You’re Not Eating Enough Protein. Here’s How to Fix That

Weight loss, blood sugar balance, strong muscles and bones… Optimal protein can do all that and much more.

For building muscle, curbing hunger and cravings, supporting the body’s healing process, playing critical roles in detoxification, and so much more, you need to make sure you’re getting optimal amounts of protein.

But with so much misinformation out there on protein needs, keto diets focusing on fat over all else, and poor nutrient quality in much of the food supply, most of us are simply not getting enough!

Why I Take a Protein-First Perspective

Protein comes from proteios, a Greek word meaning primary or first place. That makes sense when you consider every tissue in your body utilizes protein. And unlike carbs or fat, your body cannot store protein, so you must get it regularly through your diet.

Protein is made of amino acids, the building blocks your body needs to make muscle. Amino acids also create the hormones and neurotransmitters that make you feel great. They help you have the hair, skin, and nails that make you look fabulous, too.

Your body is able to create some of those amino acids on its own. Other key amino acids in protein — called essential amino acids — can only come from food. When you don’t get sufficient amounts of these essential amino acids, the many tasks assigned to protein can come to a grinding halt.

That’s why I emphasize a protein-first perspective. Every meal should contain 30–50 grams of high-quality protein. If you’re under a lot of stress, just had surgery, are experiencing illness, or you’re very active, you’ll want to especially work towards hitting that 50-gram mark.

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These recommendations are higher than the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein, which is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body mass, or about one gram of protein per three pounds of body weight. For someone weighing 150 pounds, that would be about 54 grams of protein daily.

“The RDA is defined as the bare minimum to simply exist,” says Gabrielle Lyon, ND, in her e-book, The Lyon Protocol™. “That is, the RDA is designed to prevent deficiencies and provide for basic tissue repair and not much more. It doesn’t take into account active lifestyles or people who want to protect muscle and longevity as we age.”

Put another way, you don’t want to just prevent deficiencies. You want to thrive, stay strong, feel confident, and be your best self as you grow older, right? Getting optimal protein is the way to do that.

Here, I want to look at three of the many reasons you need optimal protein: weight loss, blood sugar balance, and maintaining strong muscles and bones.

Then, we’ll explore signs of being low in protein, the best way to get correct amounts, and guidelines for building your plate. With this information, you’ll have everything you need to get all the benefits of protein, starting with your very next meal.

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Protein Is Essential for Losing Weight & Maintaining a Healthy Weight

Whether you want to lose weight, stop weight regain, or support a healthy weight, you need optimal protein.

Clinical trials show that consuming more protein than the RDA recommends helps:

• Reduce body weight
• Lower fat mass (the amount of fat you carry)
• Preserves fat-free mass (everything that comprises your body other than fat)
• Improves overall body composition

What’s more, longer-term clinical trials (between 6–12 months) found that a high-protein diet provides additional weight-loss benefits that can also prevent weight regain.¹

One reason for this is that compared with carbs and fat, protein has a much higher thermic effect.²

“The thermic effect of food, or TEF, relates to the amount of energy you burn when you chew, break down, and take energy from food,” says Jade Teta, ND, in Next-Level Metabolism.

In other words, you burn more calories eating protein than you do fat and carbs. Other studies show that eating a higher-protein diet can also improve satiety, so you get full with fewer calories.³

Protein also slows down stomach emptying, keeping your hunger hormone, ghrelin, at bay. And you’re far less likely to succumb to those mid-afternoon snacking temptations, even when the office receptionist brings in your favorite dessert.

Many times when a sugar craving hits, your body is really crying out for protein. When you’re low in protein, your system knows it needs energy, and you crave foods that will give you fuel fast.

If you reach for protein instead, it will actually help curb cravings for sweets by giving your body the kind of sustained energy it really needs. By eating protein, you can outsmart your sweet tooth!

A High-Protein Diet Supports Strong Muscle and Bone

Beyond weight loss, optimal protein supports strong muscles and bones. Between ages 30 and 60, you lose about 3% to 8% percent of muscle mass each decade. Beyond your 60s, that percentage goes even higher.

As a result, your body becomes frail. You have a higher risk for falls and fractures. Things that you do every day, like going up the stairs or lifting groceries, become harder.

