High Protein (> 175g) diets?

Vonwarr
Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
Hello all - I've been working on my journey to good health, and as part of the process I've been getting back into some solid lifting.

I've been doing a fair bit of reading on macros and balances, along with what's necessary (in general, and while on a restricted diet). Basically, I should be getting at least 165g of protein a day, and could benefit up to 230g of protein.

My question to MFP is: Who else is eating this much protein? How are you reaching that level?

I've been eating an absurd amount of boneless skinless chicken breast and turkey breast (I absolutely loathe all seafood). I've switched to greek yogurt, have started supplementing baked goods that I make with protein powders, and am generally on the lookout for higher protein meals to have.

I do supplement with whey protein powders, but they are quite EXPENSIVE, and I'd rather them be an after-workout thing to take advantage of the window or only necessary on the occasional day, instead of becoming a necessary staple in my diet.
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Replies

  • _TastySnoBalls_
    _TastySnoBalls_ Posts: 1,298 Member
    I, personally, would never eat that much protein. protein is hard on the kidneys and it messes with your pH. But I guess that's the fad :ohwell:
  • drewols
    drewols Posts: 77
    High protein is a fad? Get outta here with that
  • TheNewDodge
    TheNewDodge Posts: 607 Member
    I'm between 150 and 200 almost everyday. My body size and composition require it.

    You can check my diary if you want. Protein Shakes, Eggs and lots of meat.
  • stonerdude
    stonerdude Posts: 103
    I, personally, would never eat that much protein. protein is hard on the kidneys and it messes with your pH. But I guess that's the fad :ohwell:

    Have you flown over the cuckoo's nest?
  • magerum
    magerum Posts: 12,589 Member
    I typcially eat >300g daily. My usual sources:

    Whey protein shake(s)
    1.5 lbs chicken breast daily
    Cottage cheese
    Greek yogurt
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
    So far sounds like everyone else is in the same boat then lol.... A lot of the protein sources people suggest normally are also very high in fat... i.e. peanut butter, cheese, nuts etc. (and while some fat is good.. too much is bad).

    The best things I've seen so far are:
    - Huge amounts of lean meats
    - Skim/partially skim cheese
    - Greek yogurt
    - Eggs*
    - Protein powders
    - Baked goods fortified with protein powder


    * Eggs have one of the best proteins for us, but are also kinda high on fat unless you stick to just egg whites.
  • chris1816
    chris1816 Posts: 715 Member
    I, personally, would never eat that much protein. protein is hard on the kidneys and it messes with your pH. But I guess that's the fad :ohwell:

    No, unless you have pre-existing renal complications high amounts of protein even in the hundreds of grams will do absolutely nothing adverse to your kidneys.

    As for ideas OP I regularly consume around 250grams and up per day without overly supplementing whey or anything. Feel free to peruse my diary, it's open.
  • geekyjock76
    geekyjock76 Posts: 2,720 Member
    200g to 230g. Milk Protein Isolate and Whey/Egg/Casein powders; greek yogurt; cottage cheese; grass-fed beef, eggs, grass-fed turkey, mung beans are usually what does it for me.

    I don't do low-fat either for most of my products: 90/10 beef/turkey; whole fat greek yogurt and cottage cheese.
  • lauleipop
    lauleipop Posts: 260 Member
    Oats
    Eggs
    Protein Shake
    Clif Builder Bar
    Cottage Cheese
  • linda1243
    linda1243 Posts: 166
    cottage cheese, meats & egg whites!

    Egg white scrambles with chicken fajitas (chicken strips, fajita seasoning, onions and peppers) is awesome and packed with protein!
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    I typcially eat >300g daily. My usual sources:

    Whey protein shake(s)
    1.5 lbs chicken breast daily
    Cottage cheese
    Greek yogurt

    Totally off topic but where can I get me one of them T Shirts like your son is wearing?? Outstanding!!
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
    Thanks Chris, TheNewDodge, and everyone else. It appears that I already had most of the ideas down, I'll try to like cottage cheese again, and just continue increasing the portions of protein rich food that I eat.

    I guess I'm doing ok, just need to keep it up. I keep joking that I should my profile name to "Chickenslayer".
  • K0135
    K0135 Posts: 34 Member
    I want to do this too! In the past I had lost a good bit of weight and really increased my muscle mass. I'm hoping I can do it again and not screw it up this time lol
  • magerum
    magerum Posts: 12,589 Member
    I typcially eat >300g daily. My usual sources:

    Whey protein shake(s)
    1.5 lbs chicken breast daily
    Cottage cheese
    Greek yogurt

    Totally off topic but where can I get me one of them T Shirts like your son is wearing?? Outstanding!!

