Protein serving sizes - too much of a good thing?
Protein serving sizes - too much of a good thing?
Many of us load our protein intake into one particular time of day. It’s not unusual for people to have minimal intake at breakfast and lunch by just having cereal and a sandwich, and then have a large intake such as a steak or chicken at dinner.
This often means having a large protein serving size of over 30-50g, which is far more than we need to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Protein research has developed substantially in recent years and we now understand that 20-25g every three to four hours supports lean muscle mass optimally. We can’t store any additional protein in the body.
As your body can’t store any additional protein, it is thought that you hit a saturation point, and any remaining protein is excreted as waste. This means that to optimally support your lean muscle mass you need to ingest 20-25g of protein regularly throughout the day.
The exact amount you need will depend on how much training you are doing, your body weight and gender. Most active, regular cyclists need around 1.5g of protein per kilo of their body mass per day. 20g-25g is the equivalent to one chicken breast, three large eggs or 200g of beans.
We don’t tend to snack on protein between meals as most of our popular snack foods tend to be carbohydrate-based. This is where protein-rich shakes, snacks and bars offer a convenient option to top up your protein intake through the day.