How much protein

Hiya. From what I've researched you should be aiming for 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, lean or total, but I'm sure you know that. I've always found it difficult to calculate my lean bodyweight as I never have an accurate figure for my % bodyfat so to keep it simple I go with total weight. For you that would obviously be 127g. You should actually increase that a bit when trying to lose fat, but for most people that should suffice. 80-90g for you might be okay, I guess you just have to see how it goes. Don't rely solely on the scales to gauge fat loss though because I've seen people achieve a body recomp and stay at exactly the same weight. So take weekly measurements at key areas of your body eg waist, hips, thighs, arms etc. My wife is also pescetarian but fish is a great protein source, albeit with the associated fat amounts too. Salmon, tuna, sardines etc are probably your best as they are among the highest level protein sources. No, or limited, dairy is also a challenge, have you tried a good quality Greek yoghurt as they are pretty high protein, 10g of protein per 100g? Finally, protein powder supplements have come a long way over the past few years and are now regarded as a good, high quality source of protein if you can't get enough in your diet. I'm a complete omnivore and still take a protein powder supplement daily to hit my own protein goal.

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I don't know how I'll be able to achieve my daily protein goal (~150g) without meat, particularly chicken breast which accounts for a big part of my daily protein intake.

CapsLocker wrote: »

Thanks for the insights, from your answers, I guess it's worth it to try and up the protein a bit. Though I'm not sure if I can stomach anything over 100 (anybody else has this problem?)

@sardelsa would this be achievable with a slight calorie deficit like I am doing now or is that going to interfere qith process in a nehative way?

It really depends on your goals and experience. You can start with a slight deficit and see where you go, but the amount of muscle built will be minimal (to none in some cases). If you just want to tighten up here and there a small deficit is good. If you want to add muscle then I would think about recomp.

You're at the bottom of the healthy weight range, are you doing any resistance exercise? I think you'd find what you're looking for with a little bit of that (weights.)

Definitely stick with some type of resistance training (even body weight) whether you are losing a little or maintaining.. that is the best way to achieve body composition changes, as long as you are progressing over time.

Adequate protein is needed to build muscle, but everything I've seen in the literature I've seen implies that muscle increase does not correlate with increased protein consumption above the basic level. The USDA recommendation is only 1g protein per 1kg body mass. Eating 1g protein per pound of body mass (as is often thrown out) about doubles this recommendation. The cost of increasing protein is that you must decrease fats and carbs in order to stay within your calorie plan.

Fats and carbs fuel your activities, and I can't see why it makes sense to eat protein as a fuel: it's primary purpose is a building block. I thus deduce that eating perhaps 0-50% higher than the USDA protein recommendation might make sense, but I've never understood the urge to go higher.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Oops, I meant to suggest this link as informative and reasonably fact-based, too:

https://examine.com/nutrition/how-much-protein-do-you-need/

I think this article is good at summarizing the current advice about protein intake, and I have personally commonly eaten well above 1.2g/kg for extended periods. My point is that when you look at the studies, there doesnt' seem to be much hard evidence that eating >x2 of the base RDA adds much. It may also not affect you very much, except that, if you like endurance cardio, you are stealing out of your carbs and fats which give you fuel.

Bottom line is that I agree with the statement from the article:

"If you’re of healthy weight, active, and wish to build muscle, aim for 1.4–2.4 g/kg (0.64–1.09 g/lb)."

For example, I'm 170lbs and I try to hit ~125g of protein per day (1.6g/kg). On my base maintenance diet of 2000kcals, this represents 125g x 4kcal/g = 500, so I'm getting about 25% of my calories from protein. When I exercise, I try to re-fuel with mostly fats and carbs, but sometimes get a bit more protein along with it. It all seems to work fine.