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Post by erick on Jun 25, 2018 8:34:53 GMT -7
Anyone who is thinking about taking protein powder should have measured their macros first, otherwise it's the equivalent of 'taking medication before diagnosing the issue'. I agree with that, but I have a very strong aversion to tracking macros. I have tried so many times but since almost everything I eat is made from whole foods it becomes really annoying to measure out every ingredient and adding up totals at the end of every meal so I usually quite a day or two in. I never really thought that my problem was too little protein, if anything I was just eating too little food in general.
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Post by jetjackson on Jun 25, 2018 17:53:25 GMT -7
Yeah, I don't think tracking Macros has to be more accurate than +/- 20%.
I just use websites like calorie king, and I might look at my plate and think, yeah, that's a cup of broccoli, and I'll throw that in. Or I look at a piece of chicken and say yeah, I bought half a kg from the butcher and split it into 3 servings, and mine was the biggest so let's say 200 grams. Then I'll punch in 200g of chicken breast into that website and throw it into a spreadsheet.
It's not going to be accurate on a daily basis, but I just follow my diet over a month or so I'll start to get a picture of what my P/F/C ratio is for my current diet. Then I get an idea of, do I need more carbs, or more protein etc. I'm never measuring a specific meal or anything, but over a month my diet stays relatively consistent during the week - I eat the same breakfast every day, lunch does not vary. I have 2 coffee's, 2 pieces of fruit, and then dinner varies to a degree - so a lot of the time I'm just copy pasting the data on the spreadsheet from the meal I ate previously.
It's definitely not perfect, and I haven't done it in a year or so (should actually do it again) but it gives me a 'feel'for my current diet so I can make a macro decision like - I need to drop off eating steak once a week, or I need more carbs, so I should choose dishes with more carbs. Really I'm just eyeballing it - if I see in my work cafeteria for lunch dhal with rice, then that's going to be more carbo rich than roast chicken with vegetables - which will be protein heavy. In aggregate over a couple of weeks I'm roughly hitting my goal PFC ratio, even if not in a single meal.
So many people I have spoken to that use protein powder have just added it on top of their existing diet. If they already eat meat on 2/3 meals a day, i.e. ham sandwhich and then meat with dinner, adding in a protein shake could be throwing them up to 40-50% calories from protein, which starts to get to the point where protein intake can cause health issues.
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Post by kerwinl on Jun 25, 2019 19:53:17 GMT -7
Late post here. I was vegan for about three years, before adding in a bit of fish back into my diet. When I was out climbing a lot I had good success with just eating as much carbs as possible, but during training phases I really had to focus on getting the correct amount of protein in at meals. I ended up resorting to using protein powders from garden of life to simplify things. I think it is easy to get the right amount of carbs on a plant based diet, but getting enough protein (especially leucine) at even durations can be tricky if your just eating veggies.
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