Protein and You

02 Sep Protein and You

The last few weeks have been crazy around my house, people visiting from out of town, and a little bit of travel ourselves. With summer winding down, we have one last big trip coming up at the end of September and then hockey season starts!

I wanted to focus on protein this month. As the building block for muscle and tissue, it’s important that we consume enough, but too much can also be problematic. As an advocate of consuming a large variety of foods, I try to consume protein from both plant based sources, as well as animal sources. It can be difficult to get enough protein if your focus is only on plant based sources, and you may want to consider supplementing with a protein powder.

How much protein do I need?

Our lifestyle, age, gender, weight and choice of work outs influence how much protein we need. The average adult should make sure that at least 10 to 30 percent of their daily calories are coming from protein (protein is 4 calories per gram). You can calculate this yourself by taking your total caloric intake and multiply it by .10; this is the least amount of calories of protein the average person requires. Multiply your total caloric intake by .30 gives you the maximum amount of calories from protein you should consume each day.

Another measurement is 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. This formula is reliant on your body weight and is used most often by nutritional professional, as it is flexible to take into consideration your lifestyle. For example, those who engage in a lot of strength training need to consume between 1.2 and up to 2 grams per kilogram of body weight. Endurance athletes need less (only 1.2 to 1.4 grams per kilogram) since their muscles need more carbohydrates for fuel. To calculate your daily requirement simply multiply your weight in kilograms by the corresponding number, based on your activity, in the chart below.

Coming up this month: we’ll talk about some of the sources of protein (from both animal and plants), and I’ll give you my personal review of several protein bars (great pre-workout, especially when you are crunched for time).

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or want to learn more!!

Eat well.

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