How much protein should I eat? 5 considerations
It is extremely uncommon for anyone in the developed world to be malnourished due to protein deficiency, although older people are at higher risk. However, we like to think that malnourishment is not exactly the benchmark you should be comparing against. We think you should aim to thrive, rather than simply not be dead.
Here are 5 questions to ask yourself:
- How big you are
- How active you are
- How old you are
- Whether you are dieting
- What you like to eat
1. Bigger people need more protein.
This is probably a bit of a no-brainer. Bigger people need more everything. For this reason, it makes sense to think about protein recommendations in terms of your body weight. Unlike fat, and to some extent sugar, we can’t store proteins for later use. So we need to eat them every day. If we don’t get enough, we start to break down.
The bare minimum amount of protein you need if you’re sedentary is actually a lot lower than people think – at about 1.2 grams per kilo of bodyweight. So, if you weigh 70 kilograms, you need a minimum of only 84 grams of protein to avoid malnourishment.
That’s not a lot. What does 84 grams of protein look like? It can look like:
One regular flat white and two pieces of toast with peanut butter, along with a two thirds of a chicken breast and one small of potato. As you can see, very little – a lot less than what that same person needs to eat in a day overall.
Someone who is 100 kilos will need at least 80 grams of protein per day, so maybe add some eggs and a cup of mushrooms to that first example.
Again, this is a bare minimum for a sedentary person. And we would urge you not to be a sedentary person.
2. Active people need more protein
Everyone should aim to resistance train at least twice per week and walking at least 8,000 steps per day if they can.
When we exercise, there is more protein turnover. In the simplest possible terms, your body has more stuff to do to manage the stress you put on your body when you exercise. This includes, but is not limited to, more work to rebuild stronger muscles, connective tissues, and bones for the next time you exercise.
Active people also tend to have more muscle. And muscle is metabolically “expensive” to maintain.
However, this doesn’t mean that you should just keep increasing protein until you turn into a chicken breast.
Studies show that if you’re eating enough food overall to maintain your weight, then benefits pretty much top out at around 1.6-1.8 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight.
3. Older people benefit from more protein
We bet you weren’t expecting that one – but we would argue your nana actually needs more protein that you (adjusted for her bodyweight).
This is because our ability to digest protein gets worse as we age. It’s also because as you get older, you lose muscle and bone density.
This is important because we also know that the amount of muscle and bone density older individuals are able to retain affects both longevity and quality of life.
Experts in the field of ageing and protein consumption recommend between 1.2 and 2.0 g/kg of bodyweight or more for people older than 65. So get your nana a protein shake.
4. Dieters need more protein
Technically, you can lose weight on any type of diet that leads you to burn more energy than you consume. So you don’t need protein to lose weight.
However.
When most people talk about weight-loss, what they’re really interested in is fat loss.
We should do everything we can to maintain our muscle and bone mass, because it is just all round associated with better health outcomes.
Eating more protein can protect muscle mass while you lose fat. Studies suggest that if you’re on a diet over 2 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight mightn’t be a bad idea.
A note on obesity: If you are obese and trying to get back into a healthier weight range, eating 2.2 grams of protein will possibly make your diet a bit unbalanced (for example, if you weight 140kgs, eating 310 grams of protein is just not feasible). In those cases, you may want to try 2.2 times your goal weight.
5. Plant-based eaters need more protein
As discussed in an earlier post plant protein is harder to digest than animal protein, so less of it gets to where it’s supposed to go.
In addition, depending on how good you are at eating a balanced diet, you may or may not be getting the optimal split of different types of protein if you’re only eating plants. This is because few plants contain the right ratios of different protein components to make up a balanced diet.
So, the safest bet is that if you’re purely plant based, try to get a bit more protein than you otherwise would.
Can too much protein be a problem?
There haven’t been too many studies on how much protein is too much, particularly in the long term. It’s hard to design studies that can accurately test this. But what we do know is that, at least in the short term, it’s fine for healthy people to eat up to 4 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight.
That is way more than most people would ever enjoy eating!