How Much Protein Do I Need Per Day?
A common question posed by anyone who has read bodybuilding literature is: how much protein do I need per day? Generally, bodybuilding magazines claim you need 200-300 grams of protein per day to build muscle mass. For years, I believed in this approach. I drank Myoplex and Muscle Milk and tried to include some form of protein with every meal. Did I see huge muscle mass gains? No. I saw my weight increase with just as much fat gain as protein gain. What happened?
While there is in fact a minimum amount of protein necessary to build muscle, the problem is that it’s not nearly as high as you’d think. Just like the myth that eating 6 times per day will increase your metabolism and help you lose fat, the myth of how much protein you need is predicated on somewhat biased studies. Fortunately, Brad Pilon of Eat Stop Eat came up with How Much Protein to sort out the real scientific facts about protein…from how much protein you need per day to whether post workout protein shakes are important.
Study Biases
Be skeptical about studies you read on protein. Many are sponsored by food companies and supplement companies. While they may do their best to avoid any bias, it’s clear that they have a vested interest in portraying protein as absolutely essential to muscle building. Fitness magazines generally publish these types of studies because they are primarily funded by supplement company advertising. While this doesn’t necessary mean the research is falsified, just realize there may be an agenda or some bias in the results.
Recommended Daily Protein Intake
The recommendations for how much protein you need vary significantly. Generally, government agencies encourage 40-60 grams of protein per day while bodybuilding magazines encourage 30 grams of protein every 2-3 hours! The current Recommend Daily Allowance for adults is 0.4 grams per pound of bodyweight. This is the minimum allowance in order to prevent muscle loss. However, this amount of protein fails to adjust for activity level or other variables that could affect muscle building.
How Much Protein to Gain Muscle:
How Much Protein filters through all the studies done on protein’s affect on muscle building to come to a conclusion about how much protein you need per day. I don’t want to give away the ultimate conclusion, but let’s just say it’s a lot lower than you think and much closer to the Recommended Daily Allowance than any bodybuilding publication’s recommendation.
Do You Need Protein Shakes?
After reading How Much Protein, it’s clear to me that you don’t need as much protein as you think, but is there still a role for protein shakes? I’d argue that protein shakes can still serve a valuable role as a meal replacement, but not as a supplement. I haven’t read anything to support the notion that you don’t get enough protein over the course of the week from regular eating habits. Even a high carb food like pasta still contains protein. However, if you do need a way to regulate your calories, then protein shakes can serve as a nutritious meal replacement, assuming you like the taste. I’m a believer that most of your calories should come from more natural sources though.
How Much Protein – Protein Foods:
Too Much Protein?
All this being said, having too much protein isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just that meats and protein shakes are expensive and having more protein doesn’t translate into a 1:1 muscle gain. In other words, if you double your protein intake, you’re not going to double your muscle growth, so why bother focusing on how much protein you eat? In fact, by significantly increasing your protein intake, you’re really just adding excess calories that could ultimately lead to fat gain.
How Much Protein Do I Need Per Day?
While How Much Protein provides an absolute range of recommended protein intake (rather than based on your weight or percent of daily calories), a good general rule to follow is to have 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass if you’re trying to gain muscle. You really don’t need much more than this. If you’re trying to lose weight, you can probably go as low as 0.6 grams per pound of lean body mass and still not lose any muscle. It sounds low but even people on an 800 calorie per day diet were able to maintain muscle mass simply by performing resistance training. I doubt they got much more than 0.6 grams per pound.
So how much protein do I need per day? Weighing 136lbs with 10% body fat, I have about 122lbs of lean muscle. Therefore, I need 122 grams of protein per day to gain muscle. I could go as low as 73 grams of protein to simply maintain muscle mass. Over the course of a week, I estimate I get around 100 grams of protein per day so I’m right in the proper range to maintain or slightly gain some muscle mass.
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Posted in Health and Nutrition
Great points. My game plan is just to eat plenty of meat and let the protein issue fall into place on its own. But you know me… I’m too lazy to count anything in my diet!
I dont care too much about my protein intake and to tell the truth I like the idea, that I dont need too much (yep because this is the most expensive)
But when someone with 136 pound (my thin wife weight more) tells that protein is not important to build muscle most of us will be thinking can it be true?
Yeah I gave up on shoving protein down along time ago. I just eat normally, real foods like nuts, fish, cottage cheese and pick it up that way.
Protein shakes is just powdered food and way too expensive.
But then I not a hugely ripped body builder so I can’t say for sure if it works or not.
Of course you need to watch the danger of too much protein in lieu of carbs for energy then ketosis occurs which is a long term health problem
Darrin,
No problem with eating plenty of meat…although some studies may say otherwise…just what we need, right, more studies!
Wood,
Point well taken about me being thin…however, I’m short with thin legs (consider that Brad Pitt had one of the best bodies ever in Fight Club and was only around 155lbs and he’s 4″ taller than me). Over the years, I tried the muscle building approach by sucking down protein shakes. I weighed 20lbs+ more than I do now and the majority of that extra protein (calories) ended up in my gut. One gauge of muscle is how much I can lift and I can say that I’m stronger now than I was with that extra 20lbs, so in my opinion, I’ve certainly maintained, if not added, muscle without worrying about protein. Gaining muscle in general has to be a slow process though as the most you can probably gain in a year is 5-10lbs. Even bodybuilders on steroids hope for a 10-15lb gain after bulking and cutting. Regardless, Brad Pilon is the real expert here and I’ve found that his research is consistent with my experience.
Raymond,
Ketosis may be a long term concern but some people do seem to have success with carb cycling for short periods of time. I’m with you though, just eat normal, real foods, and let the rest take care of itself. In my opinion, the amount of calories and exercise are more important than what the calories are made up of (avoiding extremes where you eat fast food for every meal).
