An Epiphany about Protein

Every so often my beloved and often despised trainer stirs things up at Steve Mclean Function Fitness Group Training by insisting we participate in a Transformational Challenge – what the?!?!

It usually pops up just before summer and after the Christmas Season of indulgence.

Although we might whinge and complain these challenges motivate us to put in more effort at training and take notice of what we are eating. PLUS there is a cash prize incentive at the end!

With that said we have just completed a 6-week challenge and I wanted to share about something I discovered.

While doing some reading about nutrition, eating plans, carb cycling and such I came across the following;

25grams of meat equals 7grams of protein

Excuse me, what? My brain has always thought that 25grams of meat equals 25grams of protein. Hello?

Perhaps I learnt this in high school somewhere but it obviously went in one ear and out the other.

To prove a point I shared my epiphany with my 17-year old daughter and asked her if she knew the meat to protein ratio. Her slightly sarcastic response was “Yeah mum, we learnt that in Food Tech.”

Well that made me feel stupid!

So, next I asked my highly-intelligent-seven-degrees-husband if he knew the meat and protein ratio.

“Of course!” was his reply “Didn’t you?”

Before my self esteem could plummet too far I turned to my 15-year-old step-daughter for support.

With my fingers crossed and pleading eyes I shared about my epiphany and asked the question. My doe-eyed step-daughter stared back and said “What?”

Yay! I’m not alone, I thought to myself and happily explained the concept to her like a pro.

My DELICIOUS protein breakie :-)

In hindsight it appears my high school learning experienced a hiccup somewhere in year 10 or 11 – oh well. Onward and upward I say.

What my epiphany has lead to is a greater understanding as to why I feel sooooo damn hungry on training days – which is Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

I haven’t been eating enough protein for my body to refuel and recover.

What that meant was I could eat more!!! GREAT NEWS.

Check it out - to work out how much protein needed each day, multiply your ideal weight in kilos by 2.2. Then divide that number out over your four to six meals with main meals bigger than snacks. For me this equates to 143grams of protein a day.

On training days my breakfast NOW consists of scrambled eggs with three eggs (21grams protein), two slices of short cut bacon (10grams protein) plus half a tomato and a handful of baby spinach. No bread and believe me I am full by the end of this fabulous feed.

So, thank goodness for my epiphany about protein!