Epidemiological studies show greater protein intake benefits bone health, especially when you’re getting ideal amounts of other nutrients including calcium.⁴ That makes sense, considering protein makes up about half of the volume of bone and about one-third of its mass.⁵

Ditto with muscle: about 40% of the body weight of a healthy adult is muscle, which is composed of about 20% muscle protein.⁶

Research shows that compared with their younger peers, suboptimal protein intake among older adults lowers muscle synthesis.⁷ Conversely, studies find that increased protein intake, combined with resistance training, supports greater strength and muscle mass.⁸

“Protein builds muscle via protein synthesis and resistance exercise accelerates the process,” says Lyon.

Learn more about why protein and resistance training make a powerful combo to build muscle and lose weight here.

A High-Protein Diet Helps Balance Blood Sugar

When you constantly pummel your bloodstream with a high-carb diet, you’re forcing your pancreas to crank out the hormone insulin nonstop to clean up all that glucose.

Eventually, your cells get burned out from the insulin barrage and ignore it. It’s a condition called insulin resistance, which causes weight gain, increases inflammation, and can lead to diabetes.

Read about why I’m not a fan of high-carb, low-fat diets in this blog.

“The higher your insulin levels are, the worse your insulin resistance,” says Mark Hyman, MD, in The Blood Sugar Solution.

“As the problem worsens, your body starts to lose muscle, gain fat, become inflamed, and you rapidly age and deteriorate. In fact, insulin resistance is the single most important phenomenon that leads to rapid and premature aging and all its resultant diseases, including heart disease, stroke, dementia, and cancer.”

Unlike carbs, protein only minimally impacts blood sugar and doesn’t create a big insulin spike. Instead, when you eat protein, your pancreas responds by releasing the hormones glucagon and insulin, which help stabilize blood sugar.

As a result, a high-protein diet lowers post-meal blood glucose levels.⁹ In other words, protein helps steady out blood sugar levels, which means that you don‘t have those carb-induced spikes and crashes, and you stay full and focused for hours.

While most research looks at how this impacts people with type 2 diabetes, these conclusions have an enormous impact on everyone with some degree of insulin resistance (which in the United States is about one in three people).¹⁰

Signs That You’re Not Getting Enough Protein

Now that you understand some of the many, many benefits of getting sufficient protein, how can you know when you’re not getting enough?

For one, your mood, energy levels, and wellbeing take a hit.

“Protein supplies the dopamine precursor tyrosine and the serotonin precursor tryptophan,” says Ari Whitten in Eat for Energy.

“Without sufficient protein, we won’t have enough building blocks to make dopamine or serotonin, which will lead us to feeling apathy and fatigue.”

Other signs that you’re not getting enough protein include:

• Hunger and cravings
• Brittle skin, nails, and hair
• Your body doesn’t heal well
• Your skin doesn’t maintain a healthy glow
• You get sick a lot
• You’re losing muscle

Even if you are getting sufficient protein, you may not be absorbing it well. Proteins are hard for digestive enzymes to break apart, so they take longer to digest than carbs and fats. That especially becomes true as you get older.

How do you know if you’re not absorbing protein well? If you notice digestive issues like cramping or bloating after you eat protein, your body may have difficulty digesting it.

One reason is that you may be deficient in hydrochloric acid (HCl), which is produced by the stomach and helps break down protein. If you’re not making enough, you can’t adequately digest and absorb this macronutrient. Even if you’re eating sufficient amounts of protein, you’re not getting all the benefits.

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How to Calculate Your Daily Protein Needs

How much protein should you be aiming for daily?

The minimum amount of protein you should be getting to maintain your muscle mass is one gram per pound of ideal lean body mass. Lean body mass is everything in your body that’s not fat: your muscle, your tissue, your organs, blood, and water.

Women usually have more body fat and less lean body mass than men. In general, ideal lean body mass ranges from 78% to 85% of total body weight for women.

To determine those numbers, you’ll need a body composition scale that measures lean mass and body fat. My favorites (each is currently under $100) include:

• Omron Body Composition Monitor with Scale
• TANITA’s BC-533 FDA Cleared Glass Innerscan Body Composition Monitor

How can you determine that number from those scales? Let’s say you weigh 135 pounds and have 20% body fat (that means 80% lean body mass). You’ll simply multiply 135 x .80, which means you’ll need 108 grams of protein daily.

