Protein intake

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  • SusanMFindlay
    SusanMFindlay Posts: 1,804 Member
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    Gamliela wrote: »
    Protien requirements aren't usually set at one gram per pound of body weight. Country nutrient guides vary. UK suggests 53 grams per adult. The European Union suggests .83 per kilogram of body weight. North American standards appear to require higher amounts. IDK why. I aim for 55 per day as a sedentary old female of 5'7" and 9 stone. I am always over it by 20 or 30 grams. As summer depens My goals are to replace some protien calories with carbs from fruit. I heard too much protien is hard on the kidneys, I don't know if that is so or not though it would be good to find out. Young people can get away with more than those of us in the upper years.

    The numbers we were recommending are for muscle preservation when eating at a deficit. Somebody who is eating at maintenance doesn't necessarily need as much protein, and the RDAs reflect that (though the UK one is stupid; so, my husband who is 9 inches taller than me and 80 pounds heavier needs the same amount of protein as me? I think not; any flat recommendation that doesn't take body size into account is bad).
  • Gamliela
    Gamliela Posts: 2,468 Member
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    SCoil123 wrote: »
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    According to NHS
    "The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women)."
    I eat a bit over double, at around 100gr.

    I eat more than double that and just had labs run. My protein levels weren't even high. The only reason I can imagine for limiting protein is if your body isn't processing it properly.
    How do you mean 'process'? As in tmi, constipation, slow gastric emptying?
    Why do they recommend 55.5 and 45 grams then advise eating twice the amount? This seems misleading.

  • Spliner1969
    Spliner1969 Posts: 3,233 Member
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    MFP increases your macros with exercise you log. Drives me crazy. If you are a paid user you can turn that setting off. Instead of paying for another year (I did pay for 1 year, figured I owed at least that to MFP, but honestly I think it's too expensive), I calculate my daily goals and macros using a different site that figures in my average exercise per week (iifym.com). Once I have that amount I manually set my daily calories and my macros so that they don't change. When exercise is logged automatically in MFP, I simply change it manually to 1 calorie burned so it doesn't mess with my preset macros. As far as how much protein you need, it's my opinion (for whatever that's worth) that you should eat .8g to 1.0g/lb of your target body weight. Just be careful if you're overweight and don't use that weight to calculate. Calculate it by your ultimate goal weight. IIFYM.com can help you set those macros pretty easily and I believe it defaults to .9g/lb. YMMV.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
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    Gamliela wrote: »
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    According to NHS
    "The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women)."
    I eat a bit over double, at around 100gr.

    I eat more than double that and just had labs run. My protein levels weren't even high. The only reason I can imagine for limiting protein is if your body isn't processing it properly.
    How do you mean 'process'? As in tmi, constipation, slow gastric emptying?
    Why do they recommend 55.5 and 45 grams then advise eating twice the amount? This seems misleading.

    because the recommendations are the MINIMUM daily amount for healthy body function
  • SCoil123
    SCoil123 Posts: 2,108 Member
    edited May 2017
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    Gamliela wrote: »
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    According to NHS
    "The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women)."
    I eat a bit over double, at around 100gr.

    I eat more than double that and just had labs run. My protein levels weren't even high. The only reason I can imagine for limiting protein is if your body isn't processing it properly.
    How do you mean 'process'? As in tmi, constipation, slow gastric emptying?
    Why do they recommend 55.5 and 45 grams then advise eating twice the amount? This seems misleading.

    I was responding to another comment that said it is harder for our bodies to "process" protein as we age or when taken in excess. I assume they meant digestion and absorption, neither of which are really an issue.

    There was also mention of it being hard on your kidneys which is not my experience at all. As stated my labs were just run and I am smack in the middle of the "healthy" range for the amount of protein detected in my blood work. And that level was with eating 100g+ a day
  • elliej
    elliej Posts: 466 Member
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    gebeziseva wrote: »
    According to NHS
    "The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women)."
    I eat a bit over double, at around 100gr.

    NHS admittedly low-balls protein but I've never seen that 'avoidance' recommendation. NHS advice (and consequentally almost all UK food packages) base a 50g/day recommendation on a 2000 cal/day diet, which is over 60% carbs and then roughly 15% each fat and protein. Cray.
  • Silentpadna
    Silentpadna Posts: 1,306 Member
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    Spliner1969 wrote: »
    MFP increases your macros with exercise you log. Drives me crazy. If you are a paid user you can turn that setting off. Instead of paying for another year (I did pay for 1 year, figured I owed at least that to MFP, but honestly I think it's too expensive), I calculate my daily goals and macros using a different site that figures in my average exercise per week (iifym.com). Once I have that amount I manually set my daily calories and my macros so that they don't change. When exercise is logged automatically in MFP, I simply change it manually to 1 calorie burned so it doesn't mess with my preset macros. As far as how much protein you need, it's my opinion (for whatever that's worth) that you should eat .8g to 1.0g/lb of your target body weight. Just be careful if you're overweight and don't use that weight to calculate. Calculate it by your ultimate goal weight. IIFYM.com can help you set those macros pretty easily and I believe it defaults to .9g/lb. YMMV.

    But your LBM isn't necessarily your goal weight is it? Wouldn't that mean 0% body fat? Not sure if I'm right on that, but I've always tried to be .8-1 g per LBM pound, which is about 18-22 pounds less than my goal weight.

    Of course hitting that .8-1.0 g can be a little tricky, but I'm in the ballpark most days.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,558 Member
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    SCoil123 wrote: »
    Gamliela wrote: »
    SCoil123 wrote: »
    gebeziseva wrote: »
    According to NHS
    "The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women)."
    I eat a bit over double, at around 100gr.

    I eat more than double that and just had labs run. My protein levels weren't even high. The only reason I can imagine for limiting protein is if your body isn't processing it properly.
    How do you mean 'process'? As in tmi, constipation, slow gastric emptying?
    Why do they recommend 55.5 and 45 grams then advise eating twice the amount? This seems misleading.

    I was responding to another comment that said it is harder for our bodies to "process" protein as we age or when taken in excess. I assume they meant digestion and absorption, neither of which are really an issue.

    There was also mention of it being hard on your kidneys which is not my experience at all. As stated my labs were just run and I am smack in the middle of the "healthy" range for the amount of protein detected in my blood work. And that level was with eating 100g+ a day

    Protein and aging: Research is suggesting we need more protein as we age, not less. The only sense in which it's harder for us healthy oldies to process protein is that we may not utilize it as efficiently as we did when we were younger.

    Also, I want to underscore what a couple of people have said, but some have glossed over: If you use a protein estimate that's given in terms of "body weight" (rather than "lean body mass"), then definitely use your healthy goal weight as that "body weight". Our excess fat doesn't mean we need extra protein, because protein is used for maintaining lean mass.

    Bodybuilding sites often seem to say "per pound of body weight" without qualifying that, perhaps under the assumption that someone interested in bodybuilding is already reasonably lean. That can mislead people who're still overweight into eating more protein than they need (which isn't necessarily injurious to healthy people, within reason, but if the person's on low calories it can drive out fat calories or micronutrient-rich fruits/veggies that are needed for best nutrition).

    This whole topic gets very confusing because the number of grams may be expressed as "per unit of body weight" or "per unit of lean body mass (LBM)"; the units may be expressed as pounds or kilograms; and different people have different beliefs about the right target range, so the same numbers (0.6g, 0.8g, 1g) may be used in any of the above combinations of units and base weight.

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