Protein

PDReader

Scratching my head. In the vegetarian and raw communities, you often hear from people opposed to eating animals, "You don't need all that protein anyway."

Yet watching things like "Extreme Weight Loss" and "My 600 Lb Life," those people are losing literally TONS of weight and what are they eating? Protein, protein, protein, protein.

What say you? I have lost weight on 50-75% raw before and prefer the diet because it seems healthier, but I notice my fat grams are always too many and my protein grams are always "too few."

At least it's healthy fat.

MelaniaTrump

Yes, raw foods provide healthy fats.

AnnPT77

I try to find recent, mainstream, good-quality, research-based scientific sources for important decisions about nutrition. Lifestyle-advocacy blogs, newsletters, etc., are not, IMO, good sources of information, on average.

So, despite being vegetarian (not vegan, not raw) for almost 42 years, I don't much care what "the vegetarian community" says about how much protein I need.

And I think there's decent evidence that people in calorie deficit, and/or people working out somewhat strenuously, and/or people getting a large fraction of their protein from incomplete sources (in terms of essential amino acid content) benefit from getting more than the USDA minimum of daily protein. I'm in all 3 of those groups.

But everyone needs to make their own eating decisions. I see no need to debate about it, at least until someone tries to talk a 3rd party into doing something I think is not healthful.

Carlos_421

What matters for weight loss is a calorie deficit.
What matters for muscle retention (so that more of said weight loss is from fat) is adequate protein (.8-1.2 grams per pound of ideal weight) intake and heavy lifting.
What matter for healthy joints, hair, skin, nails, hormones, brain, etc. as well as vitamin absorption is adequate fat intake (.35 to .42 grams per pound of lean body weight).
Then make sure you get enough fiber (20-40 grams) to stay regular and maintain a healthy gut.
The rest of your calories after meeting those goals can come from carbs or from extra fat and protein, whatever you prefer.

It also doesn't matter whatsoever whether those goals are met from plant based sources, meat, vegan, pescetarian, eggs, milk, whole foods, highly processed foods, unicorn steaks...

Just:
1) Maintain a calorie deficit
2) Get enough fat, protein and fiber

In that order.