How much protein do we need?

A snowHead

There have been scattered discussions about this in the past and I know that some Snowheads are very clued up about nutrition. General NHS guidance on nutrition has very little to say about protein but there is LOTS of stuff on the internet and AI tells me that given my old age (79) I should be eating 1g of protein per 1kg of weight, which is 60 grams.

Some quick googling suggests I eat nowhere near that much. Breakfast (typically a slice of home made high fibre toast, a tangerine and a black coffee) has practically none and that's all I have, normally, between 8 pm and mid-day. I like cheese, but a little goes a long way, and I often have a glass of milk, but there's not a vast amount of protein in that

AI tells me I should be having good chunks of protein - 20 grams - 3 times a day to "kick start" my muscle repair process, which is more sluggish in older people.

One large egg is 6g of protein - so I'd need 3 to reach that goal for breakfast!

When I quizzed AI about the research which led to these conclusions the response was deeply unconvincing. Lots of very hedged-about sentences.

So - what do Snowheads think. Do I need to eat the equivalent of 10 large eggs a day to get enough protein to keep my muscles (admittedly suffering from old age) in decent nick?

A snowHead

Because of my past in "bodybuilding" (though never professionally), and since I’ve started training again in January (also not at a professional level), I am quite sensitive to this topic. I would say that around 0.8 to 1.2 grams per kg of body weight is fine, as long as there are no kidney issues.

Is more needed if you’re not a professional athlete? Maybe. Some studies say yes, others say no.

And no, it doesn’t have to be only eggs. Try also Skyr, different kinds of meat, etc. And drink water. As much as possible.

The currently available study results are not precise enough to derive an exact protein requirement for adults aged 65 and over, so no formal recommended intake can be established. Therefore, for this age group, the revised reference values provide an estimated adequate intake. This is 1.0 g/kg body weight per day for both women and men aged 65 and over. (from German Nutrition Society)

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@Origen, this is an NHS produced leaflet on protein. https://www.uhsussex.nhs.uk/resources/protein-fact-sheet/

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Thanks @turms2. I was only noting that 10 eggs = 60 grams, not suggesting that I would just eat eggs. But it did surprise me that SO MUCH protein is recommended and suggests I need to change my diet quite drastically. Previously, if I'd had egg mayo salad for lunch, with 2 hard boiled eggs, I'd have reckoned that would do me for the day but that's obviously way off! I am going to stock up on Skyr, cottage cheese and Greek Yogurt. I'm not vegetarian but don't eat a lot of meat - and probably not enough fish.

If there is good research supporting this sort of intake I'm surprised the NHS (which just keeps on about fruit and veg) have not flagged it more clearly.

Meanwhile I'd better get practicing some lentil recipes!

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@Hells Bells, that's a great leaflet - thanks. I wonder how many of us manage that much protein?

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@Origen, The best option is, if you have the time, to use one of these apps and start tracking everything you eat in order to achieve optimal macros.

Protein
Carbohydrates
Fats

but its difficult. OR a least do it for lets say three months, and then you can follow a pattern without tracking

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@Origen, a few early comments, then I will try look up more detailed information

Particularly with age, eating sufficient protein is vital to avoid or minimise the effects of sarcopenia (muscle wastage in old age).

In your circumstances 60g of protein daily should be the minimum to aim for. With insufficient protein it is impossible for the necessary muscle protein synthesis to occur to maintain adequate muscle mass, never mind increasing it.

A couple of other take aways;

Protein quality is key. While many vegetable/grain foods have seemingly useful quantities of protein, these are often not as bio available as protein in meat, eggs, dairy and fish. So you may need much more volume of those sources of protein.

Meat, eggs, dairy and fish protein also has an almost perfect range of the 9 essential amino acids required for both healthy muscle and healthy life. For most people it is much more difficult to ensure consuming those amino acids in the necessary proportions from a largely plant/grains source.

