Nutrition is a minefield to look at on the internet.
With high profile people changing their stance on things depending on who their current sponsor is or how much commission they make per click*
Science can be cherry picked and manipulated to push an agenda or highlight the need for specific products or programmes.
I will always try to give you the most accurate data in a way that is easy to understand and hopefully even a little entertaining.
One thing that the internet does agree on is that we all need protein, it is literally our building blocks.
Food can be broken down into three macronutrients; protein, fat and carbohydrates. We need a combination of all three to survive and they all have different roles within our bodies.
Like with our finger prints, we’re all different on the ratio these macronutrients need to be for us to thrive.
That is ultimately why a friend may do well on one type of diet, yet you feel like you will die when you try it.
Your ratio does change slightly as you go through different phases of life and different levels of activity.
Which again highlights the importance of finding
the food plan that makes you feel good and that you can follow consistently, long term. It will probably need some experimentation and effort on your part but will be worth it.
With the above in mind, the studies detailing exactly how much protein you require very massively; anything from 0.8g per kilogram of body weight through to 2.7 grammes.
Personally I aim for around 1.4-1.6 grammes, I don’t always hit it daily but notice I have
much more control over food cravings when I do consistently.
Hitting a protein goal also gives me less room for crap in my daily plan.
As always my preference is protein from real food, mostly meat but we also have lots of beans and pulses. If stuck for time I will have a protein shake and occasionally a protein bar.
Protein bars can be horrendously expensive for what they are and generally pretty high calorie
too. For example, I had an Oreo grenade bar earlier in the week because I was out with the kids and convenience was necessary.
It had 21g of protein and tasted pretty good but it also had 233 calories and full price would have been £3.50. At home a pack of prawns would have cost half of that, had the same protein and around a third of the calories. A small steak would have been around the same as the bar and have more protein and leave me feeling more
satisfied.
If protein being the building blocks of your body you want to try and have the best quality blocks you can afford, we’ve all used cheap versions of Lego and can tell the difference when you use the real stuff, your body knows too.
Shakes and bars are ok for a top up or emergency but shouldn’t form the main part of your efforts.
Try increasing your protein intake for a week and let me know how it makes you
feel.
Darren “meaty” Checkley
* I’m not against making money for recommending products, some of our links are affiliate links where we get a small percentage if you buy through that link. However, we only recommend the products that we truly believe in and use ourselves and you often get a discount on the full price through our link.