Dr. Rashie Garg, Dietitian in Gurgaon

Know Your Daily Protein Requirement and Plan it wisely! 

If you train hard and regularly, here are 4 easy steps to meeting your daily protein needs. And why do you need enough protein? –  To build, maintain and repair your muscles, of course!! Also, Including optimum amount of proteins in your diet helps you shed that extra fat in your body. So why not plan it wisely!

Step 1: Know how much you need:

• Calculate your protein intake as 2 – 2.2g/kg IBW ( Ideal body wt.) So, for e.g., if your body wt is 70 kg, you need 140 g protein/day. 
• Divide it out into 6 meals. So, you need 24 g protein per meal. 
• These 6 meals roughly are Early Morning, Breakfast, Lunch, Pre-workout, Post-workout, Dinner

Step 2: Know your food protein sources 

Here are the approx values of protein (g) in high protein foods –

• 1 egg – 6
• 1 egg white – 3
• 100g chicken – 26
• 100g fish – 18
• 100gms Paneer -20 
• 100gms Curd- 5 
• 100ml Milk – 5 
• 1 cup cooked dal -7
• 1 cup cooked sprouts- 7

Step 3: Know the approx. amount of protein (g) in your supplements

• 1 scoop ON whey gold standard (fast-acting protein immediately post WO) – 24
• 1 scoop ON Nitro Core /BSN Syntha6 pre workout or anytime in the day (sustained release multiblend of whey + egg + casein) -24
• 1 scoop ON Casein (sustained release protein for bed-time) – 24 

Step 4: Plan it out!

• Check if you have enough of protein food in each meal. If not, then add appropriate foods or half to 1 scoop of protein powder to you meal
• For e.g., if your breakfast is oats / cereal in 200 ml milk, you are getting only 10 g first class protein. Add 3 eggs / 6 egg whites / half scoop whey powder 
• or if you are lunch is 2-3 rotis + 1 cup dal + 1 cup curd + veggies + rice, then you are getting only 12 g protein (only curd is first class protein here, dal is not). Add half scoop whey / nitrocore
• Pre Workout : you can have Oats made in 1/2 milk+1/2 water + 4 or more eggs 
• Have 1 scoop of fast-acting whey first thing in the morning and post WO- that takes care of 24 g protein
• If your dinner is lacking in protein, you can boost it up with 100g paneer / 1 scoop casein (excellent sustained release protein)

So, go ahead. Plan out your diet. Power to you! 🙂