Hey everyone, I’ve been working on hitting my protein goals but I’m running into some concerns.
I usually train early in the morning, and my first meal (post-workout + breakfast) ends up being really high in protein , around 80g in one sitting (example attached). The reason is because at work, I can only fit in a protein bar + a light snack due to circumstances, and then I finish the day with a high-protein dinner.
So both breakfast and dinner end up being protein-heavy. My target is 200g protein a day, but I’m also keeping calories around 1500–1600 since I’m cutting.
My questions:
Is it unhealthy or inefficient to have 80g+ protein in one meal?
Does the body actually use that much at once, or is some of it “wasted”?
Any tips for better distribution while still hitting 200g on lower calories? Would love to hear your experiences or strategies, thanks a lot! I have included pics of my breakfast just for an example
by quan3t2
7 Comments
Why are you aiming for 200g per day? That’s……..a lot
Your body cannot process that much protein in one sitting. Over half is going to waste. 20-40 grams per meal is what your body cannot process absorb.
Unless you are an ultra marathoner, full-time athlete, etc that is way more than necessary and potentially dangerous.
As I mention in another comment, I think your goal is incredibly high.
I’d also say if you are cutting, and not wanting to lose muscle mass you should not drop this severely. I am dropping weight as a strength trainer. I am smaller than you and likely a lot older and am dropping weight 0.6 pounds per week by eating 2100 Calories a day while averaging 178g of protein per day, and I am probably getting more protein that I need.
Your calorie deficit is likely around 1,000 Calories per day and that is a guaranteed way to lose muscle mass no matter how much protein you eat.
Hey I’m on a similar intake, 1800/180
80 g post workout is fine, it’s more optimal to break it into 4 equal portions of 50g each but work is work.
If you can chug a bar at work, consider baking protein rich brownies/blondies. Easy to pack in a ziplock bag, pre-cut them and they don’t look like you brought lunch to work, very snack-like and office kitchen friendly.
See my post history for a blondie recipe (ignore the toppings, not meal prep friendly).
Tbh 1500/200 is a bit tough. I will say some things now assuming you have just started the cut recently and trying to lose fat, if that assumption is wrong pardon, I’m just trying to help. You say you are 215lbs which is exactly where I was 4 month ago. I am now at 187.
When you are bigger your tdee is bigger. My advice is not to rush into it and aim for 0.4kg/week loss and not more. If you do more you can: tank your hormones, establish unhealthy relationships with food, end up fatigued and rebounding.
Do a sustainable cut. At that weight if you weightlift 3 times a week you can be at 2500 TDEE or even more (I was at 2700). It will drop by about 100 cal every month if you loose about 2kg/month. Mine is now about 2400 and I eat 1800 but I started eating at 2300 for the first 6 weeks.
Google ‘reddit tdee spreadsheet’ and weigh in daily to get a sense of things.
Last but not least – 1g/lb of your lean or target mass, not overall mass. Most men at 6ft are around 70kg lean mass. More IS better but the floor should be 150g/day for you IMO, with objective around 160-180 and 20 being a stretch goal.
Hope this is of use, good luck!
Wow there’s a lot of misinformation in here
Firstly, there’s is NO FOUND UPPER LIMIT on the amount of protein you can absorb in one sitting. It’s DEFINITELY NOT DANGEROUS to have one big meal in a day along with small meals and snacks. That’s basically how people survived for centuries, they’d get basically all their protein at dinner time and for the rest of the day they’d eat gruel and nuts and chew on roots and stuff.
Furthermore, the “metabolic window” is a myth. Your body is pretty good at absorbing and using protein basically within a 24 hour period. It takes more energy to store protein as fat than to just use it immediately so your body doesn’t really want to do that if it can avoid it. As long as you are working out or recovering from working out it’s pretty hard to store protein as fat.
As for the total target amount of protein in a day, thats a little more nuanced anddepends on a lot of things. Recently I’ve been fond of “1g protein per /desired/ body weight” and gone from there. It’s true 1g per lb is a liiiittle over the mark of peak optimum efficiency and if you feel like you are struggling to hit your mark that’s probably fine, but I’d rather my body have a little more of what it needs rather than less. (we actually still haven’t determined the exact biomechanism which causes DOMS or why, but my personal theory is that it’s your body reaching for protein that isn’t there! just vibes-based science)
tl;dr it’s completely fine to have one protein heavy meal in a day, it’s certainly not dAnGeRoUs, and it comes down to what kind of training you do, how intensely and how often!
Good luck out there buddy!
Wtf do you mean 1500+mg sodium? Brudder…