It’s the thousand years question, ‘How much protein do you need for maintaining good health and building muscle in particular?’ The answers to this question are various and straight-right confusing. You may find recommendations for taking protein ranging from .36 grams to 1 gram per pound of your body weight. However, it’s not a cut-and-dry matter to follow the numbers. In fact, it depends on several factors. Let’s see how much protein you actually need.
Is More Protein Better for Health?
Many think that a person needs extra protein if he is doing extra strength training, which leads to muscle growth. Extra training does not mean extra protein intake. You can only build muscle with the exercise it requires.
The body can’t store protein. So, once needs are satisfied, any extra is used for energy or stored as fat. Extra calories from any source will be stored as fat in the body.
Extra protein intake also can drive to increase blood and heart-related disease because many high-protein foods you take are high in total and saturated fat. Even extra protein intake leads to an additional risk of kidney disease.
Protein’s Value in Building Muscle
Well, we all certainly know that protein builds muscle. But the question is how it helps to build muscle.
It involves a complex biochemical process. Dietary protein carries amino acids that your body uses to build tissue. But your body cannot make these amino acids on its own. Therefore, you need to consume them through dietary protein. Even one amino acid (leucine) is essential to kick off your body’s muscle-building process called muscle protein synthesis.
In brief, dietary protein provides the building blocks to build muscle tissue as well as signals your body to kickstart building muscle tissue.
Protein Sources
Whether you are a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian, it is crucial to know your protein sources. Whole foods like eggs, milk, yogurt, and milk are your best protein sources. These are high in protein and filled with micronutrients your body needs for overall health development.
If you cannot get enough protein from whole foods, consider taking supplements with consulting a doctor.
Can Protein Help Weight Loss and Prevent Weight Gain
Protein is crucial when it comes to losing weight. You are required to consume fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. Studies suggest that taking protein can increase the calories you burn by increasing your metabolic rate and reducing appetite.
Having 25-30% of your total daily calories from protein boosts metabolism by up to 80-100 calories per day compared with lower protein diets.
In fact, protein’s most important contribution to weight loss is probably the reduction of appetite, leading to a reduction in calorie intake.
A high-protein meal chart also helps you build and preserve muscle mass.
How Much Protein Do You Really Need?
The RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for dietary protein intake is .36 grams of protein per pound or .8 grams per kilogram of body weight. It indicates that the recommended amount of dietary protein for a 200-pound man is 72 grams of protein.
The RDA is a broad average for all adults. At the same time, physically active adults and older adults need way more of these micronutrients in their diets.
How Much Protein Does a Physically Active Person Need?
If you are physically active-you lift weights, run, do a labor-intensive job, etc., you need protein from .59 grams to 1 gram per pound, basing your body weight.
So, if you weigh 200 pounds, you should take somewhere between 118 grams to 200 grams of protein daily.
How Much Protein Does an Older Person Need?
If you are older, your body becomes less responsive to protein. As an older person, you need to consume more protein to kickstart muscle protein synthesis than you did when you were younger. The RDA for dietary protein needs to be improved for older people. It is recommended that at least .54 grams of protein per pound of body weight. On the other hand, if you are a physically active older person, you should consume protein .72 to 1 gram per pound of body weight. It all depends on your physical activity level.
Factors to Remember While Taking Any Supplement
If you want to take a protein supplement, the following should be looked for.
- About 200 or fewer calories
- 2 grams or less of saturated fat
- No trains-fat or partially hydrogenated oils
- 5 grams of sugar or fewer
Don’t Eat Heavily
As protein is good for your nutrition doesn’t mean you should necessarily overload your plate. When you have a high-protein diet, see what else is in your diet. Vegetables and other high-fiber foods should be part of your meals. You should not have a baked potato and a tomahawk steak.
It is also recommended that you should spread out your protein intake. If you use it only for some, your body will likely store it as fat. So, it is better to spread out your protein throughout the day.
Circumstances that Can Increase Protein Needs
Unlike muscle mass and physique goals, there are other reasons or circumstances when the need for protein increases.
- If your job requires a lot of physical activity, you should consume more protein.
- A person performing huge physical exercises like running, swimming, jumping, or any other exercise requires more protein.
- Endurance athletes also need a good amount of protein.
- When you are an older adult, you need increased potential.
- Lastly, people recovering from injuries also need more protein.
The Best Time to Consume Protein
Mostly, people usually tend to get most of their protein during supper meals and the least at breakfast. Some recent studies show that leaving some protein from supper and adding it to breakfast can help manage weight plan by decreasing hunger and cravings throughout the day. General recommendations are to take 15-30 grams of protein at each meal. Having more than the recommended protein in one sitting cannot bring any benefit. So, an excessive amount can cause a waste of money.
Closing Words
The risk regarding consuming too much protein is small if you are highly active in physical activities. Sometimes, we consume supplements that contain much more protein than we need. Consuming more protein than required is just a waste! In this article you can get how much protein you need daily.