I don't understand some things about proteins

[megaphoenix]

Firstly, i'll just say that my goal is to be able to comfortably lift 70kg (say the average person) in my arms, anything above that would just be the icing on the cake.

Now I've tried looking a lot into supplements and the amount of protein you need to take and it all starts to get very confusing to me. At present, im about 6 foot and 60kg with very little muscle mass and i just want to be able to lift weights a lot to gain strength. Yet every time i read advice on how much protein to take, it says there are different recommended amounts for people just starting out, athletes and heavy body builders and it confuses me a lot.

Another thing i should mention is that i do work nights (so the first meal of my day is dinner) and at present, i don't really eat anything until a few hours before i go to bed because i don't get hungry at work. So i would kinda hoping i could use supplements to fill up most of the protien requirements (along with milk).

I guess a more direct question is if i use the Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard Protein Powder with 3 serves a day (72g a day, plus the milk, and whatever i usually have for dinner) and i lift a lot of weights (bicep curls, squats, etc), would i be able to reach my goal if i kept increasing the amount of weights when i could lift more?

I assume that is one of the best products to use, as it's one of the top sellers on the store and seems like a good price ($1 per serve)

(sorry if there was a better place to put this, i've been meaning to join here for a while and i didnt know a better place to ask)

 

[Kyle Aaron]

AIS says 1.2-2.0g protein per kg bodyweight daily.

For you as a 60kg bloke, this is not a heap - 72-120g. Meat is about 25% by weight protein, nuts 10-20%, rolled oats 17%, most starchy food like rice etc has 5-10%, etc. So you have porridge and milk for breakfast, then get a big chicken breast (they're 250-300g) and have it for lunch or dinner (or split between them) and a handfull of nuts, that takes you to around 100g protein. The vegies and fruit and so on you have will easily knock you over the 120g max beyond which not much more protein will get absorbed. No worries.

Protein is not all you need, though - you need fats, carbs, and vitamins and minerals. So you need good food, and lots of it.

The key thing for you will be a caloric surplus - taking in more than you spend. To be 6ft and 60kg suggests you don't have a big appetite, and/or are quite physically active already. So you are really going to have to eat a lot.

Lots of fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans, some meat, fish and dairy - and lots of starchy foods (rice, pasta, bread, spuds). I mean LOTS. If you ever feel hungry then you're not eating enough.

You see, your body wants to stay as it is. Hunger means it's short of food, being satisfied means it's got just enough - to stay as it is. You don't want to stay as you are, you want to get bigger. So you have eat even when you're not hungry.

You don't need protein powder at all, you just need good food. What protein powder is good for is two things.

Firstly, it's good to have carb and protein immediately before and immediately after your workout - it gives you fuel for the workout, and helps you recover and grow afterwards. If you had steak and spuds or something you might lose them during the workout as you chuck them up. But a drink is digested pretty quickly. So the protein powder can be good for that.

Secondly, it's good for when you find it difficult to prepare food, or physically difficult to eat another meal. 500ml milk + 100g skim milk powder + 3 eggs is 70-80g of carbs, same of protein, and 45g or so of fat - 1,000 kcal. That would be like a big steak with vegies and a some garlic cream sauce. The drink can be prepared in under a minute, and sculled back quick; the steak and vegies and sauce would take a while to prepare and eat.

Some people who find it hard to eat so much just get the extra calories and protein from milk - work up to 4lt/day (not a typo). 1lt/day in the first week, 2lt/day in the second, and so on. But still you need good nutrients in the rest of your diet, you can't live on milk!

For a beginner wanting to gain a lot of weight, I don't think you need protein powder at all - it doesn't do any harm, but it's not physically necessary. Just eat well, along the lines I noted above. For your workout take along a litre of milk and drink that instead of pure water.

The cheapest protein/carb weight gaining powder is milk powder. $6 for 1kg (you can get it cheaper in bulk), each 100g has 35g protein, 55g carbs and 10g fat, about 450 calories, something like that. 100g powder is 1 metric cup.

 

[Josh_GTiR]

Your diet really needs to be fixed, you don't eat anywhere near enough. As Kyle has stated.

