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Today’s Health Upgrade

• Number you won’t forget (the protein rules)

• Is fresh food dangerous for dogs?

• Weekly wisdom

• In the news: Analyzing the “olive oil and cancer” study

Nutrition
Number You Won’t Forget: 1.6 grams per kilogram

You don’t have to stress about how much protein you need. But the number that works for muscle gain is lower than most people suggest. 

Protein advice has a way of making smart people feel confused. 

One person swears by a gram per pound. Another says double it. And another will tell you that protein doesn’t help muscle growth and causes cancer. (We tackled that myth earlier; the research does not suggest protein causes cancer) 

Your feed is full of people drinking four shakes a day like it's a competition. 

Somewhere in the endless debate, the actual question gets buried: how much protein do you really need to build muscle?

In the largest meta-analysis of its kind, scientists found that for most people, eating 1.6 grams per kilogram of your goal body weight is all you need to build muscle. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t add more or that it’ll all go to waste. Some studies suggest that, depending on your training and overall diet, you might see some additional benefits up to 2.2 grams per kilogram. But this study was about finding what will work for most people. 

In the study, scientists reviewed 49 clinical trials and compared protein intake ranging from 0.9 to 2.4 grams per kilogram per day. On average, they found that gains in fat-free mass (lean muscle) climbed to 1.62 grams per kilogram, then flattened.

In other words, when you eat about 0.7 grams per pound and train hard — and by the way, the training is more important than the protein — you have everything you need to build muscle.  

For a 165-pound person, that's roughly 120 grams of protein a day, which might surprise some people.

It's worth repeating (to end the debate before it starts): the researchers found wide variation in results. Some people could build muscle at 1.2 grams per kilogram, while others saw results at up to 2.2 grams per kilogram. 

It’s best to view 1.6 grams/kilogram as a proven amount, but not a physiological limit. 

We recommend not obsessing about a specific number. The research makes it clear that if you eat a good amount of protein in each meal (say, 20 to 60 grams), get enough total protein per day, and stay within the range you need, you’ll see results. 

Together With Sundays For Dogs
You Were Told Fresh Dog Food Was Dangerous. Research Says Something Much Different.

You think hard about what you eat. Real food, good protein, not a lot of processed junk. You read the label.

But the story for dogs seems a little more complicated. And scientists aimed to clear up the confusion.

A study in the Journal of Animal Science put three diets head-to-head in adult dogs. Standard extruded kibble, lightly cooked food, and raw food. Researchers tracked how much of each meal the dogs actually absorbed, plus blood work, urine, and gut bacteria.

The kibble lost.

Dogs eating the lightly cooked and raw diets absorbed more of their food. More protein, more fat, more of the nutrients that were supposed to count. They also had a healthier gut microbiome, which drives digestion, immune strength, and how good a dog feels day to day.

Then there's the part the kibble aisle won't mention. The blood and urine tests came back clean. No harm from the fresh diets. That old warning that raw or fresh food is risky for dogs? The study didn't find it.

The scientists believe the difference is in how it's made. Most kibble gets cooked at high heat and pressed into shelf-stable pellets. Easy on the warehouse, hard on nutrition, and your dog eats around the loss.

So we went looking for better food that didn't turn dinner into a project. After testing many options on man’s best friend, Sundays For Dogs was our favorite.  

Sundays for Dogs is air-dried rather than extruded, so it avoids the high-heat damage. Human-grade meat, fruit, and vegetables, on a list short enough to read out loud. A vet founded it. And in a blind taste test against regular kibble, dogs picked Sundays 39 to 0.

Best of all, it’s designed for your busy schedule. No fridge, thawing, or prep is necessary. Just scoop it into the bowl and let your dog handle the rest.

Their new fish recipe is 80% whole fish, including invasive carp pulled from American rivers, packed with the omega-3s that support skin, coat, and joints. Built for picky eaters, since most dogs go for fish first.

Of course, if your dog has special needs or medical concerns, just like your own diet, please consult your vet. 

Sundays For Dogs gets the Pump Club stamp of approval. If you have pets, give them the same attention to nutrition that you would give yourself. 

Use code PUMPCLUB for 50% off your first order and see what your dog does with it.

Mindset
Weekly Wisdom

Sometimes, it feels like you’re doing everything right. And then you’re blindsided, and it doesn’t make sense. 

You start a new plan. You prep your meals for the week. You start going to bed earlier, setting your alarm and getting up earlier. Your gym bag is ready. And if someone asked what you're doing, you could rattle it off in detail: the workout split, the step count, the amount of sleep you want each night. You've got the what down cold.

What trips you up comes later. It’s not the plan, necessarily. It’s when life decides to throw the plan off course. 

It’s the moment when the alarm goes off after an exhausting day, and some part of you is supposed to argue for getting up. This moment — and so many others like it — force many plans to crumble quickly.

And that’s because many plans have a fatal flaw.

When all you have to offer is "I’m doing a fitness thing right now," you don’t have much to fight the human urge of taking it easy. Because your goal is just an activity. And activities are easy to pause.

Many of us jump straight to "do what you have to do" and skip the first half entirely. "First say to yourself what you would be" isn't a throwaway line before the real instruction. It is the real instruction. 

If you want to change, you must first decide who you want to be, and then do the work. Because the work only holds when it's attached to deeper meaning and a part of who you are.

And it’s not just a flashy quote from a philosopher. Research on behavioral change has arrived at the same conclusion: Goals rooted in who you actually want to become, the ones that express your own values instead of a borrowed resolution, earn more sustained effort and are far likelier to survive a bad week. 

