Protein and vegetarianism
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Bob's Red Mill makes pure whey powder - 10.99 for a package that makes 17 servings and has zero fat and 80 calories of only protein. I think you could add it to almost anything to bump up your protein healthily and effortlessly - mix into yogurt, cereal, milk (if you add ice, cocoa powder and stevia you could make a nice shake, just stir in the whey powder at the end if you blend it so it doesn't get too frothy). If you like vegetarian chili, add black and kidney beans. You could also try hummus and carrot sticks, chick peas on salad is pretty good too. I think they make bread with protein in it too. There is also a recipe for protein pancakes on the Red Mill package.
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Numerous studies by the WHO have determined that 97.5% of the adult population need only around 2.5% calories by protein. They doubled this to cover 99% of the adult population. They then doubled it again just to be safe. 10% protein by calories. It is almost impossible to get less than 7% or 8% protein by calories eating just fruits and veggies.
And I should mentioned they don't list it as % of calories. They list it as a protein/kg of body weight. .66 grams per kg of bodyweight is their recommendation for an adult. For a 70kg adult, that comes out to 184.8 (.66 x 4 x 70) calories of protein per day. It that 70kg adult is a 25 year old male of 178 cm in height, then their RMR is around 2,000 calories. So, for this adult male, the recommendation is 9.25% protein by calories for a sedentary individual. If that person is very active and they burn an extra 1,000 calories in a day, then it would drop to 6.2% protein by calories.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf?ua=1
My anecdotal experience is the opposite of yours. I lost nearly 100 pounds eating a high card, low protein, low fat diet, and then added on over 30 pounds of muscle. Actually, I am close to 40 pounds of added muscle now.
I would ask you what your diet was like, and what kinds of exercise did you engage in.
I was a vegan at the time so fruits and veggies with lots of grains. I ate pretty much all the time because it was a lot of plant stuff. I was running all the time, biking, martial arts six days a week.
I don't doubt that in America we eat FAR too much protein but my personal experience suggest to me that it IS possible to eat too little as well.
This is a pic I posted in another thread that I dug up a few days ago. Not by any stretch my lowest but it will likely give you an idea of what my diet led to for me. The funniest thing, because I didn't have a lot of upper body mass (even though I added heavy lifting in later), I still had a little bulge of fat in my midsection.
My body never evened out for me until I upped the protein which led to gains on the weights which stopped folks from asking me if I was dying or not.
When I was twiggy I was probably at 20 grams of protein a day at best and that was often a challenge on my diet. Not trying to disagree just to disagree, just have slightly different real world experience than you so its a fun topic to discuss.0 -
If you were only consuming 20 grams of protein, that means you were only consuming about 1,000 calories a day. You were calorie deficient, not protein deficient.
Eating more protein will not increase muscle mass. Especially if you are calorie deficient. Stressing your muscles to their peak and eating an excess of calories will. Running and biking are endurance exercises. When you perform endurance exercises, your body will want to shed fat, but also muscle that it isn't using. This is why endurance athletes are often much thinner than performance athletes.
Now you are trying to lose 100 pounds? You looked phenomenal in that photo. I think you were doing something right. You just needed more weight training and HIIT if you wanted to build muscle.0 -
Vegan here, I usually hit over 100 g/day using Morningstar products, protein shakes (Muscle Milk) and edamame. I only do 1/2 to 1 serving of the Muscle Milk and usually one serving of either the Morningstar Sausage Patties or Black Bean Burger, and snack on edamame. I also like to make an almond milk latte with just Blue Diamond unsweetened vanilla almond milk and a tiny bit of flavored coffee creamer heated for two minutes in the microwave. It takes some research, planning, and trial and error but I'm sure you can find some foods that work for you!0
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bump to read later.0
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No that was when I was in my 20's. Got a job and fat since then.
I was 20 grams of protein on about a 1800 - 2000 calorie a day diet which was still calorically deficient for my activity hence the continued weight loss throughout.
