When you’re out to gain muscle, there’s no way around the basic fact that you need to be consuming more than you are burning caloric-wise. That means you must eat more than your maintenance levels of calories, and this can be quite difficult if you are a large person or if you have other medical issues. However, as thousands of frustrated people who have failed to take nutrition seriously can attest, not eating enough protein can lead to serious problems as they fail to grow at the same pace that they increase the intensity of their workouts, resulting in long term burn out and frustration. In today’s article we’re going to take a closer look at the problems people have with protein intake, and see if we can’t help you figure out not only how to do it, but what you might be doing wrong if you’re having problems.
Let’s start with some basic facts.
How much protein should you be eating? A good baseline if you are seriously trying to put on muscle is about 1 gram of protein for every pound of weight you have. So if you are a 175 pound guy, you need to be eating 175 grams of protein. To get an idea as to how much protein that involves, look at these commonly eaten items. An egg has about 8 grams of protein, a can of tuna has about 40, a chicken breast has 35. A 6oz steak has about 42 grams, while a cup of milk has 8. Half a cup of cottage cheese has about 15 grams, a cup of tofu has about 40 grams, while most beans have about 7 to 10 grams for every half cup. As you can see, this individual would need to eat quite a lot of protein to eat his 175 grams, and that can be the difficultly right there.
If you are not aware of how much you should be eating, it’s quite easy to have only half your required intake. Therefore you need to decide at the beginning of each day how much you are going to be eating, and keep track of it as you go.
An easy way to boost the amount you are getting is to make a protein shake. A scoop of good protein powder can have about 30grams of protein, and when you add a cup of milk for another 8 grams, a table spoon of peanut butter for another 4, you’ve already got a solid 42 grams right there.
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