Do I Need to Supplement with Protien?

A question I get a lot with the individuals I work with is this, “Should I take a Protein shake?” . Adding supplements to ones diet has gotten out of control. People are supplementing when they don’t need to and people that need to don’t. There are so many different types of supplementation out their it can be confusing even to the professionals. A lot of times we get away from the basics of nutrition and make things much more difficult than they need to be.

Being that this is a strength and conditioning newsletter and protein is the building block of muscle, we will focus on it. Now lets get simple, the Recommended Daily allowance for protein is .8g per kg of body weight. To figure out your body weight in kg divide your bodyweight in pounds by 2.2 and this gives you your weight in kgs. So for the average 200 pound person you would need roughly 73g of protein a day. Now some people achieve this and some don’t. So to make it simple you need to follow your diet by writing down everything you take in over the course of the day. When possible take down the serving size information from the food packaging. If you don’t know that information do a google search for “nutritional information of food” and several sites will come up that will give you info on the nutritional composition of food. Then total up the grams of protein you are taking in. Do you meet the recommended allowance, are you under or over. Now .8g per kg of Body weight is the allowance for the average person. If you are an athlete or an active adult you need to increase that amount to 1.2-1.7b per kg of BW. Take that same 200 pound person and they will need a range of about 108-155 g of protein.

So do the math, track your diet, and answer your question. If you are not getting enough protein and you are an athlete or active adult then yes you may want to consider protein supplementation. If you are getting enough through your diet alone than you don’t need to supplement with protein. Yes, it is that simple.