Getting Enough Protein on Veg Diet

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littlenfit22
littlenfit22 Posts: 8 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi! I'm currently getting back on track with my fitness and health goals but I'm finding it difficult to hit my recommended protein intake.

I am allowed 1200 calories at day and am supposed to be taking in about 130 grams of protein. However, I am eating a primarily vegetarian diet and am finding this difficult to do without significantly increasing my fat intake. There is a little wiggle room here as I do eat fish about 1-2 times a week.

What tricks and tips do you adhere to in order to get enough good protein on a mostly vegetarian diet?

Replies

  • katermari
    katermari Posts: 137 Member
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    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    Hi! I'm currently getting back on track with my fitness and health goals but I'm finding it difficult to hit my recommended protein intake.

    I am allowed 1200 calories at day and am supposed to be taking in about 130 grams of protein. However, I am eating a primarily vegetarian diet and am finding this difficult to do without significantly increasing my fat intake. There is a little wiggle room here as I do eat fish about 1-2 times a week.

    What tricks and tips do you adhere to in order to get enough good protein on a mostly vegetarian diet?

    i am also in the same spot!!!
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    edited September 2019
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    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    Hi! I'm currently getting back on track with my fitness and health goals but I'm finding it difficult to hit my recommended protein intake.

    I am allowed 1200 calories at day and am supposed to be taking in about 130 grams of protein. However, I am eating a primarily vegetarian diet and am finding this difficult to do without significantly increasing my fat intake. There is a little wiggle room here as I do eat fish about 1-2 times a week.

    What tricks and tips do you adhere to in order to get enough good protein on a mostly vegetarian diet?

    Are you sure you need the absolute minimum of 1200 cals?

    And where did you get the 130g goal? Not that it's bad, but it's on the high side, and doesn't really fit with your calorie goal. That's like 45% protein, which many people would find impossible. As a 5'4" woman, I would find it impossible to eat that few calories and that much protein. I lost weight on 1500 cals and aim for 90-100g of protein.

    Having said that, if you eat dairy, low fat Greek yogurt and skim milk might work. Soy products in general, tofu is typically lower fat I believe. Leaner or low cal fish would be shrimp, canned tuna, some white fish fillets.
  • Dreamwa1ker
    Dreamwa1ker Posts: 196 Member
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    This thread has a spreadsheet for comparing protein sources: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10247171/carbs-and-fats-are-cheap-heres-a-guide-to-getting-your-proteins-worth-fiber-also/p1
  • littlenfit22
    littlenfit22 Posts: 8 Member
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    @kimny72 I'm trying to aim for body recomp (lose fat, gain muscle) and the caloric intake and protein amount was what was recommended based on the macro calculator I used. I am also exercising (HIIT) about 5-6 times a week.

    I agree with you! It seems like an absurd amount of protein for the calories!! I definitely need the guidance lol.

    Thank you for your suggestions! :)
  • littlenfit22
    littlenfit22 Posts: 8 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    Hi! I'm currently getting back on track with my fitness and health goals but I'm finding it difficult to hit my recommended protein intake.

    I am allowed 1200 calories at day and am supposed to be taking in about 130 grams of protein. However, I am eating a primarily vegetarian diet and am finding this difficult to do without significantly increasing my fat intake. There is a little wiggle room here as I do eat fish about 1-2 times a week.

    What tricks and tips do you adhere to in order to get enough good protein on a mostly vegetarian diet?

    Where are you getting this 130 grams from? Seems excessively high. I know PROTEIN is all the rage right now, but it's getting a bit excessive. 0.6-0.8 grams per Lb of bodyweight is just fine if you're already in a healthy range...otherwise 0.6-0.8 grams per Lb of goal weight.
    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    @kimny72 I'm trying to aim for body recomp (lose fat, gain muscle) and the caloric intake and protein amount was what was recommended based on the macro calculator I used. I am also exercising (HIIT) about 5-6 times a week.

    I agree with you! It seems like an absurd amount of protein for the calories!! I definitely need the guidance lol.

    Thank you for your suggestions! :)

    If you're exercising 5-6 days per week, 1200 calories shouldn't be your target...that's the minimum for a sedentary female for weight loss. You aren't going to be doing "re-comp" at 1200 calories. Also, true HIIT should only be done once or maybe twice per week...true HIIT leaves you completely wasted and you wouldn't be able to do it 5-6 days per week...beyond that, if you're really interested in re-comp and building muscle, you need to lift weights or otherwise do resistance training...not cardio, cardio, cardio.

    Hi! I alternate resistance interval training (which includes weight lifting) with cardio training with a day break between each.

    I'm no expert on this so, of course, I'll accept any help I can get. In addition, I try to level out at 1200 after subtracting calories from working out. The macro calculator could have been misleading so thank you for your advice!
  • 3011sophie
    3011sophie Posts: 20 Member
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    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    @kimny72 I'm trying to aim for body recomp (lose fat, gain muscle) and the caloric intake and protein amount was what was recommended based on the macro calculator I used. I am also exercising (HIIT) about 5-6 times a week.

    I agree with you! It seems like an absurd amount of protein for the calories!! I definitely need the guidance lol.

    Thank you for your suggestions! :)

    My understanding of recomp is that you should be eating at maintenance calories with a high protein intake while lifting heavy (this is all from reading threads on here, I'm not at that point yet!) - so is 1200 your maintenance calories? That seems low unless you're a very petite elderly woman, especially if you're exercising so much!

