How Much Protein is Too Much?

I find healthy eating more difficult on rest days. You are supposed to eat a bit less than on your workout days, but the workout itself helps keep your appetite in check, so I find I’m hungrier than on a workout day. Particularly in the late afternoon, when I find it hard to stick to a mere 150 or 200 calorie snack. Yesterday I had the distraction of being out of the house from about 4pm to almost 7pm, but then there are so many places to buy a chocolate bar on the way home! Honestly the best way to avoid temptation is just to keep moving and not got into the shop.

All told this was another good diet day. The fat percentage was a bit high but everything else went well, so I’m not too fussed about that. I have noticed that on my 1800 calorie diet I need to be getting over 100g of protein to have it be close to 25% of my calories. The EU recommends 0.8g of protein per kilo of body weight per day for most people, which is only 51g for me. However, as an athlete I need more protein to repair and grow muscles damaged by exercise, as well as maintain a strong immune system.  The current ISSN (International Society for Sports Nutrition, http://www.sportsnutritionsociety.org/) guidelines for athletes are 1.0 to 1.6g of protein per kilo of body weight per day, which for me would be 64 to 102g. Either way I am definitely pushing it to the higher end of recommended protein intake, but I hardly think I am in danger of overdosing on protein. That is far more likely to happen to the legions of people on low carb diets. The problem is they do too little exercise to need that much protein and are trying to force their bodies to get energy from protein instead of from carbohydrates, the body’s usual fuel source. Not the case here!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Fibre:
1754.43	100.44g	202.76g	59.70g	28.9g
	23%	46%	31%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
08:00	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	175g
	Mushrooms	110g
	in butter	5g
	Raw tomato	85g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
10:00	Black tea	500mL
11:00	Seedless Red Grapes	100g
	Sainsburys Freefrom iced rich fruit cake slice	1 slice
12:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
13:45	Shrimp stir fry	245g
	Merchant Gourmet tinned puy lentils	100g
	Spinach	25g
	and walnuts	10g
	The English Provender Balsamic Italian Dressing	15g
	Alpro Soya Original	200mL
14:45	Tri-Berry Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	500mL
16:30	Sainsbury's fruit and seed mix	40g
20:15	Home-made chicken risotto	300g