How much protein to gain muscle?

[TarekF]

I need to find out how much protein to plan on consuming a day so first ill tell you my build (unfortunately i do not have my body fat percentage yet but when college starts ill be able to get it)

162 lbs or 73.5 kg

5 feet 11 inches (71 in.) or 180 centimeters

Anyway, regardless of whether you resemble my build, could you guys tell me how much protein you get a day when you want to gain muscle and what are some good supplements to take? Any advice would also be welcomed

[Clem Snide]

There's no agreed answer to this. In fact it gets a little controversial at times.

[TarekF]

I see, well thats why maybe some personal accounts could help me out, but i suppose most people don't keep track, maybe ill just add a good vegan protein powder to my diet and just see where I go from there.

[thestoatyone]

I could be wrong, but I think overall calorie intake is as important as protein for gaining muscle. Just eat slightly more of everything, particularly grains, rest well and work hard in the gym

[Mellos]

In a study i read that people who don´t do sports are totally fine with a daily protein intake of 0,6 g per kilo of lean bodyweight.
Some german nutrition scientist and professional powerlifter wrote that even in your cutting time you need 2 g per kilo of lean bodyweight max.

For example I just eat what tastes good and I eat slightly more than my body consumes to put on some weight.
Doing this, I eat about 110 g of protein a day which puts me in at 1,7 g of protein per kilo of lean bodyweight making good progress in workout.

Before I was vegan I ate like 200 g of animal protein a day but only half as many calories as I eat now. My progress was like crap, so you see you don´t have to worry at all.

[aliquis]

I need to find out how much protein to plan on consuming a day so first ill tell you my build (unfortunately i do not have my body fat percentage yet but when college starts ill be able to get it)

162 lbs or 73.5 kg

5 feet 11 inches (71 in.) or 180 centimeters

Anyway, regardless of whether you resemble my build, could you guys tell me how much protein you get a day when you want to gain muscle and what are some good supplements to take? Any advice would also be welcomed

Various studies have come to the conclusion of 1.2-1.8 gram / kg bodyweight for athletes, I guess that may be to get into positive protein balance though, and maybe people into bodybuilding want more. Up to some extent more protein probably equals more muscle, and more overeating does to (but also more fat, in an ever increasing ratio.) (Good sleep and heavy lifting helps to ..)

Most people just try to stay above 2 gram / kg to be on the safe side and overeat some. The supplement companies will most likely recommend you to get 3-4.4 gram / kg but well .. Guess why? =P

I'd take EAAs before, eventually after, eventually under lifting and eventually at other occasions, or Xtend since it taste delicious.

Over here i Sweden we have local brands of EAAs, of which I find EAA-XX from Bodyscience/mmsports the best tasting one. Current version of it has apple/pear, eaa-x with some sort of orange is decent to. There will be a new EAA-XX real soon with melon flavour to.

For foreign brands I like Controlled Labs Purple Wraath Grape, and for BCAAs Scivation Xtend Watermelon taste fine and Apple and the new Blue raspberry is supposed to taste nice to. I've heard plenty of good things about ALRi Chain'd out Appletini to, the later contains cordyceps though, dunno what you think about that.

Currently I do something like this, but it's overkill:

At home:
* Controlled Labs White Flood
* NutraPlanet Tyrosine
* Bodyscience Inositol

Before workout:
* Controlled Labs Purple Wraath

During workout:
* Scivation Xtend

After workout:
* Controlled Labs Green magnitude
* 20g maltodextrine

At home:
* 1 serving (like 14 gram ..) of Bodyscience EAA-X
* Towards 1 gram of NutraPlanet acetyl-l-carnitine



And then food as soon as possible, dried fruits, nuts, oats, soy milk, bread, roasted potatoes, whatever.

The green magnitude is just some weird creatine formulas with some other crap in it, most likely not worth your money. Same may go for Xtend, I'd really recommend the EAAs. White Flood may not be worth it moneywise vs caffeine + creatine monohydrate + tyrosine but you do whatever you want.

