So the 'Ol SupDubKpowz is all about health and fitness and shit these days. That being said, information I have says 1gmProtien/1lbs. body weight is required if I am to gain any muscle from my workouts.
(6’1"or2", 155-165lbs for the last 24 years. BTW)
I can eat ANYTHING and not gain weight, but I can’t eat EVERYTHING just to gain some muscle.
150gm protien is like a POUND AND A HALF 93% lean BURGER A DAY!!! Fuckin’ gross!!! I do that shit for a week and I’ll never eat burger again, and I’d probably stink like a fuckin’ wolf. Dogs would follow me and shit and leer at me. Gross.
Or, like a dozen and a half eggs! A DAY! Who the fuck I look like? Cool MFing Hand Luke? Shit. Is there a failure to communicate here?
I just can’t eat that much, and I’m big on fruits/vegs. Isolate powders are suspect, depending on to whom with you spake. (Sure, they may look huge in their profile picture, but some of them fuckers are eating chicken for BREAKFAST and gettin’ up a couplea times PER NIGHT to drink the mixes. AND that shit is expensive. And they say it gives you BAD farts. No way, unless it is 100% garanfuckingteed.)
The simple fact that the K-to-the-Z’s body reached a “mass equilibrium” a quarter-century ago, can be disheartening, but someone tell me I don’t need to EAT A FUCKING COW to look good in my 40’s(which is the “new 20’s” btw) in a swimsuit.
If you want to build significant muscle, then yes, you do need to eat a significant amount of protein, and carbohydrates to match. It’s not easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
I am a 150 lbs. female and easily eat 100 - 120 grams of protein a day. I eat some form of lean protein with every snack and meal (milk products, eggs, chicken, soy). If I’m not able to structure and plan my meals for the day, I supplement with protein shakes. It’s not that hard once you get used to it and start planning your meals.
Normal protein requirements for a day for someone of good health is 0.8gm per 1kg. That’s about a third of a gram per a pound. That is what you need to maintain your body at its current condition. So, anything over that would be used by your body either to build cells (like muscle), or as energy.
So, even if it sounds like a lot, that is only three times as much as you need just to maintain your current muscles.
It is unlikely to do you any harm, but you really don’t need that much. Hirka T’Bawa is right about normal protein requirements, and it’s true that people engaged in strenuous exercise (especially muscle building) should consume more, but you also need to consider the rest of your diet. While protein helps with stuff like building muscle mass, you can get energy from other places, and your protein intake should be considered alongside the total energy consumption profile of your diet.
Even the National Institutes of Health say:
That’s just under 0.75g per pound.
And another article, focusing specifically on protein requirements “during the early stages of intensive bodybuilding training,” noted an increased need for protein, but also suggested that, after a certain level, adding more protein didn’t help build more muscle mass:
1.35g/kg is about 0.62g/pound.
I’m 40, so i’m in the OP’s age bracket. Just on a year ago i decided that i wanted to get fit again. I was 207 pounds at 6 feet tall, which was the heaviest i’d ever been, and i was also unfit. I began a regimen that involves 4-6 gym workouts (mainly free weights) per week, and 5-6 street runs (originally 3.6 miles, now 5 miles each) per week. I’m now down to around 180 pounds, i run the 5 miles comfortably in 37.5 minutes, i’m a lot stronger than i was, and i look heaps better in the mirror. I’m not built like a body-builder, but my muscles are larger and have definition that is noticeable to me and to other people.
Because i’m a vegetarian, i determined early on that i was going to supplement my diet with a protein shake. While my protein intake previously was fine for a sedentary person, i wanted to boost it a bit to help with muscle growth. I take a whey protein shake that, along with 1 cup of skim milk, provides me with about 35-40g of protein (some days i use a little more powder than others). While i often eat protein-rich foods like legumes and pulses, tofu, Tofurky, as well as cheese and eggs, it’s a very rare day when my protein intake exceeds 110-120g, and most days it probably comes in just under 100.
Despite that, i never feel that i lack energy, and while i’m not going to be mistaken for an NFL linebacker, i have managed to put on muscle and increase my strength. I could still stand to lose a few pounds around my waist (my love handles are where i put weight on first), but i’m very happy with how i’m doing. It might be that your goals for muscle-building are more ambitious than mine, but you can definitely build muscle without consuming protein at the rate of 1g/pound/day.
I was a non-competitive weight lifter for years and am just now getting back into it after 2 years off. They’re absolutely right. You have to eat that much per day, and you really shouldn’t go more than 4 hours without some degree of protein infusion if you’re really serious. In addition, you need a very good sleep regimen, which is something most people don’t factor in. FWIW, since I wasn’t competitive and not a bodybuilder, I never bothered to do the middle of the night wake up drink a shake routine and it worked fine for me.
I lifted and ate like this regularly from 28-38. I’m now 40. One nifty thing was, even though I was eating lots of beef, pork, chicken and whey shakes with whole milk, my cholesterol never got above 97. I don’t think that’s necessarily a universal thing, but it was great in my case.
I wouldn’t say you “need” that much, but yes, high amounts of protein are recommended for building lots of muscle. I was able to manage about 160g of protein a day on a pescatarian diet (fish only once a day, too, at most – because of mercury).
