THROWDOWN #313
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Why is protein important? Do you know how much you should be eating? Can you name three or four examples of foods high in protein?
We’ll start with the first question – why is protein important? You need protein to help facilitate muscle growth to help support power, strength, and speed development in your sport. Protein is one of three macronutrients (the other two are carbohydrates and fats). Macronutrients are essential nutrients your body needs in large quantities to function properly and provide energy. One of protein’s most important roles is to promote lean muscle growth, and it can also help promote recovery from resistance training. Your body can get protein from animal-based sources such as beef, poultry, and fish or plant-based sources such as beans, tofu, and quinoa.
Now that we know what protein is and why it’s important, let’s talk about how much you need to eat in a day. In general, youth athletes should consume anywhere between 10-30% of their total daily calories from protein. We like to talk about protein quantities related to your body weight, and the RDA of protein for the general population is around 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That means if you weigh 140 pounds, you should eat around 50 grams of protein daily. For athletic populations, we like that number to be quite a bit higher, anywhere from 0.7-1.0 grams per pound of body weight, so going back to our 140-pound example, that range means anywhere between 100-140 grams of protein in a day. Why do we like that higher range? It’s always good to be strong for your sport, and ensuring you eat proper amounts of protein means you will most likely maximize any muscle-building benefits from training.
Those numbers might not mean anything to you when it comes to actual food, because most likely, you don’t have time to pay attention to quantities like that, and that’s ok! There are lots of tips and tricks we are going to give you to help you get more protein in your day. We’ll talk about when you should be eating protein, how much protein to eat, and what some good options are to put on your grocery store list.
A good rule of thumb to ensure you are eating an adequate amount is to try to eat something that contains protein every time you eat. That means all meals and snacks. Spreading your total protein throughout the day makes it a bit easier to eat a sufficient overall amount, plus it gives your body time to digest it fully before you eat again.
The best tool you have to help you gauge how much protein to eat with each meal and snack is your hand. Eyeballing protein in palm-sized amounts is a great way to be mindful of total protein quantities when you eat. Males should aim for 6-8 palm size amounts of protein throughout the day, and females should aim for 4-6 palm size amounts. This will give you a little wiggle room with snacks or “in-between meals” food; we know it might not be easy to find sufficient protein sources in the school cafeteria, for example, but if you can eat a decent amount at breakfast and dinner, you’ll be set.
Protein comes in many forms. You have animal-based options like burgers, chicken breast, and eggs or plant-based options like spinach, quinoa, and kidney beans. Other sources of protein that might not be obvious are diary options like cheese, cottage cheese, and milk. A nowhere near complete list of complete protein sources is listed below. Hopefully this gives you a good starting point to begin to plan out ways to increase your protein intake each day.
