Protein is a pain in the *kitten*

HeidiMightyRawr

What's your protein goal? I often feel that most people severely overestimate how much protein they require. Sure, it's important but the general recommendation for adults is only around 10%. Most people will never have to worry about being deficient in protein. Those who are very active, athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters etc will obviously need more, but still I don't think it's as high as often quoted. Yet the supplement industry makes a fortune from it!

I have a goal of 77g which is 15% of my calorie goal and works absolutely fine for me. I don't try and have particularly high protein foods, I just eat the foods I like and if I'm much under protein but at my calorie goal, I'll have 1 protein shake. My lifts are still progressing well on that amount and I don't eat animal products at all.

If you're looking for foods that are good protein without extra animal products, I'd recommend things like lentils, black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans, quinoa etc. Dried are a higher % I find than canned, and cheaper as well. Then there's nuts/seeds which are a little more costly, and generally have higher fat + calories.

psuLemon

lemurcat12 wrote: »

ryenday wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

ryenday wrote: »

Yeah, I still see the RDA is .8g protein per kilogram weight. It does suggest obese persons should prob use something other then Bodyweight. I’m not obese, merely overweight. I am over 50. The links I provided say I should probably be 2x RDA and I don’t see anywhere the RDA is based on lean weight or ideal weight.
I’ll read further in the https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-i-need-every-day/ link, but quickly it looked to say exactly what I’m saying?

The difference is is the RDA calculated off of Bodyweight or off ideal weight. It seems to me everywhere I can find it says body weight - so 120+ G protein for me. When I’m at goal weight, yeah, my protein requirements will be less.

Protein is required to maintain our lean body mass. (That's why recommendations are often - and most precisely/accurately - phrased in terms of LBM. But many of us don't know our LBM. Therefore, the recommendations in terms of body weight are essentially the same recommendations, adjusted via a bit of arithmetic mumbo-jumbo to include an assumption about average body fat percentage.)

But our fat mass doesn't require extra protein to maintain it - just calories. Therefore, we use "healthy goal weight" with the grams-per-bodyweight figures as the basis for calculating protein needs when we're still overweight. Overweight people don't need more protein. People losing weight arguably do, but that's (IMO) already built into the 0.6-0.8g (per pound of healthy goal weight) you often see here.

Obviously, this is a huge subject of debate; this is my understanding/opinion.

Totally ignorant on the topic here, I admit. But why doesn’t my fat mass need protein? It’s a part of me. Everything being equal (diet, activity level, age, height etc) two people who only differ in weight fat mass (and have same lean mass) by say 25 pounds would have the same protein requirements? Isn’t just the fact that protein makes up the structural component of our cells mean that the 25 pound heavier person might need more? Or do fat cells literally have no use for the protein. At 25 pounds heavier I have a higher caloric need than my lighter weight counterpart, but only for fat and carb calories? That sounds odd to me.

I am about 25 to 35 pounds overweight. But I shouldn’t count that weight for purposes of my protein needs? I dunno. ( Didn’t I read somewhere that some of my overweightness is muscle I’ve developed to drag my extra fat around?) Don’t fat cells need any protein to function?

You say obviously this is a huge subject of debate, but I would like to say it wasn’t obvious to me. When I got serious about trying to get healthier and fit I did what research I was capable of, ranked sources like Harvard Medical and Mayo Clinic higher than ‘the old lady get’s fit blog’ and found reputable consensus .8g protein per 1 g body weight. And then probably double because I’m older, actively eating under maintenance calories to lose weight and an exercising quite a bit more than the average sedentary American is.

Don’t misunderstand me, I WANT to be wrong. But I can’t find anything reputable that supports this RDA should be calculated off of lean weight. (And I’m willing to admit I don’t understand allot of the mor rigorous scientific stuff - so maybe I’m just missing it). But I need more than the say so of MFP’ers before I’m going to believe it because it seems to contradict what I found in my research and what just makes some sense to me intuitively.

I agree with everything AnnPT77 has said here, for the record.

I'd be curious where Harvard Med or Mayo Clinic is recommending such a high protein intake. I am more familiar with the various Harvard nutrition sites, as they are among my favorite, and they definitely don't.

From the Examine site I linked:

If you are an athlete or highly active person, or you are attempting to lose body fat while preserving lean mass, then a daily intake of 1.0-1.5g/kg bodyweight (0.45-0.68g/lb bodyweight) would be a good target.

and

If you are obese, using a protein intake relative to body weight is a bad idea. Either calculate your lean mass (overall weight after subtracting fat mass, which can be calculated by body fat percentage) or use your goal/target weight for calculations.

I understand you are overweight, not obese, but I think the same principle applies -- it is about lean mass and your lean mass is not significantly different just because one is overweight or obese.

Back to the Examine site:

During Weight Loss

High protein diets have been found to preserve lean body mass when dieting in both obese people[11] and athletes [12] and has also been shown to improve overall body composition[13]. A doubling of protein intake from 0.9g/kg (near the daily recommended intake for the general population) to 1.8g/kg is able to preserve lean muscle mass during short-term and relatively drastic drops in calories.[14]

There I will note they are talking short term and drastic, but also that if one uses a healthy goal weight, for me anyway, my number is right at the same range I mentioned before -- 98 g. It wouldn't make sense that if I were twice the weight I am now, or even 40 lbs heavier (which would be overweight not obese) that my protein needs would go way up. This also was a test of heightened protein vs. the RDA, roughly, it was not intended to suggest that number (1.8x) was the minimum needed, which is probably why the number that is recommended above is 1-1.5 g/kg, NOT 1.8.

Here's Harvard: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/what-should-you-eat/protein/

Here's an article at the Mayo site: https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/are-you-getting-too-much-protein/

Here's IOM for active people: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16004827 (they would have higher needs)

Here's a pretty good article consistent with what I've read in general (note the recommendation to use lean mass or goal weight if you have excess body fat): https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-per-day#section4

Obviously you should do what you want -- I am taking you at your word that you'd rather not feel like you need to consume so much and the one drawback I see as serious to consuming protein in the amounts you are consuming is that without more variety in the diet you might burn out.

To add, here is one of the most recent meta analyses: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/apnm-2015-0549

And this is a little information about protein needs, but tailored to body builders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC6aG4dlRZg