To think I am not going to whither away?

Your diet is fine, but why do you refer to fish as “meat”? Animal protein, yes, but “meat” doesn’t include fish in English.

oh and it’s wither not whither.

Your bil is bat shit uneducated and is just parroting the current dietary craze about proteins.
When I was a fat child it was all about fibre ...then it was all about fat ...then it was all about sugar...now it's all about proteins.
Your diet sounds balanced and sensible.
I'm unsure why you let someone like your bil worry you

I don't eat any meat, haven't for almost a decade and am in excellent health if I do say so myself! Any time someone comments on my health and protein intake (and ironically it's often someone who is overweight or unfit themselves!) I ask them if they're getting enough vitamin c in their diet as they look a bit peaky and I haven't been ill in years.

You can always take a B12 supplement. It’s not necessary to eat red meat at all. I have been vegetarian for about 40 years, I’m in my mid 70’s and very fit and well.

I don’t eat red meat and eat very little dairy and you’d be amazed how it bothers people who think I’m going to fade away.

Exactly. If we're being stereotypical about the habits of 'old ladies', most of them do their shopping on foot and carry it home multiple times a week. They're probably more active than young people who work at a desk and go to the gym several times a week. They've probably got a lifetime of manual housework behind them too.

I've just come back from holiday in (very hilly) rural Spain. I was forever being overtaken by them carrying their shopping up hill back from the market while I paused to 'admire the view' aka not have a heart attack.

How does he know what you eat? Don't discuss it with him anymore.

Men who talk about meat are so boring.

Like a parody of manliness.

There are lots of apps you can use to track your nutrition. My fitness pal is the main free one though personally I found it quite difficult to find specific on there, or that there were multiple options for the same thing with conflicting info (the app is American based)
I find nutracheck much easier for UK food brands, though there is a charge - I think they do a free trial though so worth checking if you only wanted to do it for a few days for example?

No, in that case theirs is ridiculously high (unless they are a leopard).

I don't eat meat at all - only fish, so I must be a ghost! 👻

Your BIL is batshit. Mock him and laugh at him. That's what his stupid comments deserve.

Technically fish is meat but normally it is distinguished and people mean land based animals when they refer to eating meat.

so I think your question is do you get enough protein as primarily a vegetarian, followed by pescatarian, the answer is like yes, your diet looks healthy.

There's cultures that are vegetarian their entire lives and have pretty good life expectancy.

My vegetarian mom lived to nearly 90 and was still doing yard work and everything until a couple months before she died.

Your BIL is a dumbass.

Not my experience as someone who was a Mum myself in the 80s and 90s.

As you age, your muscles will gradually weaken no matter how much meat you eat or how fabulous your diet is. That's life. Eat well, walk a lot and lift weights when you can and you'll be fine.

I saw Paul McCartney in concert a few years ago and the strength, stamina and energy on stage was unrivalled…

Surely your question should be "Do I have a balanced diet?" rather than "Do I eat enough meat?", meat doesn't need to form part of your diet so long as what you are eating provides you with a good balance of the nutrients you need.

@Moveyourbleedingarse my mum and her friends were the same, plus add in heavy smoking which helped them stay skinny. Sadly I saw many of them go from skinny to frail as they got older. There was a really strong message of low fat in the 80s and 90s, and aside from the message that fat was bad for your heart, there wasn't that much focus on health - or at least it was assumed that for women if you were slim, you were healthy. Cabbage diet, grapefruit diet, Beverly hills diet, and let's not forget the special k diet...! Diet culture in that era was awful!

Lots of fitness people push the idea that very high protein is necessary, and whilst protein is important for muscle gain and muscle retention, it isn't the main reason that the fitness industry encourages the average person to eat that much. It is promoted because when people focus on eating more protein, they naturally eat less overall because protein is satiating, if you eat high protein meals you're much less likely to want to snack.
Sarcopenia is more of a risk if you have a history of disordered eating, if you're very underweight, if you're a smoker, and if you don't/can't do any weight bearing exercise. If you're eating a varied diet and some meat or fish then chances are nutritionally you're fine. It can certainly be fine on a veggie or vegan diet too though usually vegans have to be a bit more conscious of what they're eating to get all the nutrients they need as it's doable but easier to miss. The main thing as others have said is to think about whether you're doing enough weight bearing exercise to help keep you strong as you get older.

@Petrine

Wow sorry I didn't mean to offend you!

OK. In my own personal experience and anecdotally from my mum and her friends in the 80s and 90s lots of women dropped all fat from their diet, very often dropped dairy and slimmed using ryvitas, crispbreads and grapefruit.

‘My mums generation were forever 'slimming' and cutting out fat and protein in favour of crackers and fruit and veg. So not terrible for vitamin intake, but absolutely abysmal for sarcopenia. Add in the fact that they might not as a generation have done weight bearing activity, add in osteoperosis and their bones would break and they wouldn't have the muscle condition to recover.’
@Moveyourbleedingarse

What a ridiculous and totally inaccurate generalisation.

Nobody can answer that. It depends on everything else you eat, your activity levels, your personal biology etc etc. If you think about it, there huge variations in healthy diets around the world. Some Indians live mosh on daal and rice, a lot of Inuit people live mostly on seafood, many cultures have no dairy in their diets but still get plenty of calcium.

You could always try making one change eg slightly more meat and see if it changes anything. I have found that my brain fog is better with slightly more protein in my diet. On the other hand, you may feel better with less meat.

I’m a mostly vegetarian middle aged woman with pretty decent muscles. I think this protein thing is a fad. I haven’t eaten anywhere near the target protein amounts for my height/weight ever and I’m fit and strong. We should all be eating more fibre to live well - I eat legumes every day and oats for breakfast. Lifting weights is good, though. You should definitely be doing some of that.