Adding extra protein

[Ikeameatballlunch]

I'm starting to include weights in a fitness regime that I was going to start anyway but now must due to breast cancer diagnosis. I'm following a prehab routine to surgery.

I know I'm not eating enough protein. I can also loose weight and muscle easily, I'm a hypermobile skinny type.

Whey is making me a bit windy so I'm re introducing more slowly to see if I can adapt. However I have been noticing the difference in general energy.

What other things can I try?

Eg babybels light, halloumi, I'm using pea milk. Skyr on porridge for breakfast and eggs a few times a week. I often nibble on almonds

Some meat upsets my stomach but chicken breast may be ok. I had moved away from meat a bit but probably need to come back to it.

Sorry to hear about your diagnosis.

I eat fairly high protein (120g-150g a day), typically I might have:

Oats with 10g protein powder, milk, Fage (slightly better than Skyr as has good bacteria which Skyr does not, even better would be Yeo Valley organic super thick yoghurt- I ate Yeo Valley for years then went to Fage but switched back as I definitely felt happier in my gut on Yeo Valley!), pumpkin seeds, pea or almond milk.

I then have a second breakfast of scrambled eggs, usually 1 large egg, after I have scrambled them I mix in 70-100g cottage cheese. Recently been adding flaked cooked salmon. Might try tuna. Often have it on seeded (more protein in seeded) toast or with homemade baked beans. Mushrooms and brocolli are higher protein veg so have those with it too.

Snack wise, favourites are apple and peanut butter, or pear and cottage cheese, more yoghurt.

Lunches and dinners I have chicken, salmon, tuna, ham, mackarel seabass, prawns, 5% mince beef, steak, carbs are usually quinoa or beans/lentils, brown rice. Sometimes pea pasta. I eat a tonne of greens as find that pretty essential to digest protein.

I try to eat the minumum 45g of protein by midday as I am less likely to snack and also my brain functions better.

I use a pea protein to make a smoothie, the one I use is actually Fast800 as it has only a few ingredients. It's not really necessary to have protein shakes unless weight training though and wanting particularly high protein.

Meant to add a bean based homemade soup is great for lunch along with a salad. Can be prepped ahead. I've recently been making houmous from chickpeas and beetroot, and dipping in homemade harissa marinaed chicken fillets. Plus homemade beanburgers. All of those are good protein wise.

Thanks for the tips; I can certainly work with that. And re the yogurt. V happy to go back to yeo valley.

Could the pea protein be better stomach wise? Only thing is I don't think I can go ott on phytoestrogens; pea milk is probably ok but not sure about powder.

i sometimes loose my appetite when stressed so the whey is to try to fill a gap if I need to.

I eat a lot of hummus but adding bean meals was my next plan. I make a lot of vegan curries/ stews with chick peas but want to find some with beans.

I don't think I need as much protein as you're adding as am 8.5 stone but I do need to look at building more muscle. Though I think I'm stronger than I thought I was!

I think

I eat a huge amount of protein because I'm currently v overweight and trying to lose weight and build muscle. I eat about 150g a day. I eat Fage yogurt for breakfast, lunch is 3 eggs on a protein bagel thin with some ham and some cheese, and dinner is chicken thighs/steak etc. I have one protein shake a day but that gives me 24g of protein so I think you probably need a lot less than me so should be able to get it through food? Some eggs, decent Greek yogurt, nuts, chia, and a bit of chicken? How much do you need to have in a day.

That all sounds good. I never tried a whey one, I can't drink a full pea one as irritates my stomach but I split it over two - would that work for whey?

Tesco do the yeovalley super thick creamy one on their club card for a discount, think it's £3 for 350g.

Bw.

Thank you all

I only need 60-70 g I think (1.2g per kg)

Oh I forgot about turkey breast, I used to use that in stir frys

I probably can get it through food but I'm really at eating breakfast now on work days. If I can tolerate a shake that will be helpful when I go back to work. Or complan or something

yoghurt would work I suppose. I was good with chia porridge for a bit a few years ago

Sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis.

I'm 9stone and weight train and do CrossFit. I'm vegan so I don't get protein from meat or dairy but still manage to hit around 100g per day.

If the whey protein isn't agreeing with you I can recommend vegan wondershakes from protein works. Vegan protein shakes are generally quite minging and grainy but these are lovely.

Some favourite meals of mine are:

Classic beans on toast. I use seeded bread which is higher in protein.

Chilli non carne. I use Tesco's frozen mince. High in protein and really handy as you can cook from frozen. I also add mixed beans.

Red lentil pasta has twice the protein of normal pasta. You just need to be careful how you cook it as it cooks much faster.

I use silken tofu to make creamy sauces such as stroganoff, Carbonara style pasta sauce. You just need to blend it which some milk. High protein, low fat creamy sauce base.

Thank you, those are really great tips.

