Daily Protein Goal Unreachable. Plus: protein-per-calorie chart!

LogasATX wrote: »

Hello again. I’m back with another puzzling question.

According to my body composition analysis, I require 1,650 calories and 124 grams of protein (30%) per day, assuming I'm a lazy bum and don't exercise.

I soon discovered that’s a lot of beef!

As a pescatarian/vegetarian, it would require consuming, in one day, 6 fish fillets; or 2.5 sixteen oz tofu containers; or 2.3 eight oz tempeh packages, leaving only 400 calories remaining.

Six cans of black beans? Hits the protein but totals 2,310 calories.

Stumped on how to consume this much protein, on average, and square with calories, I ranked healthy high-protein, non-meat foods and sorted them by protein grams.

See top table hosted at google docs; comments enabled.

I quickly realized the top 2/3rd are high in calories. OK, so it’s an optimization problem?

For example, 16 oz of tofu is 450 calories or 1/3 of my daily total, yet only 45 grams of protein. Almond butter, a healthy favorite, so I thought, provides 21 grams of protein at the price of 540 calories – yet just 6 tablespoons!

Determined, I then calculated these foods’ “protein-per-calorie” and resorted the ratio from high to low.

See bottom table hosted at google docs; comments enabled.

Fish is the clear winner: high protein, low calories, plus omega-3s. Still, that’s 6 fillets a day, which seems a bit excessive besides being costly. Plus quality considerations and possibly growing gills.

7.8 cups of 0% Greek yogurt a day, anyone?

I understand the nutrient grams/day is a guide and not iron-clad. Still, the amount seems impossible, especially if one wants to avoid protein supplements and stay within the caloric limit.

QUESTION
As a fish out of water, what am I missing?

As 47+ years a vegetarian, I think you're thinking about it wrong. It's not "one big protein", it's getting protein from lots of different foods, all through the day. Sure, big protein sources are great. But the small ones add up: Veggies with more protein, grains with more proteins than others, snacks with protein, beverages, with protein, even some fruits have protein. Eat those things.

If you have 1650 calories, and need 124 calories from protein (not sure where you got that, since it's not the MFP default, but let's go with it), you need 496 calories of protein. Gosh, you eat fish, even. (I don't.) That seems achievable.

I don't know how big you are, so don't have enough info to have an opinion on your goal, but I'm personally a fan of the calculator @lietchi linked, or as a rule of thumb, 0.6 to 0.8g per pound of healthy goal weight (which is close to equivalent to 0.8-1g per pound of lean body mass for many people, but most people don't know their lean mass). Also, that overlaps, for many people, with the range the linked calculator will suggest. I was able to get that while losing weight, at 1400-1600 calories (plus exercise). In maintenance, I routinely exceed the 0.8 without much effort. even on days with no exercise (which are not the usual case).

If you're finding those kinds of numbers challenging, one thing to consider is your calorie goal: Is it too aggressive? I have no way of knowing whether it's what you're shooting for, but losing 2 pounds a week isn't the most nutrition-respecting goal for a lot of people who attempt it.

How to square protein with its corresponding calories?

I think I said most of it above, but maybe add this: As a veg*, I figure a single food with roughly 10 or fewer calories (from all macronutrients) is a useful protein source. For a complex (prepared) food or dish, something in the 20-30 calories per protein gram range is usually a reasonable thing to include in my eating. Things with less protein density than that . . . well, it better be something I find super-tasty, or with other major nutritional benefits, or something.

Those might not be the right rules of thumb for you, but they help me evaluate things in the store, and you might be able to come up with number that help you with quick evaluations. Then it's a matter of tweaking overall intake over time in a positive direction, to dial in the nutrition you decide you need.

What’s the metabolic consequence of falling far short of your daily protein goal?

Metabolic? I can't think of any.

Satiation? Maybe. Some people find protein sating, feel crave-y when they fall short.