    Mall Kiosk! I didn't want to take the chance of not finding them again when his size changes so I bought a couple sizes up at the same time.
  • lauren3382
    lauren3382 Posts: 372 Member
    I'm aiming for 175g per day as I'm bulking right now. It's tough for sure, but I'm a 117lb female! You can check out my diary and see that there is a lot of chicken, fish, and eggs...plus a whey shake or two a day. Adding casein in next...
  • chivalryder
    chivalryder Posts: 4,391 Member
    Holy crap! That's an insane amount of protein! That would be nearly half of my calorie intake! I guess that's a good thing if you're looking to build huge muscles.

    I want to be more of an endurance athlete body type. I certainly would never need to eat that much protein. I'd have a higher carb diet.
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
    cottage cheese, meats & egg whites!

    Egg white scrambles with chicken fajitas (chicken strips, fajita seasoning, onions and peppers) is awesome and packed with protein!

    Sounds like a tasty breakfast (although it might make everyone in the office HATE me)!
  • IAmCorStar
    IAmCorStar Posts: 11
    Although I don't eat quite as much protein as you do, I eat a hell of a lot for someone my size (150g, I'm 92 lb). Although a majority of it does come from meat, greek yogurt, seafood, and eggs, I've found that you can add a significate amount of protein to your diet from non-protein foods. For instance I try to make at least 1 or 2 of my starches a day be beans/legumes (think more black beans than rice) which add an extra 7-8 grams per serving. Choose low carb breads/wraps and whole grain rices and pastas which usually have more protein than the regular versions. Certain veggies really pack in the protein like greens, (which are also just really good for you.)

    For an example for lunch yesterday I made wraps using my "Southern Sidecar" (collard greens and black eyed peas, the recipes on my page), a package of tuna (but if you don't like tuna chicken would work just as well) and a little hummus (a couple protein grams there) and hot sauce. Not only was it delicious but it was apx. 350 calories and 34 grams of protein. If I had just had a regular tuna sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and mayo and a side of chips I would be looking at maybe 22 grams protein max (not to mention not nearly as much fiber, vitamins or deliciousness), even though my "protein source" was the same.

    Basically one way to look at it is eat like you were a vegetarian who was being conscious about getting protein into their diet. And then also eat a lot of meat. Followed by a protein shake.
  • Tanpaku
    Tanpaku Posts: 4
    I'm a huge fan of adding tuna and salmon to a high protein diet. Been at it for nearly two years and I've seen huge changes. If you can afford sashimi, go for it, but higher end canned fish isn't bad either. Balance that with eggs, yogurt, chicken, powders(go for low–fat and/or micronized) and you'll find it's not too hard to consume those levels.
  • aproc
    aproc Posts: 1,033 Member
    Around 200g coming from greek yogurt, eggs, chicken, salmon, casein, cottage cheese, and peanut flour.
  • rmhand
    rmhand Posts: 1,067 Member
    Protein powders (like whey isolates, etc.) are not really that expensive when you compare the price of a scoop of protein with the amount of protein you get out of a chicken breast and how much you paid of the chicken.

    I don't have the exact numbers but I've heard that you pay about $.90 per scoop of protein and get about 24 grams on average depending on the brand.
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
    Holy crap! That's an insane amount of protein! That would be nearly half of my calorie intake! I guess that's a good thing if you're looking to build huge muscles.

    I want to be more of an endurance athlete body type. I certainly would never need to eat that much protein. I'd have a higher carb diet.

    It's roughly 35% of my daily intake... I'm just trying to limit the amount of LBM I lose while I lose the fat, and it appears that strength training and a diet ranging between 1.6-2.2g of protein per kg of body weight is the best way to accomplish that. Once I established the protein reqs, I decided how much fat I wanted to include in my diet (30%), and then the carbs kinda fell into place.

    If I was performing in an endurance event, I would probably look into carb loading before the event. :)
  • jayb0ne
    jayb0ne Posts: 644 Member
    I get over 250g most days and shoot for 315g daily as my target.

    Protein shakes
    Protein bars
    Egg whites (not much fat in the whites)
    Nuts
    Tuna - you can do 2 tins in one sitting easily with water to wash it down or put a dash of extra light mayo and some sweetcorn in it.
    Cottage cheese is your best friend
    Chicken - you won't see it in my diary as I'm having a break from the chicken right now after doing 200g chicken breast daily for a year.
    Turkey
    Quorn (vegetarian meat substitute) is solid
    Brocolli
    Try and select your carb sources based on the protein content - eg. Bulgur wheat is a carb source but is higher in protein than rice.