Had completely forgotten about lentil pasta. Not really a pasta person but it's another useful work lunch idea.

And will investigate silken tofu.

I use Tesco's frozen mince @Laurdo presumably tofu mince?

Meat mince is one of the things I found my perimenopausal tummy reacting to (I think histamine issues) so trying something like that would be ideal. I had thought about it ages ago but never quite had the time to get sorted.

I've used a lot of the vegan stuff from the Happy Pear for batch cooking, mainly as it's extremely tasty and relatively easy. I had to move towards vegan stuff for freezer meals and eating fresh meat (mainly due to my stomach reactions!)

I found switching from onions to leeks helped too.

It's soya based yeah. If you're trying to avoid soya Birdseye green cuisine range is pea protein based. Beyond meat is also pea protein based.

For easy lunches for work, why not make a big pot of lentil soup? Or a minestrone type soup with loads of beans?

The quickest and easiest way to increase your protein is by increasing the portion sizes of the protein that you currently eat. Have you tried that? You’ll be surprised at how easy it is to get to your target that way.

2 eggs, one chicken breast 120g, one salmon fillet 120g is 70g protein which is your goal. So add in some of the other things you like.

I don’t use protein powders myself anymore, just personal preference as I’d rather eat the protein than drink it. Buy you could try halving the amount or using a smaller amount and mixing it with water to make a paste and add that to yoghurt.

Have a look on the MyProtein website as they do so many types of protein powders. There’s a clear whey isolate that they do that may be more palatable for you as it’s more like a squash. You can freeze it to make like a slushie or ice lollies.

One other thing you may want to consider is supplementing with creatine mono hydrate to help your muscle endurance, performance and recovery. It’s an amino acid and the most well researched supplements in sports science.

OMG! I'd never even considered freezing the clear protein. I've made slushies with it before but it foamed up quite a bit. Defo trying the ice lolly thing!

Protein shake? I was reluctant to try it at first, so I did my research and now I make my own: powder, oat milk and one banana, 30 min after workout.

Fish?

Can you try casein instead of whey?

second protein yogurts / skyr / Greek etc. just check the protein content.

Eggs and fish has good amounts of protein - think there’s 25gbin tuna. Chicken / turkey sausages are decent. Turkey mince, I sue it in chilli with lots of veggies and mixed beans so reduces the amount of meat…

Cheese / nuts etc are more fats than protein but if you’re not watching cals will
work.

Can I please ask how much you weigh?

I try to eat 100g of protein per day and I weigh 60kg - I’m just wondering if I need to increase that? I do a lot of exercise, including strength training.

@Usernamen I weigh 61.8 kg. My maintenance calories are around 1900. There is not much scientific evidence that eating more than 1.6g of protein per lb of body weight has any benefit. My trainer just set it as 30% of my intake so it's quite high.

I've only ever trained and eaten this way so it's hard to compare, but in 9 weeks I was eating a small surplus for some of it (2000 cals) and I gained 2-3lbs and visibly gained muscle. I'm now doing a small deficit 1800-1900 cals to lean out.

With high protein intake...I can probably get to 130g without powder but above that without protein powder is hard. Also, you have to be really careful that increased protein does not push out greens and veggies as you need the fibre more so. I don't worry if extra veggies take me above calories, I am more concerned to hit 30g+fibre a day (double if I can). It is very satiating - I find I get on best with it as part of balanced meal including fat and carbs. Also adding spices. On the good side I rarely crave sugar.

In short you probably don't need to go above 90-100g but as I am at the beginning and in muscle growth I thought I would embrace it.

Eventually I would like to swap the powder out as it feels a bit ultra processed.

Very interesting, thank you. I am also trying to build a bit of muscle (I just checked and I’m actually 57kg… so I’m obviously not building as much muscle as I think I am), which means consuming more than my current target of 100g of protein per day is probably a good shout.

On days where I have a home-made protein shake, which is 35-40g of protein, I easily go over 100g, but it’s much harder to this on days I don’t make the shake. So I think I just need to get into the habit of having one every day.

Btw is it 1.6g per lb of body weight or per kg of body weight?

My maintenance calories is 1500-1800 to your 1900, which probably confirms my suspicion that I need to build a bit more muscle!

1.6g per kilo sorry. I hit about 140g-150g a day. Quite high and doubt it's needed to have that much! I'm 168.5cm.

Most whey upsets my stomach, but I found a very high protein whey isolate was ok. I used Bulk Pure Whey isolate 97.

When I was trying to get a lot of protein in, I used that everyday (I put mine in coffee - made a paste of it with milk first, otherwise it goes all weird if you add it to hot drinks directly). Also added egg whites to my breakfast (eggs, extra egg whites, veggies, toast). That, plus greek yoghurt in the evenings and getting lean protein at lunch and dinner always got me over 100g