I guess you could be right in that the it was all just a calorie / fitness thing. I know when I added back in some lean meat I opened up a few more calories a day but I've always sort of put the body composition thing into the hands of protein. At the time, I definitely felt like it was the protein that reshaped things though since I did not gain more than a few pounds but looked worlds different once I upped it.0 -
bump0
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I'm 36 and been vegetarian since 17. If you are eating chicken and fish you are NOT vegetarian. OP, beans, eggs, yogurt, tofu, tempeh, and if you like, the occasional morning star farms prepared stuff to start with will get you going.Low fat dairy and beans, and fish if you eat it?
Why would a vegetarian eat fish lol
I've heard a fair few, and seen a lot on here, of pescetarians describing themselves as vegetarian.
A few times I've seen vegetarians eat chicken... smh0 -
Found these awhile back. Hopefully they are accurate. Also Quinoa.
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Almonds and cottage cheese serve me well.
I'm looking to reduce my meat intake, so I'm interested in this thread.0 -
Found these awhile back. Hopefully they are accurate. Also Quinoa.
They must be referring to percentage of protein by weight here. would have to eat a tremendous amount of raw spinach to get an appreciable amount of protein!!!!!!! ( 500 grams of spinach to get 14 grams protein)
neat chart though.0 -
No that was when I was in my 20's. Got a job and fat since then.
I was 20 grams of protein on about a 1800 - 2000 calorie a day diet which was still calorically deficient for my activity hence the continued weight loss throughout.
I guess you could be right in that the it was all just a calorie / fitness thing. I know when I added back in some lean meat I opened up a few more calories a day but I've always sort of put the body composition thing into the hands of protein. At the time, I definitely felt like it was the protein that reshaped things though since I did not gain more than a few pounds but looked worlds different once I upped it.
You are claiming 4% protein by calories. I have a very hard time conceiving of any diet of fruits, veggies, and grains that is 4% protein by calories. Could you provide me any example of such a diet? I even tried once, and I couldn't manage to get below 5%, and that was by eating mostly apples and grapes. Throw in any vegetables or grains, and it shoots up pretty quickly. So, I am having a hard time imagining why it was difficult for you to only get 4%.0 -
Found these awhile back. Hopefully they are accurate. Also Quinoa.
They must be referring to percentage of protein by weight here. would have to eat a tremendous amount of raw spinach to get an appreciable amount of protein!!!!!!! ( 500 grams of spinach to get 14 grams protein)
neat chart though.
They are listing protein of total calories. One cup of spinach is 1 gram of protein which is more than say an apple, or a cup of grapes.0 -
You are claiming 4% protein by calories. I have a very hard time conceiving of any diet of fruits, veggies, and grains that is 4% protein by calories. Could you provide me any example of such a diet? I even tried once, and I couldn't manage to get below 5%, and that was by eating mostly apples and grapes. Throw in any vegetables or grains, and it shoots up pretty quickly. So, I am having a hard time imagining why it was difficult for you to only get 4%.
I wasn't a calorie counter back then so I mostly just kept track of the stuff I knew had protein in it (i.e. food labels). Never occurred to me to count the protein from an apple...
Bananas, broccoli, rice, peas, apples, oranges, bell peppers and TONS of V8. Aside from the can mostly just stuff that I grabbed from the produce section of the store.
I did keep tabs on my calories, so I know they were in the range of 1800-2000 but honestly the protein numbers I had from the fruits and veggies back then were always low... of course that was back when a single book was considered reference and before the entire world of information was completely digitized.0 -
1 gram of protein per lb of bodyweight is crazy high. That comes out to like 30% protein by calories for sedentary individuals which is 3 times the WHO recommendation. There is no evidence that this is needed, not even for body builders. The absolute highest I have seen for body builders was .82g/lb, and they were routinely burning through 5,000 calories a day, so the percentage never really got above about 15% calories by protein. And this has more to do with maintaining nitrogen balance than actually having enough protein to repair and rebuild.0 -
I'm a lacto ovo vegetarian and get a decent amount of protein eating beans, cheese, quinoa, and peanut butter. You can look at my diary to get an idea of what I eat (Thursday and earlier, yesterday I had lots of cupcakes so ignore that lol)
Beans, shredded cheese, whole wheat bread/tortillas, and peanut butter are pretty cheap. I'm a full time student making minimum wage so I totally understand where you're coming from.0 -
You are claiming 4% protein by calories. I have a very hard time conceiving of any diet of fruits, veggies, and grains that is 4% protein by calories. Could you provide me any example of such a diet? I even tried once, and I couldn't manage to get below 5%, and that was by eating mostly apples and grapes. Throw in any vegetables or grains, and it shoots up pretty quickly. So, I am having a hard time imagining why it was difficult for you to only get 4%.