 

[megaphoenix]

Sorry i took so long to reply, but thanks a lot for explaining some of this, it helps a lot. Time is a big problem for me though, as i work night shifts and its difficult for me to find the time to prepare "dinner" meals. Currently i also have "dinner" as my first meal (i just woke up an hour ago and my first meal of the day was meat and two veg).

Based on your advice though and some more searching, would the following sound like a good idea (not the best idea, but a good idea at least):

Breakfast - Porridge, Rice or Protein based cereal + glass of "egg nog" (egg + milk powder)
Lunch - This is hard for me (i rarely eat it), but i assume some rolls with high protein meat? (sliced chicken?)
Dinner - I couldn't change this too much, but i usually have meat and two veg
Snacks - Nuts + glass of "egg nog"

If that is close to being a "good idea", i could probably find something a bit better for the lunch part. I am concerned about the amount of money i would spend per day just on protein, but i assume it would only work out as a few dollars a day with the plan i listed above.

I think i do have eating problems though, likely cause by my first meal being "dinner". Im going to work in a few hours and i just don't usually get hungry (ill probably just have a piece of toast if i do). When i start this protein stuff properly, i might just leave dinner to when i get home from work and have breakfast as the 8pm meal instead.

If all this sounds good though (at least for a beginner like me), at least i can then move on to planning the amount i should be lifting weights and when and so on. I used to do fitness exercising and i'd jog for 90-120 minutes a day and i could do that easy enough, i'm just a bit clueless on the "what i should eat" part of things

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Make the time to prepare meals.

At your lunch, have a good serve of vegies and starchy stuff (rice, pasta, spuds, bread).

Aside from that, the issue is not what you're eating but how much. Whether so many grams of this or that is enough for you we can't know. You just have to eat - if you have enough energy for gym and are achieving your physique goals, then you're eating enough, if not eat more.

Make the time to prepare these meals. Instead of 60 minutes of gym and crap food, it'd be better to have 30' of gym, and use the spare 30' to prepare food. That's because you need fuel for your workouts, and materials to rebuild what you break down in the gym. Without that fuel and material, the gym work will break you down and you'll never be built up.

 

[megaphoenix]

Hmm, so basically, i should focus not just on meeting the protein goal (of say 100g), but also making sure i have enough high energy foods to keep me exercising for longer. I think i have focused more on the protein side of things instead of realizing that i do need the fuel/energy to take advantage of that protein. I like pasta and rice though, so i think ill start up a fuel plan with things like that.

Do you think it would matter if my first meal of the day is dinner with the last being breakfast? would that cause an issue with gaining muscle, or it's "okay" aslong as im eating healthy, reaching the protien/energy, etc levels and so on?

 

[Kyle Aaron]

In terms of diet, you need three things to build strength and fitness:

• energy - from carbs and fat, from starchy food (rice, spuds, bread, pasta) and fats (nuts, olive oil, fish)
• protein - to build up what you break down; whether this comes from nuts, vegies, meat, fish, dairy or protein powder doesn't matter much.
• nutrients - vitamins and minerals, got from fresh fruit and vegies

That's it.

So as I said, make sure you have each day,

• LOTS of fresh fruit and vegies
• LOTS of nuts and beans
• SOME meat, fish and dairy
• if you want to bulk up and have energy for workouts, LOTS of starchy food

The exact timing isn't a big deal. However, most people find that they need one lot of starchy stuff digesting in their guts for a couple of hours before they do their workout, otherwise they fizzle out. So whatever meal is the last big meal before your workout, make sure you have lots of starchy stuff then.

 

[megaphoenix]

Thanks. This all makes a LOT more sense now. I guess i have two more quick questions though, if thats not too much trouble.

When you say nuts are good for protein, is that a certain type? or unsalted peanuts would be just as good as cashew nuts or almond nuts?

And is there a "recommended" time for how much i should be lifting weights per day? If energy isn't a problem, should i be aiming for 20, 40 or 60 minutes. or even up to 90 if i can? Some people have told me that too much is useless, yet i just assume that going to your muscles hurt is probably a good thing (because "it means they are working").

I hope im not wrong on that, hah.