Protein: Are You Getting Enough?

“Am I getting enough protein?”, is one of the most common questions I get as a dietitian.

And many people will often hear the answer “oh yeah, don’t worry about it. Most people totally get more than enough protein.”

That’s what I used to think. Until now..

You see, I assumed I was a “typical” North American, getting way, way more protein than I truly needed.

But, after tracking just a short few days on MyFitnessPal, I found I wasn’t!

What’s the big deal with getting enough protein anyways? 

Well for starters, protein is essential for your body to function optimally. Proteins are part of every cell in your body. Cool, huh?

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. And they’re needed in so many areas of our body. These amino acids help do things like:

• Build and repair muscle, tissue, skin, nails and hair
• Build hormones and enzymes
• Make red blood cells

Plus, when you’re in prediabetes reversal mode, you need to get enough protein to make sure you can build and maintain that lean body mass of yours.

Why?

Because muscle burns more calories at rest than fat and having more muscle will help your body be more sensitive to insulin.

These are 2 super important factors when you want to prevent type 2 diabetes.

So much protein do you need?

It depends on a number of factors like:

• Your age
• Your gender
• How much you workout (and what type of work out you do)
• If you’re trying to lose or gain weight

If one of the following sounds like you, you have some of the highest protein needs:

• If you consume too few calories. When calorie intake is low, protein is burned for energy. The body converts amino acids from protein into glucose to be used for energy. When the protein is used for energy, it can’t do it’s main job: build and repair muscles
• Getting fit? Untrained people starting an exercise program need more protein
• Growing like crazy like growing teenage athletes
• Endurance athletes with their high overall energy needs

But for a lot of adults who exercise most days and want to build muscle mass need more than the Recommended Daily Allowance of 0.8 g of protein per kg of body weight per day.

What happens to a lot of people, and what happened in my case, is that eating healthfully and adding resistance training in actually increased the proportion of calories I should have been getting from protein.

Since I wasn’t keeping a close eye on this, I was inadvertently not getting enough of this essential nutrient!

For me in particular, is the fact that I drink almond milk instead of cow or soy, which is very low in protein – hence why I’ll sometimes add some whey protein powder to my chocolate almond milk or in a super smoothie.

Now I’m on top of my protein needs and happily get enough 🙂

Wonder if you’re get enough?

Shoot me an email at april@lovecarbscoach.com and I’ll let you know what your protein needs actually are.

Be sure to tell me:

• Your gender
• Your age
• Weight
• Target Weight
• What you do for exercise

Talk soon 🙂

~April