As we age, our bodies become less efficient at turning protein intake into lean muscle mass (anabolic resistance). So as a 67 year old, I need significantly more protein for this purpose than a 20 year old

Also with age, the process by which the body synthesises protein for muscle maintenance requires significant quantities of protein at a time in order to operate effectively. Hence the AI advice to consume your protein in 3 chunks through the day. Eating it in dribs and drabs through the day unfortunately seems to be ineffective/a waste of time for the purposes of muscle mass.

Toast and a tangerine is really a fat lot of use!

After all it is free

@Origen,
http://youtube.com/v/BqmG2y4IeY8

I have watched this in full a couple of times. Fantastic information

I’m aiming for 2g per kilo as doing regular resistance training and post 50. A whey protein shake per day and Skyr help a lot with this as well as upping chicken and salmon consumption.

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@abc, its easy with fish. I have salmon, smoked salmon, prawns, tinned tuna a lot. 20 - 25g per portion. I probably get 40g a day without trying, If I have tuna for lunch and salmon for tea then I'm almost at the recommended 60g, so add in milk, yogurt, egg and bob's your uncle. Chicken doesnt addd much fat and can be poached

You know it makes sense.

@holidayloverxx, yeah, that's pretty much how I eat, without any measuring and without any supplements. I include two eggs in my first meal every day, and fish, chicken or fish, or occasionally some red meat, in my second meal (I usually only have two meals a day, and am generally fasting sixteen-eight). I try not to eat too much cheese, but eat loads of Skyr. My version of mayo, much as I love the real thing, is a mixture of Skyr, mustard and lemon, and that gets dolloped on all sorts of things.
When I was in hospital for a month, I lost all my muscle, it was really scary. It's now been completely rebuilt with a combination of that sort of diet and four Pilates classes a week, all of which include lots of weight bearing. Sadly, my attempt at cardio exercise have not met with a similar success.

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A snowHead

@abc, you're kinda right, this is what Reddit tells me:
"Skyr (pronounced skeer) is a thick, creamy, and mild Icelandic cultured dairy product, traditionally made from skimmed milk, that has been a staple in Iceland for over 1,000 years. Although often sold as yoghurt, it is technically classified as a soft cheese due to its production process. It is similar to Greek yoghurt but typically thicker, milder in taste, and higher in protein.
Key Characteristics
Nutrition: High in protein and typically fat-free (if made with skim milk), providing roughly 17g of protein per serving.
Texture/Taste: Very thick and creamy, with a mild tang, often less sour than Greek yoghurt.
Production: It is heavily strained to remove the whey, resulting in a dense consistency.
Synonyms and Closely Related Products
While Icelandic-style yogurt is the most common, other ways to describe it include:
Icelandic yogurt-cheese
Strained cultured milk product
Skyr yogurt"

I use the 0% fat stuff and it tastes much like Greek yoghurt. It's nice.

A snowHead

Not that I'm an expert on anything nutrition, but I've followed the 1.5g/kg weight rule due to age and exercise levels. I need upwards of 120g per day.
I used to go into it as thinking I just need to max out on protein with as little effort as possible - eat 5 tins of tuna for example - whereas in reality I found should base it around when I needed it and how fast my body can process it for muscle building.

Now I utilise protein intake as part of my snacking, eating cottage cheese (with a dab of honey), having a mix of beans, eggs, chicken as my regular intake, plus using recovery aids like SIS Beta Fuel after exercise. It's spread throughout the day.

I did, for a while, use an app that counted my calories and other macros as part of a weight loss before a big cycling trip. I found it surprising at how much food you do need to eat sometimes to get to the protein target. I figure you might as well spread across meals you like rather than doing a Cool hand Luke and gorging on eggs in one sitting.

My Kryptonite is cheese..... I know it has high fat but it's just soooooooo good

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@Specialman,

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I decided to branch out the other day and, according to nutritional advice, incorporate some mixed nuts in my diet. The result was a broken tooth. Evil or Very Mad

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@KSH, bah!