Body composition? If you're cutting calories and/or strength training, protein is one of the building blocks for retain or repairing/building muscle tissue.

Thank you to anyone who can add beef to my lentils.

Beef? Uck. 😉
Lentils? Yum.

Speaking only for myself, of course.

Sincerely,
Protein Deprived

Best wishes!

@LogasATX . . . I'm not sure what to tell you.

I routinely get over 100g as an ovo-lacto vegetarian, on 1850 plus exercise (that's approximately maintenance calories for me, just slightly under because I calorie bank - I'd say true maintenance is around 2000-2100 depending on season, plus exercise - I do usually eat all the carefully estimated exercise calories, have for almost 7 years, getting expected results. I'm 5'5", female, mid-120s pounds, age 66, maintaining).

I can get 100g and often more, on a non-exercise day, i.e., at 1850 gross intake. It took some tweaking of my eating at first, but it's pretty automatic now.

When you say that thing about "4 cans of beans", I till feel like you're not taking on board the idea of getting a significant protein source in each meal, plus little bits from nearly everything else you eat.

Here's an example day for me, at 1844 calories gross intake (I had some exercise calories, left them, had plans for brunch with a friend next day so added them to my calorie bank). It was 115g protein. (I hope these screen grabs will be readable, I broke the day into two pieces so the type looked a bit bigger.) Could've had more protein, too, since there are obvious discretionary treats in the list; didn't need more protein IMO. I don't care if I'm over sodium: My blood pressure is fine, and the days pictured coincidentally had sauerkraut, which is a sodium bomb.

Most things are weighed, even those that appear like they're not (like I weighed 8g of peanut butter powder, which per the label equates to 1Tblsp, and there was an accurate entry for 1Tbsp in the MFP database). I have the same oatmeal breakfast most days, but don't usually have the same lunch - these are accidentally the same lunch, using up the smoked tofu while still good. The dinners vary a good bit.




Here's another day, at 1785 calories gross intake, no exercise that day (which is kind of unusual, but . . . .).




If you want to see more, you're welcome to send me a friend request; I'll accept it. My diary is open to MFP friends. I'm kind of sub-par on the friend-feed side of MFP, but will answer questions on my page. I don't usually close my diary until after midnight, so there's no "Ann was under calories here's her diary" link, but I do log most days and you can navigate to my diary and look at it if you wish.

One caution: I don't welcome critique of my eating habits, as I'm happy with them. There will be chocolate, beer, some over-goal (maybe way over goal days sometimes). Most days, I'm probably eating something in the 2100 - 2400 or so range, because of exercise. Sundays are commonly a rest day, at 1850, and there are a few others in there at that level too, if I skip exercise for some reason.

I hope that gives you an idea what I'm doing, to hit/exceed 100g as a vegetarian.

When left to my own devices, on a vegetarian diet, I get a little more than the RDA for protein when eating at a deficit. It’s one of the benefits of using MFP that because I was paying attention to nutrition I was able to shift my eating habits to include more protein.

@AnnPT77 has good advice: don’t think of trying to get one single big protein source, but maximize the protein in everything. Thinking that way (I’m sure inspired by one of her past comments on the topic) has improved my protein to calorie ratio slowly over time.

Today I got 99g in about 1850 calories. I could have easily improved that (either same protein in fewer calories or more protein in the same calories) by eating something besides Taco Bell for lunch or by reducing the amount of fruit I ate.

I’ll post today’s diary if you’re interested to see another example:

LogasATX wrote: »

Hello again. I’m back with another puzzling question.

According to my body composition analysis, I require 1,650 calories and 124 grams of protein (30%) per day, assuming I'm a lazy bum and don't exercise.

...

Sincerely,
Protein Deprived

Exercise!

https://examine.com/nutrition/protein-intake-calculator/

I shoot for @ 500 calories of exercise per day, and when I achieve that, using the MFP default of 20% protein aligns with the protein recommendation from examine. If I were completely sedentary, I'd need to bump it up to 30%.