I have some cheap soy protein isolate to fill up the protein content with to, but I don't use it around training.


Since you live in the US you've got better prices when we do, most of europe is more expensive than Sweden though. So I can't recommend buying EAAs from our side of the sea ;D
Other options is Scivation PrimalEAA and uhm, wtf is it called, some other BCAA product ...

Of well, fuck that. Go to nutraplanet, order some cheap creatine monohydrate, purple wraath grape and xtend watermelon and start from there, if you need some extra kick caffeine + tyrosine or the xtend + vasocharge bundle or white flood (and maybe green magnitude, but it's most likely overrated piece of crap, also some people get upset stomach from it.). Get some now foods adams while you're at it. They also have now foods soy protein, don't know what it cost.
Of course no-shotgun v1 or superpump250 or whatever other pre-workout supplement may be fine to, white flood happen to be what I bought right now =p. I'd say that's really overkill for someone who have never lifted though, as is most likely caffeine and tyrosine to, and maybe the creatine to since you aren't pushing your limits yet.

Oh, and if you get green magnitude try to get sour apple instead of the shitty lemonade crap I got
Yuck for lemonade, everyone use it.

[aliquis]

If you can do it I guess something like:

* 4 cans of beans / 400 gram of uncooked legumes
* 200 gram of carbohydrate rich food (rice, pasta, oat, ..) or 300 gram of bread (or a mixture of the two.)
* 100 gram of nuts
and then some vegetables may be a decent start.

Around 4*350+2*380+1*600=2760 kcal there

Remove or add some, depends on how active you are and so on.

4 cans of beans / 400 gram of uncooked beans will be over 80 gram of protein.
200-300 gram of carbohydrate rich food will be around 20 gram more.
100 gram of nuts will be an additional 20 gram or so. So there you have above 120 gram of protein or 1.6 gram / kg bodyweight.


Decent amounts of protein and fats, plenty of carbs. Maybe I should take my own advices sometimes ...


I'd say with those numbers (1.6-1.7 gram / kg) you most likely don't need any extra protein powder but can just supplement with the EAAs which are more efficient anyway and you are probably fine. No worries in trying to find something decent to get the taste of the protein ok and so on.

[TarekF]

I calculated for an average day and I get about 65 grams of protein a day. Now I only have a bit of soy a day (just about 2 cups of soymilk). So I decided that I probably should start adding either powder, temeh, miso or natto into my diet.

A problem is that I am also trying to lose fat, so I don't know how well I will be able to gain muscle if I don't consume a lot more calories, maybe I should lose the weight first and then put on the muscle. What do you guys think?

[aliquis]

A problem is that I am also trying to lose fat, so I don't know how well I will be able to gain muscle if I don't consume a lot more calories, maybe I should lose the weight first and then put on the muscle. What do you guys think?

If you are a beginner you may have some more luck but if not it's better to decide what is more important for you right now and go with it. If it's losing fat stay high in protein and lower the calorie intake, if you want more muscle still try to get enough protein but eat more.

Losing fat is a faster project than building muscle.

If you are going to lose fat then I have no idea what amount of energy amounts we're talking about but maybe then you can go down towards 1700-2000 kcal or something such, and then I'd add some protein powder because you will have a really hard time getting the protein intake high on beans while not raising the calories.

80 gram of protein powder
3 cans of beans
150 gram of rice

maybe and something on top of that, but I understand that you won't live on that but whatever ;/, just trying to add up the amounts somewhat.



Or you can just workout and eat as you feel like, look at the scale and if nothing happens eat less to lose weight and more to gain weight, not harder than that, and let it take some time (2kg / month or so.)

You can't be very fat at your weight and length though, and you won't look like mr olympia even if you have little fat so just don't push it too hard. If you want to go down to 70 or 68 or something that's fine but don't end up at 55-60 =P

If you build some more muscle people will think less of any excessive fat you yourself may think you have. People who don't workout really have a shitty perception of how fat people are or how big / muscular / thin / hard / ... they are.