    Take a look in my diary if you like, however I've been a bit lax on logging lately so you might need to go back a few weeks.

    Jay
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member
    Protein powders (like whey isolates, etc.) are not really that expensive when you compare the price of a scoop of protein with the amount of protein you get out of a chicken breast and how much you paid of the chicken.

    I don't have the exact numbers but I've heard that you pay about $.90 per scoop of protein and get about 24 grams on average depending on the brand.

    I need to recalculate... I generally buy chicken in bulk when it goes on sale (I literally just bought 23lbs of it - each breast is individually wrapped in my freezer right now) so I'm not sure that protein powders really are cheaper for me. but that's a good point, I'll check that it actually IS more expensive. It just feels like it's getting expensive if I'm hitting up a protein shake like 3 times in a day to try and hit my macro.
  • jayb0ne
    jayb0ne Posts: 644 Member
    I don't have the exact numbers but I've heard that you pay about $.90 per scoop of protein and get about 24 grams on average depending on the brand.

    This!

    Except my protein shake gives me 40g protein per scoop and I get another 5g from the Leucine I throw in on top. 110 scoops costs me £42 so that's £0.38 or about $0.61 a scoop.
  • chris1816
    chris1816 Posts: 715 Member
    Protein powders (like whey isolates, etc.) are not really that expensive when you compare the price of a scoop of protein with the amount of protein you get out of a chicken breast and how much you paid of the chicken.

    I don't have the exact numbers but I've heard that you pay about $.90 per scoop of protein and get about 24 grams on average depending on the brand.

    I need to recalculate... I generally buy chicken in bulk when it goes on sale (I literally just bought 23lbs of it - each breast is individually wrapped in my freezer right now) so I'm not sure that protein powders really are cheaper for me. but that's a good point, I'll check that it actually IS more expensive. It just feels like it's getting expensive if I'm hitting up a protein shake like 3 times in a day to try and hit my macro.

    You had me at 23lbs of chicken.
  • jayb0ne
    jayb0ne Posts: 644 Member
    Protein powders (like whey isolates, etc.) are not really that expensive when you compare the price of a scoop of protein with the amount of protein you get out of a chicken breast and how much you paid of the chicken.

    I don't have the exact numbers but I've heard that you pay about $.90 per scoop of protein and get about 24 grams on average depending on the brand.

    I need to recalculate... I generally buy chicken in bulk when it goes on sale (I literally just bought 23lbs of it - each breast is individually wrapped in my freezer right now) so I'm not sure that protein powders really are cheaper for me. but that's a good point, I'll check that it actually IS more expensive. It just feels like it's getting expensive if I'm hitting up a protein shake like 3 times in a day to try and hit my macro.

    I take one shake in the morning every day and on training days I take another shake post workout. That's fixed and I don't have more to try and hit my macro target, so the rest of my protein intake has to be from whole food.

    But that's just me...
  • HeidiMightyRawr
    HeidiMightyRawr Posts: 3,343 Member
    Currently I'm on 150g at 2300 calories a day. I can easily enough make this up with food and 1 scoop protein powder (that has 24g protein) Most of the time I have 2 main meals a day, these would most include meat (which is actually more expensive to keep eating than it is to supplement with protein powder) These 2 meals would be approx 40-70g protein each. Breakfast would be around 20g (porridge).

    When I was bulking I'd usually have between 170 and 200g protein a day, on around 3200 calories. This was a lot easier to achieve because I had 900 extra calories, but only around 20-50g protein extra to make up - basically an large extra meal. During this I usually had 2 scoops a day on workout days, and 1 the rest of the time.

    My most favoured protein sources:
    Chicken
    Turkey
    Beef
    Protein Powder
    Cheese

    Other sources:
    Nuts
    Fish
    Pork
    Eggs
    Cottage cheese

    Things that don't have large amounts of protein per serving, but still have a fair amount considering the calories, and can all add up quickly:
    Veg such as broccoli or peas
    Greek yogurt
  • Elen_Sia
    Elen_Sia Posts: 638 Member
    I weigh 100 lbs and the highest amount of protein I've had to date was 162g last Sat. Every day I aim to eat between 110g and 170g. I've noticed I have significantly more energy on days of greater protein consumption.

    I eat a lot of lean turkey, lean hamburger, tuna, salmon, cheese, eggs, quinoa, and Greek yogurt.
  • Vonwarr
    Vonwarr Posts: 390 Member

    I take one shake in the morning every day and on training days I take another shake post workout. That's fixed and I don't have more to try and hit my macro target, so the rest of my protein intake has to be from whole food.

    But that's just me...

    This is basically the goal I want to reach in my diet, I don't mind supplementing, but I don't want that to be my major protein source!