“How much protein should I eat every day? Should I also consume proteins on my rest days? And can I rely on protein shakes or should I get my proteins solely from my diet?”
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For many fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders, this is a daily recurring question, and the abundance of confusing information doesn’t make it any easier. In this article, I’ll show you how to figure out how much protein you need daily to achieve your ultimate goal.
How much protein per day should I eat?
I don’t know how much protein I should consume on days when I exercise. And how much when I don’t exercise. I’ve been advised to stop using protein shakes and get my proteins from my food, like quark and yogurt and such.
Maureen
The answer
This question or a variation of this question is often asked, and the question is quite easy to answer when you know a few things.
Your way of eating influences the amount of proteins
Let me start by saying that there is no optimal amount of proteins you should eat in a day to achieve your goal, whether it’s muscle development or fat loss. It’s not that simple.
No, it actually depends on the dietary approach you follow.
If you follow the Atkins method of eating, for instance, you consume very few carbohydrates, a lot of fat, and moderate proteins. If you follow a Mediterranean diet, you consume a lot of carbohydrates and fats and a low percentage of proteins.
For example, if you follow a diet inspired by the ratios that bodybuilders maintain to be lean and muscular, you might eat fifty percent carbohydrates, thirty percent proteins, and twenty percent fats. This is also the ratio that the nutrition calculator on Fitsociety uses after determining your calorie needs.
One dietary approach may be more suitable for muscle development than another, and that approach may not always be the same as the one that best helps you lose weight. Additionally, different bodies may respond differently to the same approach.
Ultimately, it all comes down to experimenting with different approaches to find out what works best for your body. And of course, you can also decide how to structure your diet plan to achieve your own goal.
Calculate how many calories you need
Before dividing your nutrition into the various macronutrients, you need to calculate the number of calories you need, taking your goal into account. This can also be done, for example, with the help of the calculator.
Now calculate the number of protein calories you need to eat
It all becomes a bit simpler. You know the number of calories you need to eat per day to achieve your goal, and you know what percentage of those calories should consist of proteins.
Additionally, it’s important to know how many calories are in a gram of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. This makes it easier when you start planning your diet. The calories per gram are:
- carbohydrates: 4 calories per gram
- proteins: 4 calories per gram
- fats: 9 calories per gram
Oh yes, alcohol contains a whopping 7 calories per gram.
For the calculation, I assume you need to eat 2000 calories per day.
Furthermore, I assume you want to be lean and muscular, so you maintain a ratio of fifty percent carbohydrates, thirty percent proteins, and twenty percent fats. The ratio is then 50:30:20.
The calculation:
- Divide the number of calories by 100 to get one percent, in this case 2000 / 100 = 20 calories
- Calculate the number of grams of carbohydrates per day:
50 (%) x 20 (calories)= 1000 calories / 4 (calories per gram) = 250 grams of carbohydrates per day - Calculate the number of grams of proteins per day:
30 (%) x 20 (calories)= 600 calories / 4 (calories per gram) = 150 grams of proteins per day - Calculate the number of grams of fats per day:
20 (%) x 20 (calories)= 400 calories / 9 (calories per gram) = 44 grams of fats per day
In this calculation, you need 150 grams of proteins per day. You distribute this as evenly as possible over the number of meals you eat per day.
You should consume this amount of protein even on days when you’re not training, to provide your muscles with building blocks to recover.
Which proteins should you eat the best?
You should try to get as many of your nutrients, including your proteins, from healthy foods as possible. “Real” foods contain more nutrients than just proteins, and you need these too.
(Remember that you need to consider all nutrients in foods when composing your diet. A chicken breast contains not only proteins but also carbohydrates and fats.
When you eat real food, your body has to work hard to digest the food and extract the macro- and micronutrients from it. By the way, digesting also requires energy.
If you want to get all your proteins from your diet, that can be quite expensive. Protein-rich foods usually cost a lot, and if you eat hundreds of grams per day, quite normal for a bodybuilder, it’s not affordable. Protein shakes offer a solution here.
Another advantage of protein shakes is convenience. You can take a shake immediately after a workout that is quickly absorbed by your body and can help your muscles recover immediately. If you eat a protein-rich meal an hour after your workout, you’re all set.
Remember that protein shakes also count toward your daily calorie intake, so plan your diet well in advance.