The more you eat the more energetic you will most likely be and therefor the more energy you will spend on doing stuff, and the other way around. So make sure to eat enough to be able to do your workouts or in the case of getting more muscle eat enough to do awesome workouts =P


Edit: Oh shit, don't go on 1700 kcal with an activity scheme like http://www.veganfitness.net/forum/viewt ... 245#310245 =P

[TarekF]

Losing fat is a faster project than building muscle.

Thats the truth of it. Lets see, I about a year ago (maybe a few months more) I was 209 and same height, and in a couple months got down to 178, maintained for half a year or more and about 4 months ago have gotten down to 161.

You can't be very fat at your weight and length though, and you won't look like mr olympia even if you have little fat so just don't push it to hard. If you want to go down to 70 or 68 or something that's fine but don't end up at 55-60 =P

Yeah, I know I am shooting for 70kilos and I think that should be sufficient, but basically I am just working off the excess fat I can see on my stomach etc. In 2 weeks or so I am gonna get a body composition reading (for 5 bucks at my college) and then I can really judge. I am fine at 15% give or take body fat, hopefully i am pretty close to that but who can say until I get the bod pod reading.

If you build some more muscle people will think less of any excessive fat you yourself may think you have. People who don't workout really have a shitty perception of how fat people are or how big / muscular / thin / hard / ... they are.

Hehe you're right, the more you work out the more conscious you are

[aliquis]

Well, back when I started training I started to remove excess fat and well, then I kinda removed a lot more than excess fat. Don't let that happen to you. Your stomach will always poke out somewhat when you have eaten, and the people in magasines most likely flex their abs and don't relax on the pictures (I guess, I've never understood if people talk about visible abs with or without flexation, it's kinda a whole different story if you want to look flexed while not flexing, if it's even possible ..)

Just pinch a vertical piece of flab an inch outside your navel, do that every now and then and you'll know whereto it seems to be going =P

You can safely go to 70 kg in two months, then go out to maintanance eating for a month and then start eating a little more or something such.

[TarekF]

Well, back when I started training I started to remove excess fat and well, then I kinda removed a lot more than excess fat. Don't let that happen to you. Your stomach will always poke out somewhat when you have eaten, and the people in magasines most likely flex their abs and don't relax on the pictures (I guess, I've never understood if people talk about visible abs with or without flexation, it's kinda a whole different story if you want to look flexed while not flexing, if it's even possible ..)

Just pinch a vertical piece of flab an inch outside your navel, do that every now and then and you'll know whereto it seems to be going =P

You can safely go to 70 kg in two months, then go out to maintanance eating for a month and then start eating a little more or something such.

Yeah, I think that may have happened a bit to me when I went from 209 to 178. Don't get me wrong, I don't wanna be a muscleman, I am okay with a good amount of fat (I don't even care for a 6-pack) but I still have a little ways to go.

Again I really want to get the bod pod reading to truly see where I stand and what I should be focusing on.

Thanks a lot aliquis, you really put a lot into the advice and I appreciate it, I think I will start some protein powder to keep calorie intake low but I am still gonna work on muscle strengthening (if not building) so I don't lose muscle mass ALONG with fat (as you said).

[thestoatyone]

Just to chip in, muscle is metabolically active, so by putting on a wee bit of muscle, you'll be burning a little bit of fat off even when you're sat on yo ass watching tv and eating chips

I say lift heavy eat sensible.

[TarekF]

Just to chip in, muscle is metabolically active, so by putting on a wee bit of muscle, you'll be burning a little bit of fat off even when you're sat on yo ass watching tv and eating chips

I say lift heavy eat sensible.

Thats good advice, I guess I will keep on my same routine (which is on my log) not go for total muscle building but slower steadier while I finally get rid of the excess fat. Then I will go into muscle building. Unfortunately I cannot lift that heavy because of lack of equipment so I am make doing with what I have until college starts (where ill have a free gym!)