You just learn to substitute in lots of protein-rich foods. I substituted nuts (or nut butters), yogurt, cheese, egg (or egg white), beans or other foods for carb-rich foods. I also do 6 small meals a day so it’s not quite so daunting, and I do use whey protein shakes at least once a day. I recommend “Vanilla Chai” flavor.
I’m not a bodybuilder but a high-protein and watching carbs (especially sugar) helps me lose weight without feelin shaky or weak, as well as gain muscle to help boost my metabolism. Right now, I’m actually fairly ripped under all this flab. It’s fun to use higher-resistance bands than the poseur macho guys!
In terms of cholesterol - I eat probably a dozen eggs a week, all totaled. Just did my wellness check and my cholesterol has decreased significantly on this diet, both total and bad cholesterol. Good cholesterol went way up. My family members on the same diet report the same thing. We do watch fat though and are fairly fanatical about our diets (except, of course, on designated cheat days).
I’ve lost 25 pounds in 2 months. My measurements indicate that it’s almost all in my fattier areas - my thighs and arms register nearly no change - and I’m noticably a lot more muscular than before.
Oh, and since you complained about expense - I don’t buy into the need for ultra-expensive protein powders, but based on the taste results (and feeling queasy on the Wal-Mart stuff) I recommend Gold Standard, which is carried at GNC. I don’t buy it there, though - I watched slickdeals for a sale and got two 5lb jugs for about $60. (I’ve gotten these sales twice - FitRX was the site that did the sale.) That sounds like a lot of money but keep in mind that it works out to be about 142 servings! Buying online also gives you more flavor choices.
If you don’t like the powder, EAS Carb Control shakes are available at Sam’s Club (chocolate flavor only). Better texture, poorer taste, in my opinion - but not too expensive and very convenient. No refrigeration required.
There’s also a Woot-clone deal of the day site just for whey protein deals:
The guy wants to gain some muscle. He didn’t say he wants to be the next Rich Gaspari or Lee Haney. It is factually incorrect to state that a person needs 1g/pound in order to make muscle gains.
I’ve just spent some time looking at a whole bunch of articles online—everything from about.com pages to university athletic department websites to articles in peer-reviewed medical journals—and if there’s any consensus among all these sources about protein intake it seems to be that the upper ceiling of protein requirements is about 2g/kg/day, or about 0.9g/pound/day.
And, as i said, the terms they used for this level of protein intake were “maximum” and “upper limit” and “ceiling,” not “average” or “minimum” or “necessary.” Furthermore, they all noted that this level of protein intake was only required for intensive muscle-building. The range given for athletes was generally 0.6-0.9g/pound/day.
As i said before, eating 1g/pound won’t do the OP any harm, but it’s simply not true that he needs to eat that much in order to gain muscle, especially if he’s not on a short timetable, is happy to build muscle gradually, and isn’t interested in actually becoming a competitive bodybuilder. The guy said he wants to look good in a swimsuit, ferchissakes; he didn’t say he wants to be Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I’ll second that. I got a tub of it and find the stuff quite tasty when mixed solely with water (I’m sure it’s even creamier with milk, but water keeps the calories down to 120). It’s got 24 grams of protein per serving too.
Costco carries the EAS protein powder in chocolate and vanilla at $30 for a five-pound bag. 27g of protein per serving, and it’s quite tasty mixed with orange juice and flaxseed oil. It’s like a healthy Orange Julius!
ON Gold Standard Chocolate Mint is the most delicious whey protein in existence. Mixes smoothly with water for a perfectly tasty protein supplement, or with whole milk for a “holy crap this really does taste like a milkshake” muscle fuel.
Don’t obsess about the rules and numbers. Minimize sugar, try to eat enough protein, and lift heavy (don’t do lots of cardio). If you don’t see the results you want with a more lax routine, then try something more strict and count grams.
I eat about 100 grams of protein per day in 2 or 3 meals, and I’m 100 lbs and way underweight. I don’t think it’s that big a deal and am not suffering to pack in the protein. I like meat, eggs and sardines and eat them daily. I certainly do not find a pound or so of meat per day ‘gross’ nor do I smell like beef, but YMMV. I also sometimes make shakes with whey protein and raw eggs.
Since I started eating mainly animals - hence mainly protein and fat - I am ripped, and I barely exercise. I got a six-pack within a couple months of changing my diet. Of course I didn’t have any fat to lose, so it’s very easy to see that my muscles have gotten more defined.
I kinda don;t get the outrage. It’s pretty easy to get that much protein from a healthy and appealing diet. I eat about 1200 calories a day and about 70g of that is protein so it seems to me it would be trivial for someone with a 2500+ cal training diet to eat 150g of protein.
I don’t use protein powders and no one who looked at my usual daily diet would think I am relentlessly stuffing myself with meat. I mean there are 32g of protein in a 4oz serving of lean roast beef. That’s about the size of a deck of cards. I’ll have that, a couple cups of raw veggies, a piece of fruit and an oz of cheese, for lunch. Is that disgusting? I don’t think so.
Not sure what thread you’re reading. There is no outrage.
No-one has even suggested that the OP shouldn’t eat 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight. If he wants to eat that much, then he should go for it, as far as i’m concerned. My only argument has been that eating that much is not essential for gaining some muscle.