What's the right amount of protein to eat?
Did you know that the word protein comes from the word ‘protos,’ meaning Greek for ‘first’?
This fact highlights the importance of protein in the human diet. It is essential to life, and it forms part of every cell in the body, including your skin, hair, nails, muscles, enzymes, and immune cells.
Protein is one of the key macronutrients that you need to eat. When you ingest proteins through your diet, they get broken down into their constituent amino acids by your digestive tract. These amino acids are transported to various parts of the body, where they are used to assimilate new proteins.
Whether or not you work out, you still need to eat adequate amounts of protein to stay healthy. The recommended daily allowance of protein is around 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. Please note that this number represents the minimum, not the maximum.
This number is a great guideline, but the exact amount each person needs varies. Your optimal protein intake depends on several factors, including your height, weight, muscle mass, activity levels, and goals.
Whether you want to lose weight, gain weight, or maintain your weight, protein is one of the most important nutrients to ingest.
Protein for weight loss
Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. Therefore, it can be helpful to keep you fuller for longer, reducing your urge to snack in between meals.
Protein may also help to boost your metabolism so you can burn through more calories at rest. It can help preserve muscle mass during a weight loss phase by providing your body with the essential amino acids required to build and maintain skeletal muscle.
Approximately 25-30% of your daily calories is recommended to come from protein. Each gram of protein provides 4 kcals. So, if you consume 2,000 calories per day and you’re aiming for 30% of your diet to consist of protein, you would need to eat 600 kcals or 150 g of protein each day.
Protein for muscle gain
Your body will only be able to build new muscle tissue and gain the adaptive responses of your resistance training workouts if you supply it with enough amino acids.
Skeletal muscle is made of protein, so if your goal is to gain muscle, you need to eat more protein than the average person. This is because you need to have a positive net protein balance. In other words, the rate of muscle protein synthesis must exceed the rate of muscle protein breakdown in your body.
Similarly, if you want to maintain your current muscle mass, you might also need a slightly higher than average protein intake.
The recommended protein intake for optimum muscle growth is around one gram of protein per pound (or 2.2 grams per kilogram) of body weight. However, this number is a guideline and does not take into account individual characteristics. Generally, anywhere between 0.7 - 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight is reasonable for growing muscle.