    As a fellow pescetarian on 1200, I've found that the only days I hit my protein goal of at least 75g are when I have a protein shake as breakfast and either fish or tofu with dinner. Eggs, cheese and nuts are all much higher in fat than I can include as major protein sources, and things like lentils/beans are relatively high in carbs. Having said that, I could do much better with a bit more planning - it's not impossible to hit your target macros without protein shakes - I'm just lazy!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,981 Member
    edited September 2019
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    Keep it simple and use the MFP calculator :)

    How many grams of protein do you get when you put 25% in here? https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals

    (Change the other two to make the total equal 100% however you like.)
  • littlenfit22
    littlenfit22 Posts: 8 Member
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    3011sophie wrote: »
    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    @kimny72 I'm trying to aim for body recomp (lose fat, gain muscle) and the caloric intake and protein amount was what was recommended based on the macro calculator I used. I am also exercising (HIIT) about 5-6 times a week.

    I agree with you! It seems like an absurd amount of protein for the calories!! I definitely need the guidance lol.

    Thank you for your suggestions! :)

    My understanding of recomp is that you should be eating at maintenance calories with a high protein intake while lifting heavy (this is all from reading threads on here, I'm not at that point yet!) - so is 1200 your maintenance calories? That seems low unless you're a very petite elderly woman, especially if you're exercising so much!

    As a fellow pescetarian on 1200, I've found that the only days I hit my protein goal of at least 75g are when I have a protein shake as breakfast and either fish or tofu with dinner. Eggs, cheese and nuts are all much higher in fat than I can include as major protein sources, and things like lentils/beans are relatively high in carbs. Having said that, I could do much better with a bit more planning - it's not impossible to hit your target macros without protein shakes - I'm just lazy!

    @3011sophie Hey! No, I think have the calories for weight loss set on here. 1500 would be maintenance for me. Definitely changing things up a bit so I tested out a few of these calculators to get a better understanding of recommended calorie amount. By the sounds of it, I should probably consider going up a bit.

    Thanks for for the tips! Are there any favorite recipes that you use? :)
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    edited September 2019
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    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    @kimny72 I'm trying to aim for body recomp (lose fat, gain muscle) and the caloric intake and protein amount was what was recommended based on the macro calculator I used. I am also exercising (HIIT) about 5-6 times a week.

    I agree with you! It seems like an absurd amount of protein for the calories!! I definitely need the guidance lol.

    Thank you for your suggestions! :)

    If you aren't trying to lose weight, 1200 is definitely way too low. It sounds like you are using a faulty calculator. Set up your profile here with your current stats, set your goal as "maintenance" to get your calorie goal. Then figure out what 0.6-0.8g per lb of bodyweight is, and fiddle around with the percentage until it gets your protein goal in that range. As @kshama2001 said, it will probably be @ 25%.

    And check out this thread when you get a chance, I think it might be helpful:

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1
  • littlenfit22
    littlenfit22 Posts: 8 Member
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Keep it simple and use the MFP calculator :)

    How many grams of protein do you get when you put 25% in here? https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/my_goals

    (Change the other two to make the total equal 100% however you like.)

    Thank you! This puts me at 79 g of protein.
  • 3011sophie
    3011sophie Posts: 20 Member
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    littlenfit22 wrote: »
    Thanks for for the tips! Are there any favorite recipes that you use? :)

    My go-to easy dinner is a stir fry full of loads of veg, prawns, and high-protein lentil noodles (M&S if you're in the UK!). We eat a lot of tex-mex style stuff - stir-fried onions and peppers, with kidney/black beans and/or a vegetarian mince or chicken alternative (Quorn) - I'll have it with lettuce wraps while my husband has tortillas.

    With fish, I'll either pan-fry a fillet skin-side-down and serve it with noodles and veg with a sweet chilli sauce or miso broth, or with like a curry you can place the fish fillets on top of the sauce and stick a lid on top so it steams the fish full of the curry flavour for the last ~5 minutes of the cooking time.

    Happy to send more specific recipes if there are any that take your fancy!
  • nooshi713
    nooshi713 Posts: 4,877 Member
    edited September 2019
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    I agree with the others who said your protein goal seems too high. If you still eat some fish, eggs, and dairy then others made great suggestions and you shouldn’t have any trouble.

    If you are majority plant based, soy, beans, quinoa, tempeh, lentils will do it but if you have muscle gain goals, there is nothing wrong with supplementing with protein powders.

    Plant based proteins are low fat in general. If you still eat dairy, whey will work too.


  • April_M_2015
    April_M_2015 Posts: 18 Member
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    Hi littlenfit22.

    I'm in a similar situation to you (pescetarian but limit fish to 1-2 days per week; 1,200 calories after exercise is subtracted). I'm just starting to add weights to my fitness routine as previously all I did was run. I'm also just starting to explore my protein needs and have been calculating which foods are the most efficient sources of protein - meaning the foods with the greatest percent of calories coming from protein.

    According to the calculations I've done, the best foods are fish and eggs whites. Cod gets 93% of its calories from protein, pollock 92% and egg whites 91%. For pure veggie proteins I believe that seitan (if you can stomach it) is the highest at 67% of calories coming from protein; the soy products are around 30-40%; Lentils are around 30% and the various beans range from 20%-30%. Nuts are very inefficient sources of protein.

    Translating this to 130 grams of protein, you'd need to eat about 560 calories worth of cod to reach your protein goal, 1300 calories worth of edamame (at 40%), 1730 calories worth of lentils (30%) or a whopping 10,400 calories of nuts (5%)! Please note that my calculations are all approximate and I haven't looked at protein powders as I don't personally like them - but I'll bet they are efficient.

    I hope these are some helpful insights for you. Best of luck in reaching your protein and fitness goals.

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