Protein

[rightknockered]

I'm 5ft 6ish and weigh 9 stones. I used to be anorexic in my teens/twenties so don't like counting calories etc. But I do wonder how much protein I should be eating. I weight train 5 days a week and run 6 days. I think I'm eating around 120g protein a day but am trying to increase. Mainly because I've upped my speed/intervals and increased running distance from 25km a week to around 30/35 km a week and my calves are very sore today.
I don't think I could stand to eat any more meat/fish/eggs though. Would a protein supplement help? Which do you recommend? Not sure I could get on with whey powder, I have an intolerance to dairy

Nuts, lentils, beans etc. are all good sources of protein. No idea how much you need though.

What's your goal though?

I want to build more muscle and get fitter I suppose. My body fat is quite low, so don't want to go lower.

Couple of protein shakes

You can get non dairy protein powder. Try googling for peace protein powder - it's avaliable on the high street.

I think protein supplements would be a good idea as long as in addition to food, not instead of. Keep eating what you are eating with lots of focus on meat, fish, eggs etc and then add in two or three dairy free protein shakes a day.

That should say pea protein powder (although peace powder sounds like a nice thing too!)

120 grams is plenty for your weight.

Between 1 - 1.6g per kg body weight per day. 9 stone is 57kg, so 57-92g per day is all you need.

Any more than that gets excreted which is why protein shakes are useless.

You're getting enough protein already on 120g per day.

For reference, a slice of bread has between 3-4g protein, an egg is around 6g, a table spoon of peas is around 1g, an average sized portion of pasta is around 6g.

You need about 45g protein a day. Although you can eat up to double that safely. It is not a more is better kind of thing, extra will just be processed by the kidneys and excreted therefore any more than double for extended periods can put extra pressure on your kidneys

There's an interesting Guardian article about some of the conflicting information about protein intake here.