Here’s what that daily protein intake might look like:

• Break your overnight fast with a loaded smoothie. This Carrot Cake Shake packs an impressive 28 grams of protein.
• Top sautéed greens or a salad with Gluten-Free Almond Crusted Chicken Tenders for lunch for 43 grams of protein per serving.
• Enjoy Zucchini Bolognese for dinner with 39 grams of protein per serving.

You might want to go to the ceiling of 1.5 grams per pound of ideal body weight if the demands on your body are high, such as if you’re:

• Under stress
• Trying to put on muscle
• Injured
• Have a serious illness

If none of that applies to you, stick with one gram per pound of ideal lean body mass. Your body has trouble assimilating more protein, and excess amounts can be stored as fat (too much of anything can be unhealthy).

Your Best Protein Sources

Now that you know how much protein you should aim for daily, let’s talk about the best protein sources. As an overview, protein comes from two sources: animal and plant protein.

Animal protein is a complete protein, meaning that it contains all the essential amino acids your body needs.

“The best type of protein to build muscle is other muscle: animal protein,” says Mark Hyman, MD, in The Pegan Diet. “You can get protein from plant foods, but the quality is lower, and plants have lower levels of key amino acids (branched-chain amino acids such as leucine) needed to synthesize new muscle.”

My favorite animal protein sources include:

• Wild salmon
• Wild Alaskan halibut
• Grass-fed beef
• Sardines
• Wild scallops
• Pastured eggs (if you can tolerate them)
• Grass-fed bison
• Grass-fed lamb
• Pastured chicken breast
• Pastured pork

With plant protein, getting enough protein without overdoing the fat or the carbs can be challenging (but not impossible!). If you’re relying on things like beans, lentils, seeds, and nuts, you’re getting a lot of carbs and fat just to get enough protein.

One solution is to use a protein powder that fits your needs. My Plant-Based All-In-One Shakes combine 22 grams of protein from three plant sources, along with important vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and more.* Order yours here.

My favorite plant protein sources include:

• Quinoa
• Lentils
• Black beans
• White beans
• Garbanzo beans
• Nutritional yeast
• Flax seeds
• Chia seeds
• Nuts and seeds
• Unsweetened nut butters
• Shiitake mushrooms

3 Guidelines as You Increase Protein Intake

I’ve emphasized how critical protein can be throughout this article. However, we don’t consume macronutrients in isolation.

Eating sufficient protein is an important part of eating by the plate, where you combine protein with healthy fats, non-starchy vegetables, and slow low carbs. Here are three ways to optimize protein while making every nutrient count.

1. Pair sufficient protein with other nutrient-rich foods. Getting the right amount of protein is important, but so is getting the right portions of non-starchy veggies, healthy fats, and slow low carbs. As a general rule, every meal should contain 2–4 servings of fat (every serving is about 100 calories), 0–2 servings of slow low carbs (every serving is about 100 calories), and 2 or more servings of non-starchy vegetables (every serving is ½ cup cooked or 1 cup raw).
2. Remember that you are what you eat, ate. With animal protein, quality matters. Animals that are raised in feedlots are fed genetically modified (GMO) grain that increases their levels of inflammatory fatty acids and reduces anti-inflammatory fatty acids. Meat from factory farms may also contain growth hormones, antibiotics, and other things you don’t want to consume. Focus instead on quality protein sources like wild-caught seafood and grass-fed beef. Compared to grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef has a better fatty acid profile. Plus, it’s higher in antioxidants like vitamin E.¹¹
3. Count the fat in that animal protein. Many animal-based protein sources also contain fat, so remember to count those in. If you’re eating a grass-fed steak or salmon, you’re getting 1–2 fat servings with your protein serving. If you’re eating shellfish, chicken breast, or turkey, the fat is negligible, so you don’t need to count it.

Taking a protein-first approach to eating helps blood sugar, increases insulin sensitivity, maintains a healthy weight, supports strong bones and muscles, and much more. To get all of protein’s benefits, your goal is to be sure you’re eating enough protein (25–50 grams at every meal) and digesting it well.

I’ve got more protein-packed recipes, exclusive invites, cool freebies, and more on my Community Page. Learn more and get started here.

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The views in this blog by JJ Virgin should never be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Please work with a healthcare practitioner concerning any medical problem or concern. The information here is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or condition. Statements contained here have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

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