Goals you adopted because you figured you should, with no self-perception on the line, come apart the second motivation dips or life gets chaotic. 

We talked about the marshmallow test earlier this week, and how people overestimate the importance of willpower. 

If you want to change, the real leverage is creating stakes where quitting costs you something that matters. 

When the goal is just a behavior, skipping it costs you a behavior. When the goal is who you are, skipping it means being someone you've already decided you're not.

Turn Wisdom Into Action

We have data on tens of thousands of people who want to change. We know what gives people a much higher likelihood of achieving their goals and what trips them up.

You can start two people on an identical plan. One says, "I want to drop fifteen pounds." The other says, "I'm becoming someone who keeps promises to myself." 

Six months later, they're nowhere near the same place. One person found that the pounds could only fuel so much motivation. The other one had a self on the line, and you can't run out of that.

It’s why, when you join the Pump Club app, one of the first things we ask you to do is declare a vision and habits. And we ask you to make it personal, and then we give you tools and support to succeed. 

If you want to do what you have to do, first declare who you want to be. 

Answer the sentence, "I'm becoming someone who ______." 

Fill the blank with an identity, not an outcome. Not "someone who loses ten pounds," but "someone who keeps promises to themselves," or "someone who doesn't bail on the hard days." 

Then the next time that dark-morning alarm goes off, you're not deciding whether to work out. You're deciding whether to be that person. It’s the same task, but it’s much harder to hit snooze when the stakes are bigger.

Eventually, the hard mornings stop being a test of your discipline. They're just a person doing what that type of person does.

The Catch
Find Today’s Answer And Win

Every week, we feature “The Catch,” where we hide a trivia question in an email and then randomly select and reward those who submit the correct answers. Here is this week’s Catch:

The item below debunks a recent headline suggesting “olive oil causes cancer.” The study didn't pin tumor growth to any single food, so what did the researchers find?

Submit your answer here. Three people who answer correctly will be randomly selected to receive a $20 gift to the Pump Club store.

In The News
No, Olive Oil Doesn't Cause Cancer. Here's What the Study Actually Found

A headline made the rounds recently that probably earned a double-take. You might have seen that olive oil, the stuff at the center of every "healthiest diet on earth" list, might fuel cancer.

The study is real. However, the conclusion people pulled from it is not what the researchers found.

First of all, this was not a study on the causes of cancer in humans.

It focused on how fat affects tumor growth in mice. And the most interesting finding was more hopeful than fear-inducing: omega-3s cut pancreatic disease roughly in half.

Scientists created 12 high-fat diets with identical calories, differing only in the fat source, and fed them to mice genetically engineered to develop pancreatic cancer. Diets heavy in oleic acid, the monounsaturated fat in olive oil, avocados, and nuts, accelerated tumor growth. Diets rich in polyunsaturated fats, especially omega-3s from fish oil, slowed it. 

The fish-oil group ended up with about half the disease of a standard fat diet. What tracked tumor burden wasn't any one food. It was the balance of polyunsaturated to monounsaturated fat. And again, it was in mice that already had tumors (not healthy mice).

The scientists believe polyunsaturated fats oxidize easily, leaving cancer cells more exposed to an iron-driven form of cell death. Monounsaturated fats resist that oxidation and end up shielding the cells. So the fat you eat rebuilds the membranes around those cells and helps decide how easily they die.

This is an interesting data point to consider how the body might change when it fights cancer. But it does not mean olive oil causes cancer. 

And we know that because here’s the most important part the headlines skipped. These were mice bred to get cancer.

The headline won’t say it, but it’s not like the scientists fed people olive oil and watched cancer grow.

Not to mention, when you look across hundreds of well-designed human studies, more than half a tablespoon a day of olive oil has been linked to lower rates of cancer and cardiovascular death, not higher. 

So you can keep eating olive oil, avocados, and nuts without worrying they will cause cancer.

A better summary would be, "get your omega-3s, and if you have cancer, maybe talk to your doctor about your balance of polyunsaturated to monounsaturated fat.” But even then, it’s not conclusive and still limited to animal research.

Based on the majority of research we have, two servings of fatty fish a week, or a fish oil capsule (if that's easier), cover your needs. 

And that’s it for this week. Thanks for being a part of the positive corner of the internet. Take action on any goal this weekend, and we hope you have a fantastic weekend. 

-Arnold, Adam, and Daniel

The Positive Corner of The Internet
About Arnold’s Pump Club Editorial Standards

We do things a bit differently here, starting with transparency.

1. The Content: All APC emails are researched, written, and fact-checked by the APC editors (see bottom of the email), with written contributions from Arnold (noted with “Arnold’s Corner”). Links take you to original studies (not second-hand sources).

2. Does AI play a role? Not for the primary content, but it is used in two ways. The main items are original content written by the APC team. The summaries at the end are AI-generated based on the human-written content above. We also use an AI tool to review our interpretations of the research and ensure scientific accuracy. We don’t assume AI is right, but we use technology to hold ourselves accountable.

3. Yes, we have partners (all clearly noted by “Together With”). Why? Because it allows us to keep the APC emails free. We first test products, and then reach out to potential partners who offer ways to help you improve every day. The bar is set high, and to date, we have turned down millions in ad deals. (Example: we will not partner with any non-certified supplements or those without evidence in human trials). If we won’t buy the product, we won’t recommend it to you. And if there’s no evidence it works, then there’s no place for it here.

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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger​

Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell