Hey, everyone, it’s coach AB here to talk to you today about a common question that I get routinely and it is “Am I eating enough protein?”
So right off the bat, it’s really hard to give people any sort of number because there are multiple points of data you can gather to get you in the right direction, not a perfect direction, but a right direction.
The simplest way to get enough protein throughout the day is to have a palm’s worth of protein at each meal because it is proportional to your body, and it also helps you work on portion control if you find that you eat a lot at meals.
If you really want to get to the nitty-gritty of what your protein consumption could be, or you know your macros (Check out Joe’s video on how to find your macros here!), we can collect different data points to give you a good idea of how much protein you should be eating.
- Come in and talk to us to get an in-body scan. That it can give you;
- Your basal metabolic rate (how many calories you burn ‘at rest’)
- Your current body weight
- Your muscle mass rate
- Your body fat percentage
All those numbers together because it does matter to give us a better picture of you. In fact, as a CrossFit mass member, you get those every month if you want them, so get them.
- Get a food log to your coach as well because that way we’ll make sure we understand where you are in terms of eating. We can’t make suggestions if we don’t know what you’re intaking in the first place.
- It could be as simple as taking pictures of your food throughout the day, (really just two to three days.)
- If you can get it into My Fitness Pal because numbers are awesome, data is great.
But again, however, you can get a food blog to your coach we appreciate it.
- And an optional piece here is if you have a Fitbit or an Apple watch or anything that counts your steps or calories throughout the day to give you a caloric burn would be great to compare that to your basal metabolic rate. But again, the system of calories-in and calories-out is not the end all be all of everything.
All of these can work in tandem with your coach. If you sit down and bring the data with you, we can help you determine the appropriate amount of protein to consume. Again, this is an estimate based on these elements and it can point you in the right direction.
We can troubleshoot from there based on how you feel at the end of the day, whether you’re still hungry or if you see your muscle mass is increasing by getting inbody scans.
Let me know if you have any questions!
