Simple Strategies to Hit Your Daily Protein Targets
Simplifying a needlessly complicated problem in your fitness journey.
In my last article, I talked about optimal protein targets for maximizing muscle growth, while not being in a calorie deficit.
Theoretical targets are great. They give us an understanding how much of something you may need to maximize your results. The issue is, you may know how much, but you may not know how to. Today’s article will be aiming to bridge that gap.
Previous research gave a range between 1.6–2.2 grams of protein, per KG of body weight, per day to maximize muscle growth. With that in mind, I’m going to give a few examples of how you may construct your diet in order to hit this target. I’ll use a couple different examples to cover more ground as well.
Given that research tends to suggest having multiple protein feedings per day to maximize muscle growth, we’ll loosely play around with some suggestions from this paper to hit these targets.
Using this framework, we can set up some strategies to help organize your meals around high protein foods in order to hit these targets.
Step One: Identify your target!
For this individual, their optimal protein intake for maximizing muscle growth, is likely going to be between 109–150 grams per day.
If you struggle to get your protein in, then I’d strongly suggest aiming for the 1.6 range, as opposed to the upper limit range.
If you’re a little more experienced and don’t find it too burdensome to get your protein intake in, then have at’er and aim for the upper end of the limit.
As I’ve also previously mentioned, if you have a high bodyweight with a higher body fat % then this range may also be overkill.
Here are three alternative strategies if that caveat applies to you:
Eat about 1 gram per centimetre of height (height seems to scale fairly well with lean body mass)
If aiming to lose body fat, use the scale of 1.6–2.2 g/kg/bw per day on your goal weight.
Shift the scale down. Anywhere between 1.2–1.6 g/kg/bw per day should also be a decent range if you find yourself in this situtaion.
Step Two: Set Up Protein Per Meal
First off, protein timing and distribution are not top priorties when it comes to maximizing muscle growth. Daily intake is still the key variable in terms of protein. With that being said, if you’re aiming to optimize muscle building, paying some attention to these variables pose no real drawback and may help, even marginally.
This can look as simple as eating around 3–5 (not a hard rule, just a suggestion) protein feedings per day, and not fasting for long periods after your training sessions. Pretty simple, with neutral to potentially positive benefits.
Having a protein per meal target can also help with hitting your protein targets on a more practical basis. As if you were aiming for 150 grams per day, having three, 50 gram (give or take) servings is a lot more practical and likely more beneficial than one, 150 gram serving, or one, 100 gram serving with another 50 gram serving later.
Let’s take a look at how you could set this up, using the example from step one.
This was using the lower and upper limit of this range between 3–4 meals. You obviously have free range to set this up however you like. You can have two meals, or even five. As I mentioned, none of these variables are as important as total daily intake.
Not all meals have to be balanced either, but if you wanted to nit-pick, there is some evidence to support prioritizing a higher protein breakfast over lunch and dinner (single study with a small sample size, so don’t take that advice as overly definitive.)
Step Three: Set Up Protein Cheat Sheet!
The last step here is to craft a list of foods and their portion sizes that you can easily access and prepare, to make hitting this target as frictionless as possible.
Imagine you wanted to eat around 30 grams of protein per meal, four times per day.
In this scenario, the easiest solution would be to identify some protein dense foods and the serving sizes that would be in the ball park of that target. I’ve done so below.
This is obviously not the definitive list of high protein foods. It’s just an example. With this list, you could start to base some meals around these foods and their serving sizes, in order to make this as easy as possible.
It’s also helpful to add in some foods that aren’t exceptionally high in protein, that can still add more protein into your meals.
Examples like: whole wheat bread/grains, beans/legumes, light cheese etc. Some of those foods are mentioned above and aren’t the highest protein sources, but can easily be added to meals to for additional protein.
One example is adding some light cheese to a whole wheat turkey sandwhich. The turkey will be the highest protein dense food, but some light cheese and some whole grain bread will add some additional protein to the meal and make it easier to hit those targets.
I’ve used a list such as this to craft some decently easy meals to make. Then I saved all of these meals into my nutrition tracking app (I use MacroFactor), and make sure to buy these foods whenever I grocery shop.
With all of this in mind, let’s play around with some examples to see how you could configure your diet to hit these targets, or at least, get in the ball park of them.
Example 1:
Suzie is 160 pounds and looking to hit that 1.6 g/kg/bw per day. She only eats three meals per day and struggles to eat enough protein per day.
Let’s do some basic math. Firstly, we’ll want to convert her bodyweight in pounds, to kilograms.
170 divided by 2.2 = 72.7 KG.
72.7 multiplied by 1.6 = 116.
Suzie’s target for daily protein intake is going to be around 116 grams.
116 divded by 3 (meals per day) = 39.
Suzie will look to eat around 39 grams of protein per meal.
Now that we go that figured out, let’s use some basic meals to craft this.
This would be a pretty low calorie day. So if Suzie needed more calories than this, she could easily add more fat/carbs to do so. She could also add more protein too, but its likely not that necessary.
Example 2:
Marshall is 205 pounds and wanting to play with the higher end of this range to see if it helps with his goal to gain muscle. He eats 4 meals per day, plus one protein shake.
Marshall’s Math:
205 divded by 2.2 = 93 KG.
93 x 2.2 = 205 (I know this math was redunant.)
Marshall’s daily protein target is going be about 205 grams.
205 divded by 5 meals (including shake) = 41.Marhsall will look to eat 41 grams of protein per meal.
These are just two examples of how you may configure this. Obviously everyones daily needs will be different, but I think examples like this can be helpful.
Cheers,
Coach Dylan 🍻
References:
1. A systematic review, meta-analysis and meta-regression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28698222/
2. How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution
https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-018-0215-1
3. The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24299050/
4. Protein Distribution and Muscle-Related Outcomes: Does the Evidence Support the Concept?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7285146/
5. Evenly Distributed Protein Intake over 3 Meals Augments Resistance Exercise–Induced Muscle Hypertrophy in Healthy Young Men
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/150/7/1845/5823851?login=f