I forgot about beans, probably have different types 3 times a week

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I did notice a few occasions that so-called 'protein' products are often either not worth the extra money, or have some trade-off in another way.
Things like fibre levels often change, as do fat levels. Or the actual protein level isn't actually that much.... '20% more' might only add up to a gram or two depending on the product.

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After all it is free

@abc, @KSH, Skyr cake is a popular dessert in Iceland and similar to a cheesecake, often topped with blueberries or a blueberry compote. The biscuit base is usually a spiced type biscuit.

A good slice is delicious and will boost your protein at the same time Laughing

I'm on a programme being run by the lovely Sally Gunnell (and her son Luca) for women of a certain age (like her-and me) who want to improve fitness/and/or lose a bit of weight/and engage in strength training. Yes-even an Olympic gold medallist admits she was struggling with extra pounds round the midriff and that running didn't really work any more. I've never been "on a diet" before but this is really just about changing some habits and being mindful of what you eat.

My understanding is that the plus side of protein is that it makes you feel fuller for longer-so in theory it reduces hunger, plus digesting protein takes more energy, so both should help weight loss. My personalised programme based on my aims (lose a bit of weight, improve strength) proposes I eat 100g protein per day. It's target I struggle to meet-I might get to around 70g but I don't eat much meat, and too much meaty, fishy or eggy protein [ahem!] slows down my digestion. Beans and pulses are great, but you have to eat bucket loads to get enough by that means. One trick is to swap full fat greek yoghurt (part of my regular fruit, nut and seed breakfast) for 0% fat Greek yoghurt. Hence I can eat far more and not exceed my current daily calorie target. I'm not a fan of "low fat" anything normally, but this does up my intake. I refuse to go down the road of protein powder or egg whites (which you can buy in a carton! Who knew?). I need to eat the same meals as my OH in the evening without it being a faff.
For us women over a certain age helping maintain muscle strength is so important, and I believe I protein helps from that point of view too.

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The muscle strength is the only thing that is inspiring me to change my diet. I don't need to lose weight, but I certainly don't want to put it on. I've never gone for "low fat" options but neither would I normally eat an entire bowl of high fat Greek yogurt. I will grate some cheddar cheese and have with a baked potato - but never the sort of quantity which would give me 20g of protein - and hundreds of calories!

I've never counted calories so have no idea how many I normally eat. My weight, for many years, has just fluctuated up and down about 4 - 5 lbs. If I have an indulgent few days and it goes up, I eat less and move a bit more till it goes down. But I realise I have got into rather lazy and bad habits. Sometimes if I wake up at 2 am and find it hard to go back to sleep I realise I've eaten nothing since a late lunch at 3 - 4 pm and get up and have a slice of toast and a cup of decaff tea! After my much despised toast and tangerine breakfast I often don't feel hungry again till 2pm. I've found that, with food, the more you eat, the more you want to eat! When I'm on the boat with my friends who always have a "proper lunch" followed by a "proper supper" I eat a lot more than I do left to myself at home. And enjoy it! But I really don't want to end up living from one meal to the next and being anxious about weight.

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Fage greek yoghurt 0% - or the Aldi copy (the one in the similar flat tubs, not the tall 'greek style' one) which is as good but much cheaper - has become my favourite dessert with 10g of protein per 100g. Add a swirl of honey, or lemon curd, a few nuts, cherry conserve etc. to make a delicious and nutritious quick pudding.

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I just messaged my sister to say I was going to try to eat more protein. She drove back from Yorkshire to her home south of Worcester today and just sent me this message:

I’m with you on the protein
I had a croissant for breakfast. Had 2 coffees for lunch. Ate most of a packet of furrows on the 4 hr trip home then had 2slices of toast and a G& T just.
FFS Hilary

So I'm not alone in my bad habits!

@Origen, increasing protein intake alone won’t make much difference to muscle strength without some resistance training to go with it. Muscles need a stimulus to use that protein.

You know it makes sense.

