frankie_bug's Journal, 22 Feb 20

According to the NHS, a single chicken breast contains more protein than a woman should eat in an entire day.  

Don’t stress it. As long as you are keeping carbs down then it’s all good, especially the bad carbs. 

One thing I do remember from my meeting with the nutritionist is that excess protein is stored as fat, especially if consuming too many calories at the same time. Calories aren't an issue, I'm no where near my daily limit even without looking at the protein, when I do look at it I drop another few hundred calories from my intake which isn't great, it leaves me eating around 500 calories a day. Safe to say I'm struggling with making the numbers add up lol 

Some sites say just under a gram of carbs per pound of body weight which puts me at roughly 160g of protein. Others say just under a gram per every 2 pounds which puts me at around 90g. And the NHS says no more than 45g per day lol! Eating low carb means increasing protein sure, but by how much? That is the question 😅 

I usually have 6-8 ounces of protein a day which would be like almost 50g and 3-3.5 ounces is a serving, love my salter kitchen scales, highly recommended :) that's how much protein you normally take daily in your diet. Works for me 👍🏻 

Hi frankie, A large chicken breast can contain over 80g of protein far too much for you. If your daily intake is 160g a day divide it by 5 and eat 5 meals a day not 3 which gives you 32g eat that every 3 hr meals along with your carbs doing the same thing your body is getting the right amount of nutrients that you need. Hope this helps 👍 

But yeah 50-80g a day is fine :)  

160g is only example do the same with 50 or 80g. It’s only what you body needs everyone’s Macros is different.  

Yeah exactly :) 

Okay! 50 to 80 a day (ignoring the NHS is becoming a theme for my health lol!) and spread out over snacks and meals (I work two shifts a day and genuinely don't have time to eat a meal during either of them but a snack is just about doable) That's brilliant! Thanks everyone 😄 

I have been told that 56 grams of protein/day as a minimum is right for most people, but too much protein can be bad for you ( 2 grams/kg. of body weight, daily average would not do you any harm but this is a maximum ) they said that eating normal food (a balanced diet) would not cause a problem, but eating protein supplements can. Protein is 4 kcal/gram, and eating more kcal than your body uses up, will be stored as fat. This inof come from the Diabetes Prevention Programme I have been attending 

You're very welcome 🎉 

Two grams per killogram! That's higher than I've been finding online lol, and very helpful. Now I can keep readjusting as I (hopefully) lose more weight. And yeah, I'm going to try to keep it lower, although I'm limiting carbs and calories so I can't be limiting the protein or fat too much, I just needed that base number to go off of lol! Cheers! 

Hi Frankie. Some more info that you may find of interest that I have learnt. They recommend at least 30 grams or more of fiber/day,try getting that amount when limiting carbs. We need starch carbs to fuel our bodies (important source of energy) they also contain protein, vitamins, minerals and fiber. refined sugars are the bad carbs, so food containing added sugar (empty calories) of any type (of sugar) are to be avoided, natural sugars in fruit,potatoes and milk are ok. carbs and fat contain 9 kcal/gram, alcohol contains 7 kcal/gram. The diabetes prevention programme, keeping a food diary and serving size is what is important, a serving of rice is (25 grams dry) boiled, what we get from the take away will be 6 times that. Starchy carbs 7 serving for a woman and 8 for men max. Fad diets according to them are only any good short term. just food for thought my friend.  

Peter I did know about the fibre, and about how basically every way of eating these days is far too low in it. I take two fybogel a day and I'm trying to get into the habit of adding some fibre to my porridge too (but I have an awful memory so that's not happening too often at the moment lol) I'm of the same mind with fad diets. Anything that promises 'incredible results' or 'quick and easy weight loss' is designed for one thing- striping people of their money. For some reason it didn't occur to me that a totally new way of eating (low carb Vs low fat) was going to require a totally new way of eating. So, tomorrow, I'm going to both Aldi and Tesco and looking at all the numbers on the all the foods I can stand to look at lol. I've dismissed a lot over tbe last year and a half because of the fat content so now I need to totally re-evaluate everything I'm eating 

More protein the better, look up James smith he explains it well 

John, under certain circumstances I agree with you. But protein is used for bulking up which I'm not doing. I'm desperately trying to get my weight low enough to qualify for IVF which means I actually need to shed muscle mass, not build more (yeah, I know. It doesn't sound healthy. That's because it's not. Because the NHS doesn't care about health, just weight) And even if I were trying to bulk up, 200g of protein a day would still be on the high end lol. 

I wouldn't advise extreme amounts of anything. A balanced diet is key to healthy weight loss. You don't want to lose muscle mass but that will only happen if you don't get enough calories; the body will, if forced to, break down muscle for energy. Work out how many calories you need to lose weight then work out your percentages of carbs, protein and fat from there. You are correct, the body will store excess protein as triglycerides in the fat and this will cause weight gain. 

Thats why it is best to take small amounts throughout the day as Paul suggests. Gives the body the best chance to utilise the protein for what it is for: repair, growth, maintenance and not to be converted into fat. 

Nice one bunty, Well explained 👍 X