payne PR. Assessment of protein requirements by nitrogen balance. Proc Nutr Soc. 1969;28(2):225-233.
Subcommittee on the Tenth Edition of the Recommended Dietary Allowances, Food and Nutrition Board, Commission on Life Sciences, National Research Council. Recommended Dietary Allowances. 10th ed. National Academies Press; 1989.
Phillips SM, Chevalier S, Leidy HJ. Protein requirements beyond the RDA. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2016;41(5):565-572.
Nowson C, O’Connell S. Protein requirements and recommendations for older people. Nutrients. 2015;7(8):6874-6899.
Mandsager K, et al. Association of cardiorespiratory fitness with long-term mortality. JAMA Netw Open. 2018;1(6):e183605.
Kokkinos P, et al. Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality Risk. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2022;80(6):598-609.

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