Protein Estimation

[Adam Tomjack]

I came up with a super simple way to estimate protein intake that I haven’t heard anybody talk about before. I was wondering what you all think of it.

This came about because I realized recently that I was probably eating too little protein and that getting more of it helps my recovery. The simplest things are often the hardest to understand. Anyway, part of my problem is my current aversion to counting calories. Fortunately, I find I don’t need to count calories right now. I get enough following Rip’s advice to eat more than I want to at every meal. But, that wasn’t getting me enough protein. So, how do I make sure that my food has enough protein density?

I noticed that one 4 oz serving of lean meat, like boneless skinless chicken breast or sirloin streak, is roughly 25 g of protein, so a pound of lean meat has about 100 g of protein. That’s very convenient. If I want to eat at least 1 g of protein per pound of body weight, then my baseline protein intake should be 1/100th of my body weight in lean meat. Dividing by 100 is easy, just shift the decimal point two places.

If I weigh 150 lbs, I need 1.5 lbs of meat per day. If I weigh 225, I need 2.25 lbs. If I weigh 115 kg, I need 1.15 kg of meat per day.

If the meat is not lean, I need a bit more, or maybe I don’t sweat it because the other stuff I eat will have a little protein too. A 50 g protein shake is equivalent to a half pound of meat.

So that’s how I’ve been estimating protein intake without having to break out a calculator. Thoughts?

[Robert Santana]

If you only want to consider animal protein then sure 2 lb will give everyone 200 grams. You are getting protein elsewhere too though. So how about 1.5-2.0 lb for most guys and let the rest of the diet sort out the rest.