I wasn't a calorie counter back then so I mostly just kept track of the stuff I knew had protein in it (i.e. food labels). Never occurred to me to count the protein from an apple...
Bananas, broccoli, rice, peas, apples, oranges, bell peppers and TONS of V8. Aside from the can mostly just stuff that I grabbed from the produce section of the store.
I did keep tabs on my calories, so I know they were in the range of 1800-2000 but honestly the protein numbers I had from the fruits and veggies back then were always low... of course that was back when a single book was considered reference and before the entire world of information was completely digitized.
I would say if you ate an equal proportion of all those foods, you would be easily looking at 9% protein by calories, or 45 grams.0 -
They must be referring to percentage of protein by weight here. would have to eat a tremendous amount of raw spinach to get an appreciable amount of protein!!!!!!! ( 500 grams of spinach to get 14 grams protein)
neat chart though.
They are listing protein of total calories. One cup of spinach is 1 gram of protein which is more than say an apple, or a cup of grapes.
Not that I am a math wiz.... but perhaps Im just confused. if the chart is showing percent of protein of total calories, then something is amiss.
100 calories of spinach has 12 grams of protein (12 grams* 4 calories per gram = 48 calories out of 100 is protein) neat!
however, 100 calories of Chicken breast meat has 21 grams protein ( 21*4= 84 calories out of 100 is protein) which is outstandingly higher than the "23%" that the chart calls out.
I don't care either way, I just like to know how things like this get calculated.0 -
Would you like to provide an intelligent rebuttal?Ignore protein. It is the biggest myth in all of nutrition. It is near impossible to not get enough protein if you are getting enough calories.
A human baby will grow 300% in its first two years of life consuming only mothers milk. Human breast milk is around 4.5% protein by calories. Never in your life will you need more protein then in your first two years of life.
This post is just ridiculous.
I think that might be on you. Incredible claims are often the ones that require evidence.
I was a vegan for five years, worked out and exercised every day on a protein deficient diet and while I was "healthy" I looked like I had AIDS and or was undergoing cancer treatment.
Not sure I could jump into the camp of protein being a myth without some facts to support it.
Numerous studies by the WHO have determined that 97.5% of the adult population need only around 2.5% calories by protein. They doubled this to cover 99% of the adult population. They then doubled it again just to be safe. 10% protein by calories. It is almost impossible to get less than 7% or 8% protein by calories eating just fruits and veggies.
And I should mentioned they don't list it as % of calories. They list it as a protein/kg of body weight. .66 grams per kg of bodyweight is their recommendation for an adult. For a 70kg adult, that comes out to 184.8 (.66 x 4 x 70) calories of protein per day. It that 70kg adult is a 25 year old male of 178 cm in height, then their RMR is around 2,000 calories. So, for this adult male, the recommendation is 9.25% protein by calories for a sedentary individual. If that person is very active and they burn an extra 1,000 calories in a day, then it would drop to 6.2% protein by calories.
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/trs/WHO_TRS_935_eng.pdf?ua=1
My anecdotal experience is the opposite of yours. I lost nearly 100 pounds eating a high card, low protein, low fat diet, and then added on over 30 pounds of muscle. Actually, I am close to 40 pounds of added muscle now.
I would ask you what your diet was like, and what kinds of exercise did you engage in.
I guess you don't understand the difference between "minimal" and "optimal". The WHO recommendations are the minimum amount to avoid malnutrition.0
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