A situation that we often come across coaching clients, is people trying to lose body fat but are only consuming one or even zero portions of protein per day. This is very common with people who are fixated in losing only overall weight on the scale. As specialists in fat loss and body composition, it is very important to us that our clients improve their health and also develop a leaner body shape that they can be proud of. For us to achieve this, protein plays a key part in their diets.
Protein is a very controversial topic, but if you study the research you will see that consuming a higher protein diet is actually safe to your health. If you’re looking to improve your body composition, health or gym performance, you’ll find it very hard to achieve these without maintaining optimal levels of protein in your nutrition.
When we coach someone how to change their body shape, we give them an actual target amount of protein to aim for each day. It is important that new habits are fixed in place before we deliver a new one. Working on protein targets is one of the many habits that we teach in when working with our Body Transformation Clients
So What Do We Recommend When Discussing Protein Targets With Them?
We suggest that you should be including a lean protein portion in every meal. This doesn’t mean eating only three or five meals a day, this means splitting your meal times into regular feedings based on what you can realistically sustain given your current lifestyle. We always usually recommend a minimum of three times.
Eating protein regularly helps keep you feeling fuller for longer, it stimulates your metabolism and it also helps you build vital muscle mass. Muscle mass is key if you want to lower your body fat levels and look leaner.
What we recommend to our personal training clients, is to initially work on portion sizes and adding a lean source of protein to every meal. As a guide, a portion of protein is equal to the size of the palm of your hand.
For a medium build male, we suggest one portion per meal.
For a larger build male, we suggest one and a half portions of protein with each meal.
There are divided opinions as to the healthiest forms of protein you should be eating. As mentioned you should try to include lean protein sources with each of your meals. Where possible you should also choose organic and grass fed protein sources.
What Type of Protein Am I Talking About?
Here are a few examples:
- Grass fed lean beef, buffalo, chicken, turkey, venison
- Wild Salmon, Tuna, Cod, Mackerel, sardines
- Omega 3 rich eggs
- Vegetarian/vegan choices including tofu, tempeh, soy, beans
- Supplements such as whey/casein or vegan protein powders count as a portion of your daily protein serving.
Hope this helps. If you’d like to know more about how you can lose fat and get leaner through correct exercise and nutrition download our popular Lean Body Transformation Ebook Here or Contact Us and we’ll see what we can do to help.
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