Here is a report of Hero’s protein intake report for today. The report doesn’t include his dinner, the one I can’t prepare for him tonight and on Wednesday and Thursday every week.
The report includes the breakfast, lunch and snack I packed for him on a regular workday. The report is also dictated in a conservative manner, which means he probably eat more than the amount I input in the data. For example, I didn’t put the string cheese or the “protein balls”, the extra protein-rich foods that he could have also consumed. The result shows he already got 80 grams protein (versus 60 grams of protein intake recommendation for an individual like him who exercises 4 hours/week) before dinner time.
Even given the fact that he have been on the weight exercise program, he doesn’t have to worry about the protein intake. In addition, don’t forget that there will be dinners and weekend meals in which he will be consuming more of the grains, fish, chicken, and beans that I will balance and fit them into the diet.
Generally, this is the case for most of the people who must have eaten way more foods than him. It is not true that they have inadequate protein intake. Sufficient protein is easy to obtain from a balanced diet that contains an adequate amount of calories. Most people already consumes more than the recommended amount of protein per day, so they do not have to consciously increase their protein intake. For most healthy people, the recommendation is 0.8 gram of protein per kilogram of the person’s weight. For moderate active person who exercise 4 hours per week, it is 1g/kg. For endurance athletes, it is 1.2-1.4g/kg and for resistance athletes 1.6-1.7g/kg. Believe it or not, these recommendations are not more than most athletes already eat.
About supplemental protein, they do not magically stimulate muscle growth. They are not superior to food sources of protein in terms of protein quality and digestibility. The highest quality score 100 (the Protein Digestibility-Corrected Amino Acid Score, the PDCAAS score, you don’t have to remember this long terminology though) is given to egg white, meats, dairy, and seafood. Soy is given a score of 94 and beans and legumes score around 50-60. People may claim that they consume protein from supplements rather than food source because they are concerned with the excess fat often found in protein-rich foods, such as meat. That’s true, however, many foods are low-fat sources of protein and less expensive and at the same time they provide a wider variety of vitamins and minerals than the costly supplements. Such low-fat sources of high quality protein are chicken breast with no skin, low-fat or skim milk, and the least expensive yet perfect protein source, eggs.
And the good news is that the researches have found no evidence of the relationships of cholesterol in egg yolks and artery diseases. So I would say if you have no family history of cardiovascular disease, go ahead and enjoy as much as whole eggs you want. Well, you probably would stop at half a dozen a day anyway, cuz you’ll mostly get sick of eggs after finishing the 6th egg. :)
honeynhero 