Disclosure: It is a sponsored post for Premier Protein, however, all information contained within this post and options expressed are truthful and my own.
More and more I see posts and articles about how we (as North Americans) are eating too much protein. That we focus on that over other macronutrients to our own determent. I even had a couple of people tell me that the average North American is eating 200-300g of protein each day.
What in the what? I have a hard time believing that. Sure, there are people who are eating that much. A couple extra value meals/day could get you pretty far, eating paleo and other high protein focused diets can do that too, but in the four years since I became a certified Nutrition and Weight Loss coach, I have yet to come across any of these people in my clientele.
What I do see time and time again is women who are eating 20-30g of protein/day and thinking that is adequate. In fact, there hasn’t been a single client who has come to me that is eating even close to the minimum amount of protein their body needs each day just to function properly.
Not one.
So yes, there is certainly a slice of the demographic who are overeating protein and maybe in doing so are potentially putting their health at risk, but from my experience that is certainly not the “average” person.
How Much Protein Do We Need?
The actual minimum daily requirements for protein are about 0.8g/kg of body weight. To determine your minimum daily need to take your weight in kilograms and multiply it by 0.8. If you only know your weight in pounds, take that number and divide by 2.2 to get your weight in kilograms, then multiple by 0.8 to get your minimum daily requirement.
With that calculation in mind, a 150-pound person requires a minimum of 54g of protein/day.
Remember, this is the minimum which will cover the needs of most inactive people. People who are active require anywhere from 1.4-1.8g of protein/day to ensure sufficient protein for growth and repair of body tissue. So if that same 150-pound person works out 3 or 4 times/week, even that the low-end at 1.4g/kg they should be consuming 95g of protein each day.
95g of protein may seem like a lot – and it is if you have been under eating for years, but it’s really not that difficult to meet once you know that is the target you are trying to hit.
How Am I Ever Going To Eat That Much!?
If you’ve discovered you aren’t eating nearly enough protein, don’t go from zero to sixty in sixty seconds. Slowly build your way up to your calculated minimum. You want to give your body time to adjust to the increased protein.
Because I’m so active, I am firmly in the 1.8g/kg category so I know a few things about eating enough protein without feeling like you have to eat meat 24/7.
Most of us know the big protein sources are things like meat, chicken, fish, beans and lentils, but what if you don’t want to be eating those things at every meal?
One of my absolute favourite ways to get protein is with greek yogurt. In particular, I love SKYR yogurt because it has 21g of protein in a single serving. Enjoy a serving at breakfast or as a snack and you are well on your way. I also like to make a smoothie with greek yogurt, milk (I use dairy so get added protein there as well) with my favourite fruits for a delicious and protein-packed meal replacement or snack!
Another great way to increase your protein is by adding in an afternoon protein bar like Premier Protein Bars which have 30g of healthy protein, are a good source of calcium, have 3g of fibre, and are gluten-free. These bars really help support a healthy on-the-go lifestyle because they are remade and super easy to through in your bag or purse for a quick snack on the go.
We’ve tried the Dark Chocolate Mint, Yogurt Peanut Crunch and Chocolate Peanut Butter flavours here in our house. The Dark Chocolate mint was the favourite of us both, with a nice minty chocolate taste and the taste of the protein (which can be quite chalky in some bars) was well masked. The other two flavours are also good, but the Yogurt Peanut Crunch was our least favourite – it’s just hard to beat chocolate!
Premier Protein bars are available at Costco stores across Canada (but are not online). And what you can tell in the photos is these bars are bigger than your typical protein bar, have you ever noticed some bars are just plain tiny? And contain between 7-8g of fat (depending on the flavour) and 25-26g of carbs making them a pretty well-rounded snack.
Don’t forget your grains, pasta, nuts, seeds and even vegetables also contain protein, so if you are tracking for a few days to see how much you are consuming on average, be sure to look up all your foods to ensure you are getting the full picture.
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While I don’t think it’s necessary for most people to track their protein each day, it doesn’t hurt to track once a month or once every few weeks just to make sure you are eating enough to support your lifestyle. And who knows, it might be as simple as picking up some Premier Protein bars, or swapping your regular yogurt for greek yogurt to get you to where you need to be!
Disclosure: It is a sponsored post for Premier Protein, however, all information contained within this post and options expressed are truthful and my own.
Additionally, when you consume too much protein, your body must remove more nitrogen waste products from your blood, which stresses your kidneys. Chronic dehydration can result, as was found in a study involving endurance athletes.3
True, but at least in the women I have worked with, their daily protein intake has been so much lower than their minimum daily requirement that isn’t an issue. Those on a high protein diet are looking at different issues, and hopefully, those individuals are being coached or monitored by someone who can properly advise them on both protein intake (what is enough versus what is too much).
Thanks for your comment!
You can’t go wrong with chocolate anything – especially chocolate mint. Yum! Tell me these bars don’t have that gross grittiness to them that many protein bars have and you will have me sold. 🙂
I don’t find they do, there is still a bit of the protein powder “taste” but I don’t find them gritty. I’m pretty picky about protein bars, so many of them taste like sadness, haha