Having recently moved back to the UK and returning to university, it’s taken me a while to properly adjust (this also being the excuse for my lack of posts!)
With the new change of geography and lifestyle, I’ve integrated regular visits to the gym, walking for at least an hour a day to and from campus and the ability to take advantage of healthy, cheap and local food products.
Because of all this, I’ve become increasingly conscious of my protein intake, and have discovered the perfect way to calculate how much I need. I hope you find the following information as useful as I have!
What’s the recommended daily allowance for protein?
The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) advocates a general 55g of protein per day for adults. While this figure is a good guideline, there is a better way to work out a more precise figure tailored specifically for your body and diet choices.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends taking lean body weight into account when calculating protein intake. It states that a daily dose of protein should be 0.75g of protein per kilogram of body weight, meaning an average healthy adult female of 60kg needs 45g of protein per day, and a healthy male of 75kg needs 56g.
On top of this is the recommendation that, for people who have an increased intake of plant proteins in their diet, rather than animal proteins, this figure should be rounded up to 0.9g of protein per kilogram of body weight.
In the second part of this blog on Protein, I’ve posted about why we need more plant protein than animal protein, what complete protein is and the 22 best plant-based sources for complete protein. Hope you find it useful!
