How Daily Protein Intake Should Be Determined 

Before considering any diet plan, you may want to know how daily protein intake should be determined.

Habitually, protein intake is expressed as a percentage, which may lead to confusion because total calorie intake varies among different individuals (according to their needs and goals).

Consider for example two diets consisting of 5000 and respectively 2000 calories. Both of them contain 30% protein. However, as you may guess, the absolute quantity of protein is not the same. The first diet contains 375g of protein, whereas the second only 150g.

Despite this obvious discrepancy, most mainstream experts believe that percentages can be safely used, and wrongly assume that calorie consumption varies only through a small range for most individuals.

This kind of recommendation becomes even more inaccurate when dieting because, as you may know, calorie deficit should be adjusted as body fat stores diminish.

So when protein consumption is set as a percentage, its absolute value will decrease as you lose weight, which is the opposite of what you want.

Therefore, daily protein intake recommendations should be made in terms of absolute values and not percentages.

At any given moment, most tissues in your body are utilizing a certain amount of amino-acids for various processes that your diet should provide regardless of calorie intake.

Along these lines, it should be mentioned that some people died back in the '70s because they reduced drastically their energy intake while not eating enough protein.

And while it's true that I'm giving you an extreme example, my point is that this macronutrient is vital for sustaining optimum health. And percentages are meaningless because they don't reflect the real need of your body.

Related to this topic, is the methodology used. My preference is to use target body weight as a variable, and not current weight because there is no reason to provide large amounts of amino acids to the fat cells.

Although the difference may not be significant for lean people, this discrepancy can be considerable for somebody who is far from the desired changes in body composition.

Consider, for instance, an individual with a height of 182cm (6ft) at 100kg (about 220lb). In his best possible shape, he would weight around 82kg.

Assuming a daily protein intake of 3g/kg, we get 300g if we used total body mass, and 246g if we relied on his target weight. Therefore, he would consume more protein at a higher body fat level, which doesn't make any sense.

It's important to note that the above calculation doesn't apply to women because they naturally carry more fat than men – due to the fact that women need more essential fat for their biological processes. (Their body fat levels are 9-10% higher.)

Furthermore, women synthesize less contractile tissue than men because they have less testosterone, and also use more fatty acids and less glycogen during strength training.

I should probably mention that most mainstream nutritionists were taught to use LBM when calculating daily protein intake. However, estimating body fat percentage can be a pain in the ass, and the methods available are not even accurate.

Overweight folks usually have their body fat levels underestimated, and conversely lean people have their body fat levels overestimated. So for convenience, I prefer instead using target body weight, which I hope you will get close to.

Return from Daily Protein Intake to Home