How Much Protein Do You Need?

By Nutrionist, Hannah Norris 

Like all things in life, moderation and variety is key. One single source of protein is not optimal. Instead opt for a variety of sources to provide you with different nutrients.

If you have sports performance, fitness and exercise goals, liquid nutrition is often optimal due to its speedy digestion and quicker nutrients to the muscles. Plus due to it being easier to digest it means no uncomfortable sluggish feelings during a workout and let’s be honest, it’s not easy to eat a meal immediately after a session! This is what Upbeat premise has been designed on, to provide you with easy quick nutrition that tastes good that you can drink at any time, especially around your training. 

If overall health or weight loss is a goal, it’s easy to opt for sugary drinks that don’t provide any nutrition, opting for a protein drink like Upbeat can help fill the gaps with a low calorie, high protein and refreshing drink. Also, when spacing out protein over the day to prevent sugar/hunger crashes, finding ways to get protein in is sometimes difficult so be creative, you don’t need to have a chicken breast for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks!

Have oats, fruit and Greek yoghurt for breakfast, an Upbeat tropical for mid morning before a workout (with the added boost of caffeine!) a poke bowl with rice, tofu and veggies post workout, some almonds and dark chocolate mid afternoon followed by another protein rich dinner.

And what we mean by this is different foods provide varying levels of protein and more importantly, varying amounts of individual amino acids.

How much protein do we need?

In the UK the (very old) guidelines are 0.75g of protein per kg of body weight. Or an ‘average’ person 40-50g protein a day.

This is to prevent deficiency and lots of more recent evidence suggests we need probably double that amount to be ‘optimal’

Endurance – 1.4g/kg of body weight

Weight loss/weight training – 1.6-2.2g/kg of body weight

Elderly and less active – 1.2g/kg of body weight 

So if you’re a 70kg woman, you would need a minimum of 84g (70 x 1.2) and a maximum 154g (70 x 2.2) to feel your best. This is the same across men and women.