Dave
Great post! I have recently fallen into the category of the John Barban theory of nutrition playing almost no role at all when it comes to building muscle. I don’t even think about how many grams of protein, carbs, fats, etc and just focus on the type of training I am doing. If I want to gain some muscle I just use the cumulative fatigue approach to training without ever adjusting my diet and I quickly get the increase in size that I need.
- Tim D
Tim,
Brad Pilon and John Barban have both highly influenced my diet changes. I used to count every gram of protein, carbs, and fat. Now I just eat healthy foods and try to avoid too much refined sugar and saturated fat. Muscle growth will take care of itself with a proper workout routine as you specified.
Dave
Dave,
I used to be obsessed with getting >100g of protein per day. Now I have realized that when it comes to muscle maintenance, there is really no need to overdo the protein. I incorporate plenty of meat into my diet and use protein shakes as meal replacements, so I’m pretty sure I get more than enough.
Alykhan
Alykhan,
The average American consumes somewhere around 90g of protein per day which is more than enough to maintain, or in some people’s cases, grow muscles. Glad you’ve stopped worrying about it.
Dave
Great points in the article. I too used to be a calorie counter and went out of my WAY to make sure my protein intake was high every single day. You know what? It didn’t make me gain more muscle than if I had just varied my diet more, and concentrated on whole foods.
Clint,
I’ve shared the same experience…calorie counting, making absolutely certain that I was maximizing protein intake. Now I simply try to eat healthy the majority of the time and not worry about extra protein.
Dave
Great article, very informative. Bill Pearl the bodybuilding legend had this to say in an interview regarding protein.
http://www.criticalbench.com/Bill-Pearl-Seminar.htm
“Regarding your question about the grams of protein per pound of muscle bodyweight. I have done studies on this, and I’ve read more on protein than you can shake a stick at. If you’re consuming 1/2 gram of protein per pound of muscle bodyweight regardless of how hard you train, that’s all you need for repair and muscle growth; that’s it. Any more than that will either be stored as fat or you can consume it as fuel. So if a person is taking 400 or 500 grams of protein a day, they’re wasting their money and would be better off eating Hershey’s candy bars, because they can be digested quicker.”
VK,
Great find! I can’t believe a bodybuilder actually has a realistic view of protein consumption. I hope in the future this type of wisdom becomes widely accepted. Thanks again for passing along.
Dave
Thanks AdminDave,
Great article this and I really enjoyed your links and reviews of How Much Protein? I was really struggling mentally as I felt I just wasn’t getting enough protein (consuming in the range of 100 to 140 grams per day), felt I needed closer to 200 grams but now I feel a lot better, knowing that I have to target between 100-120 grams per day and Eat Stop Eat had some pretty good tips on fasting which have gotten me thinking. Maybe I can finally start enjoying some foods (In limited quantity) which I had cut down entirely, like all the fun stuff!
Having a legend like Bill Pearl say it as well cemented my view on this topic. Cheers and thanks for the great work.
VK,
I was the same as you a few years ago. Protein was everything to me. I wasted a ton of money on protein shakes. Fortunately, I think Brad Pilon’s research combined with a testimonial from a bodybuilder can put this antiquated notion to rest.
Dave
I’m a high school wrestler 5’9′at 147 on a low calorie diet to drop to 140. I eat roughly 500 calories(I know dangerously low but my first match is in 2weeks, how many grams of protein should I consume to maintain muscle mass?
Kaleb,
I too was a high school wrestler and know all about cutting weight. Not a fun thing! In my opinion, you’re bound to lose some muscle no matter how much protein you get if you’re only eating 500 calories per day on top of intense practices. That being said, try to get around 80g per day and hope it helps you maintain muscle. Again, just my opinion, but cutting that much weight is likely to make you generally weak for your match and not having an adequate supply of glycogen (carbs) may negatively impact your performance as well. My final advice is once you hit your target weight, try not to stray too much during the week. You’d be surprised how much water weight you can burn in a short amount of time. Best of luck in “making weight” and in the match itself.
Dave
I’m 5’8 and seen people smaller than me lift heavier.
My diet at the moment is, protein shake in morning, oatmeal, with glass of milk and small portion of greek yogurt.
Snack about 2-3 hours later, pack full of almonds, fruit salad. Lunch, rice, spinach potatoes protein shake, snack cottage cheese, workout, proteinshake which includes hard carbs, supper boiled kidney beans, chick peas and potatoes. sleep.
Laser,
Sounds like a good diet. Thanks for sharing.
Dave
Dave,
I have a question about what type of fish protein you should be eating on workout days. I’d heard that salmon is better to have than tuna on workout days; cannot remember the reason why. Is there any truth to this? I honestly love both of them but culinary-wise, canned tuna has more meal possibilities than canned salmon IMO.
Toni
Toni,
You’re really getting into some nitty gritty details! From my understanding, salmon in general has more Omega 3s, is higher in calcium, and lower in mercury than tuna. Honestly I couldn’t fathom why salmon would be better on workout days though. Here’s the best article I could find on why that might be the case:
http://www.menshealth.co.uk/food-nutrition/what-to-eat/tuna-vs-salmon
Dave
Dave,
Should I be worried about the mercury levels in tuna though? I like the chunk white albacore tuna best because of its taste. Yet my understanding is the chunk light tuna is lowest in mercury. For the record, tuna is not my only source of protein but it is an integral part of my diet.
Happy holidays too!
~Toni
Toni,
You’re a little out of my realm of expertise. Here’s a pretty good article I found on mercury content of tuna. Light tuna is the way to go.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/healthday/635854.html
Hope that provides a little help. I can look into things more if you’d like.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year if I don’t talk to you!
Dave