How much protein do we really need to eat? page

[Warmbear]

I am reading the PB again and thinking about what I have been eating. I get lazy and need to re evaluate often.

We are supposed to be eating, according to Mark, about .5 to 1 gram of protein per lb of lean body weight so assuming I have 200 lbs of lean muscle, I should be eating 100 to 200 grams of protein per day, thats at most 1/2 lb total. I get the impression that folks are eating way more than that, hell I am eating way more than that a day.

Why do we eat so much protein? I know I love it in any form but is it really doing us a favour to eat that much?

I also dont really know how much protein I am actually getting, since meat, eggs etc are made of water, fat protein etc. Can someone point me to a chart that shows how much of each macro-nutrient I am ingesting?

[Gadsie]

I think if you eat a variety of primal foods you can't really go wrong. Personally I eat 150-250g of protein a day. But I don't focus on it.
I don't really understand what you mean by "a chart" but you can use cronometer.com or something like that to track all your macros and micros

[JoanieL]

I use my own spreadsheet because it's easier for me, but I checked this out and it wasn't bad: CRON-O-Meter: Track nutrition & count calories

My daily protein goal is 75-110 grams and I easily get 90+ grams per day.

[tfarny]

Well, ok - Mark's recommendation is .7 to 1, not .5 to 1, if I remember correctly. That level, roughly, is repeated all round the interwebs.
If you have 200 lb lean mass, you are a pretty big dude. One pound of ribeye steak contains 123 grams protein according to fitday, eggs contain less than 10g each depending on size. So for you, a recommended minimum would be a pound of meat and several eggs each and every day. At a minimum. Many of us are trying to maximize our strength and fitness, and so eating on the high side seems beneficial. Certainly it would suck to work hard and not see gains due to lack of raw materials. So, 2 lb / day of meat or equivalent is not at all unreasonable given a full sized man who wants to get stronger.

[Warmbear]

I am a very big dude aside from my 80 ish lbs of insulation. ( I can lift 150 lbs over my head with little effort, in fact I do it at work many times a day) I dont want to build lots of mass, I want to lose weight. I have just been thinking on how much I eat. I am loathe to start counting and measuring but I would like to have a general idea what I am eating.

[tfarny]

Right, so as a general guideline, Mark recommends you (a big dude) get very approximately 1.5 lb of meat or equivalent per day. That's in line with what I see posted here (less for a small female ex-vegan who can't handle the texture of gristle, more for the alligator-wrestling McCool types). I get about 1 lb / day plus cheese, but I'm a bit smaller than you.

[jaye]

An interesting article by Stefani Ruper on protein and anxiety... Paleo For Women | Protein, Cortisol, and GABA: Why Moderating Protein Reduces Anxiety (and Lengthens Life)

[tfarny]

A pound of meat per day for an average person is not a "high protein diet." It's an adequate protein diet. Even at the end of that article they describe .5lb / lb lbm as an "absolute minimum"

[Annlee]

+1 on Cron-o-meter. I like it much better than other options folks use that I've also tried (FitDay, Sparkpeople, etc). Find one you like.

Bear in mind, too, that food isn't only the macronutrients - i.e., 200g of filet mignon does not yield 200g protein - Cron-o-meter (which uses multiple databases as source material) shows the following --

Beef, loin, top sirloin petite roast/filet, boneless, separable lean only, trimmed to 0" fat, select, raw:

weight = 200g protein = 45g fat = 20g kcal = 276

[Owly]

Warmbear, I don't get the sense that most folks here are eating too much protein. I think you may be conflating the total weight of the meat with the grams of protein a person eats.

My normal daily protein intake consists of about 4 eggs (24g total) plus about 8 oz of meat (45-50g) at dinner, and usually some other smaller portion of protein like cheese or a protein shake (24g) putting me at a normal daily intake of around 100g of protein, a reasonable amount considering that my lean mass is about 120 pounds.

That's hardly a high meat diet since I actually often only eat meat at one or maybe two meals of the day. That's actually quite a bit less meat than a lot of SAD eaters I know, but the difference for me is the quality and preparation of the food.