@BobinCH, yes, I do realise that! I never thought I could sit in a chair eating Skyr and then get up and move the world. And have been doing strength training and increasing my walking after several months of inaction after I collapsed with ultra-low blood pressure and knackered my back. I can now hold a plank, in good form, for 60 seconds - and rising. After my fall even a few seconds was impossible and I couldn't walk properly - just a painful sort of shuffle. But my immediate problem, and one I'm concentraing on, is that left leg is stronger than right, and balance much better on it, too. Need to even that up. Doing single leg bridges.

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A typical breakfast for me is

50g porridge oats
500ml skimmed milk
100g banana
40g peanut butter

This has 34g of protein, 26g fats, 83g carbohydrates and 9g fibre.

I also have a coffee which has almost no calories and no protein.

Other excellent sources of protein of high quality I eat regularly are salmon and tinned sardines. If you eat tinned sardines which contain bones, then you get extra calcium and vitamin D which you need more of as elderly person.

A typical tin of sardines contains 20g high quality protein at very low cost. A massive dose of vitamin D and a reasonable contribution to daily calcium requirements.

My spreadsheet says you need 56g of quality protein daily at your age. So 20g for breakfast, 20g for lunch, and 20g for evening meal would be best way to spread it.

Eggs are good quality protein, but you do need a lot daily to meet requirements. However, protein is also contained in wheatgerm bread, just that it lacks some amino acids so you need to add peanut butter to the bread to get a good balance of amino acids.

I buy peanut butter by the 1kg tub, with no additives.

For example, a typical slice of wholemeal bread at 70g might contain 7g of protein. This is about the same as a medium sized egg, but the quality of the protein is not the same as the bread lacks some essential amino acids. If you added 20g of peanut butter to the bread, that would be another 5g of protein which balances out the missing amino acids in the bread.

A snowHead

@Bigtipper, yes, sardines also one of my go ros. Stuff them in a halved red pepper topped with halved cherry tomatoes, capers and anchovies baked in the air fryer

A snowHead

https://nutrixu.com/is-peanut-butter-and-wheat-bread-a-complete-protein-understanding-complementary-plant-proteins

I don't like anchovies!

Individually, peanut butter (a legume) is low in methionine, an essential amino acid. Whole wheat bread (a grain) is typically low in another essential amino acid, lysine. When combined, the lysine from peanut butter compensates for the deficiency in the bread, and the methionine in the bread fills the gap in the peanut butter, creating a complete protein. This makes a peanut butter sandwich a simple way to get all essential amino acids for building and repairing tissues.

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Yes, I like good sardines (they do vary a lot in quality). But I can't eat peanut butter following an unfortunate encounter with them - the first in my life, aged about 10, at my grandmother's. I ate so much (because I loved peants) that I became rather ill. Gone off it!

Your breakfast is impressive, @Bigtipper. How do you eat 40g of peanut butter? On a spoon? (I can eat Nutella on a spoon..... Embarassed

) But not 40g! Shocked

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It goes in the porridge, with the banana.

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While I quite like fresh fish, I can’t bring myself to eat those out of a tin can, sardine, tuna, anchovies. They don’t taste remotely like proper fish.

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Good quality canned tuna, sardines and anchovies, as sold across French markets in Summer are a revelation. John West they are not. I often have a tin of sardines on toast for lunch.

After all it is free

@Hells Bells, the cheese shop in Orange, which was run by a couple who became friends, sold the most delicious (and non-hairy!) anchovies I've ever eaten. They were preserved in a jar, in olive oil, packed with aromatic herbs and spices. I think they sourced them in their region of origin, which was the Basque country. I've never managed to find any as good.

I've had 65p sardines and ££££ sardines...never tasted any different. Tesci tuna in spring water, perfectly fine for sandwuches5

I ot buy jars of anchovies not johnwest tins

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These are the very best anchovies, hand filleted and preserved in Cantabria. Not cheap mind you.

https://www.bellota-bellota.com/fr/blog/les-anchois-de-cantabrie-n77

Quite exceptional. There are cheaper and nearly as good alternatives.

Help!!

How much protein do we need?

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