Protein intake - help!

I measure and monitor all my nutrition intakes (fat, carbs, sugar, salt, fibre, protein and cals) and together with some meds I am keeping my Type 2 figures under really good control. However, proteins are the one thing that puzzles me - there seems to be so much conflicting guidance on the topic. I can’t arrive at a proper daily protein intake figure. On the one hand, NHS guidelines suggest x 0.75 gms per kilo body weight. I’m 70 kg so that would equate to 52.5 gms daily - this feels low and hard to achieve. Elsewhere, recommendations are frequently that between 10% and 35% of your daily calories should comprise protein. If I assume around 20% and I’m taking on 2170 calories daily, then using the gms to calories formula would equate to 109 gms of protein daily; more than double the NHS guide. Why are these so wildly different? (BTW, I average about 97 gms protein daily, tho’ I keep my red meat protein low at around 300 g per week, so most of my protein comes from fish, dairy, white meat, nuts, seeds, grains etc.). Can anyone help?

JohnEGreen said:

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Don't forget to factor in age people over 60 years of age require more protein.

Carb manager app gives me a goal of up to 129g per day.

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Many thanks John, I had seen an indication somewhere that older folk need more protein but I couldn’t decide if the source was a one-off or 100% reliable so it’s good to hear some confirmation. I am in the 60+ age group. Which carb manager app do you use? I may find it helpful.

Ali Baba said:

Nobody knows the real answer to your question. Its best to test if eating more protein increases your BG values ie via gluconeogenesis. I did this thoroughly and found that I could eat more protein than is commonly recommended.This way I am no longer hungry all the time.

I get my protein from, eggs,cheese,red meat,tofu,lupini beans ,cottage and haloumi cheese etc. The real menace is carbohydrates,not fat and protein. Trust the results of your own testing ,we are ALL different. Beware of dogma and theories not proven by facts. I wish you well with your efforts.

P.S I needed to buy a lot of test strips to do the tests, but in the end it was a very good investement.

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Thanks for your feedback and good wishes Ali Baba. Yes, there is so much (sometimes spurious!) info out there it can be difficult to get a definitive view especially, as you so correctly point out, we are all different. The bottom line is that all my 6 monthly test figures have been excellent over the past couple of years so I guess I’m doing something right!

maybecrazy said:

These Diet Doctor links may be useful

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Thanks maybecrazy! The advice there broadly corresponds with the estimate I’m now getting from Carbs & Cals app. Good to know my 97g wasn’t excessive, in fact I can target 115 to 220 so I’m a lot more comfortable about proteins now

Antje77 said:

To find out what amount of protein (or whatever other nutrient) is optimal for the average human you'd need to do a multi decade study with lots of participants on a controlled diet for all those years.

Then you'd need to do the same thing for different age groups, and again for people with different traits (like being insulin resistant, being underweight, overweight, very active, sedentary and so on and so forth).

There are no long time studies on people with a controlled diet, it would be an impossible study to execute.

To my thinking, this means that any source claiming to know the answer to ideal nutrition is not to be trusted.

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Thanks Antje77. Yes, so many variables means that there is no one answer but I’ve had some great pointers which have helped me to work out my particular solution so v pleased I posted.

JohnEGreen said:

It's actually called Carb Manager lot's of good recipes and info but for the premium recipes you need to subscribe you enter your meal in the log choosing from a data base of different foods and it shows carbs fats and protein content you can log how much water you have had to drink and exorcise done also. Just google it have a look and see what you think.

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Thanks again John, I’ve had a look at Carb Manager and its consistent with another app I’ve now checked out, Carbs & Cals, so I’m pleased that the advice from various quarters is aligning very nicely. I can save myself the Premium option as I’ve built my own food database over a couple of years. Painstaking, but very effective and data is easily available from supermarkets for “manufactured” or packaged products (flour, cheese, butters, yogurt etc) and from sites which list macro nutrition data for various food groups - veg, fruit, meat, fish etc.