I’ve lurked in this forum for a while. It’s been an excellent source of information for me. After doing a search this time though, I didn’t find what I was looking for so I sucked it up and registered.
I’m trying to make sure that my nutrition is where it should be. I’m currently riding about 7 hours a week at a base HR - so not too much intensity. I’m curious how much protein I should be taking in on a daily basis.
So how much protein do athletes need? To figure out your needs, simply multiply your weight in pounds by one of the following: Sedentary adult 0.4 Active adult 0.4-0.6 Growing athlete 0.6-0.9 Adult building muscle mass 0.6-0.9 taken from Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook
For a 150 pound male triathlete I would recommend 0.6 for a total of 90 grams of protein per day. For a 115 pound female high school track runner I would recommend 0.7 for a total of 80.5 grams of protein per day.
It’s easy to get your protein requirements because protein is found in most foods: Meat, poultry and fish 7 grams per ounce * Beans, dried peas, lentils 7 grams per 1/2 cup cooked One large egg 7 grams Milk 8 grams per cup Bread 4 grams per slice Cereal 4 grams per 1/2 cup Vegetables 2 grams per 1/2 cup
*One ounce of meat = 1 slice of deli meat. Three ounces of meat is approximately the size of a deck of cards or the palm of a woman’s hand.
If you crave protein, are injured or sick, or think you need more protein than what’s recommended, increase your intake of beans and rice, lean beef, milk, and yogurt. It’s a much healthier (and cheaper) way to get extra protein. You can meet your protein needs - it’s just a matter of figuring out your individual needs and tailoring your diet as such. Good Luck!
Being a vegetarian or a vegan does not mean that they cut out protein intake, it just means that they took it in different ways…
Beans are a huge source of protein, soy based products in particular. Grains and veggies have protein too, albeit minimal.
However, I do agree with your last statements. You eat enough of everything, well balanced, reasonably healthily, and you’ll get what you need.
Eat your bacon. eat your ice cream. drink your milk, have some rare red meat and some fish with high counts of mercury. Your body can handle itself *
I eat pretty much whatever I want, knowing its reasonably OK for me. I’m not in training shape right now, but little has changed of my body makeup or appearance, and it wouldnt take much to get me back… Eat when you’re hungry, drink when you’re thirsty, and make good choices.
I agree with Brikins. As a Vegetarian it is ridiculously easy to get all the protein you could possibly want. Eggs, beans, brown rice, TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein), and whole grains are excellent sources of protein. For the carnivores out there, as long as your not attempting to meet your daily protein needs by eating T-Bone Steaks with Sausage Gravy & Biscuits you’re probably eating enough protein and doing it in a healthy way. Don’t Micromanage, just eat for fuel and eat to recover. You’ll be fine.
Age 26, 6 foot 155 lbs last year.
Age 27, 6 foot 165 lbs this year.
I eat less than 100g of protein per day.
My back, chest and shoulders put on a lot of mass when I stopped running/biking and focused on swimming. I definitely eat more calories than I did a year ago, but mostly carbohydrates.
I think for an endurance athlete 0.5 x Body weight in lbs is a reasonable starting point. Monitor your weight, energy, restfulness and injury proneness and adjust.
dave scott was ironman world champ as a vegetarian
eneko lllanos was 2nd at kona has a self described ‘nearly vegan’ diet.
Exactly how does this apply to his question?
The human body can and does make protein from amino acids all the time. I personally think trying to micromanage your protein/carbs/fats is silly*
People that have no knowledge on a topic should not give advice. Instead of offering your own opinions, perhaps provide information and let them make their own informed opinion.
My advice would be to buy a sports nutrition textbook, amazon.com is a good source for these.
If you can be more specific about your goals with regard to all of this it will be much easier to give a more accurate answer. Mac posted some good information, but what do you want to do. Do you want to gain large amounts of muscle mass, maintain your current build, etc? The protein requirements are drastically different.
Most of the time, as you get more active and require more calories, your protein consumption will naturally go up as a result of eating more. I rarely eat meat, and it is easy to get protein from other sources. However, proteins do vary and I make sure to have cheese, eggs, etc on a daily basis- usually balanced with pretty carb rich food.
I’m not a metabolic expert but in sports nutrition (undergrad but it doubled as a grad class) the “bioavailability” of protein in black beans was about 50, in egg whites it was almost 100. I don’t know about you but it doesn’t make getting all my protein from black beans very appealing. Brown rice and other grains were very low as well.