Protein Per Body Weight Explained: What 1.2g/kg REALLY Means | Dr Rupy Aujla

0:00Welcome to Live Well Be Well, a show to help high performers improve their health and well-being.

0:10I think when people think, maybe they're listening to this when they're on a bike or they're in a car or they're on a run, maybe they're watching this on YouTube when they're in the evening. And sometimes I'm aware that the terminology that we use can be really confusing for people. and they're like okay 1.2 grams per body weight for myself didn't go to nutritional science school what the hell is that yeah yeah so like if someone's trying to break it down let's say a 35 year old i'll just put it myself in the shot 35 year old woman um you know and a 40 year old man with the two case studies sat here how much should we be looking at throughout our day what does that actually look like in terms of food because this is literally your wheelhouse this is literally what you do you show people how they can consume that practically but also deliciously yeah to add yeah it's very true through the day so how can one look at it in terms of like meal size and plate size because i do think that sometimes when we start talking about grams people are like well what even is 25 grams it's a really good point so i think it's worth doing a little bit of math okay and i say this in the book actually though i love doing arithmetic i don't like doing math actually like algebra and all that kind of stuff like i scrape through my as levels but um so when we do the the math of 1.2 or like in your case because you exercise regularly um you could probably benefit from that higher level especially if you spoke to stacy sims she's a big fan of like the higher amounts which you know as long as everything is in balance i'm i'm totally on board with so you want to be looking at your ideal body weight so let's say we're looking at someone who is overweight.

1:51Maybe they're overweight by 20 kilos or so. You don't want to be using your current weight, which is 20 kilos plus. You want to be using your ideal weight. So whatever the kilogram amount that you times that 1.2 by or 1.6, you want to be using the ideal body weight. Similarly, if you are underweight as well, you'll be using your ideal body weight. So that's the first part of the equation. Then let's say we'll use myself because I can do the math a little bit in my head. I'm around 75 kilos. I'm trying to opt for 1.6 grams. That's my ideal body weight. Ergo, I need to be consuming around 120 grams of protein per day, which is 40 grams of protein split across three different meals, for argument's sake, as that's the typical eating pattern.

2:31What does 40 grams of protein look like in a typical meal? All right. So let's take, and I have a picture, a number of different pictures in the book, because I want people to be good estimators or guesstimators of protein when they make their breakfast. So if I think about - out yeah sure look are you impressed what i bought your book with i'm very impressed that you got it yeah yeah that's the page there one billion people worldwide are deficient in this nutrient that so many of you guys might not be aware of and women if you're listening you are more risk of being deficient in this nutrient so i'm going to first of all explain what the physical symptoms are if you have cold hands and feet pale skin extreme lack of energy or fatigue then you might be suffering with iron deficiency or anemia.

3:19Now first off, please go to your GP to get your iron levels checked. Secondly, please explore a good iron supplement. Many people that come to me are worried about taking iron supplementation because it can cause constipation or GI distress. That's why I'm so incredibly proud to be partnering for this episode with Spartone, the number one iron-rich water supplement. Now I've personally been using these for years. The reason why is because they are naturally sourced, highly absorbable iron. That means it's much more gentle on your stomach. There's no harsh tablets. It's just one naturally sourced ingredient that works very well.

4:00You can pick it up in boots or buy online at Amazon, but please do not ignore this it is really critical to make sure your iron levels are in check if you're on youtube yeah yeah listening maybe it's on spotify they now have our full videos up um you'll be able to see so okay talk us through this so for this morning's breakfast for me i had 150 grams of greek yogurt so that was a good couple of heaped tablespoons i know from this diagram that greek yogurt is around 10 grams of protein by 100 grams full fat full fat always full fat and it's strange so any strain yogurt is going to be high in protein because you're getting rid of some of the water and the sort of technique sort of concentrates those proteins so 150 grams i'm looking at about 12 grams of protein there i enriched this with some peanut butter peanut butter is i love peanut butter like crunchy 100 no added salt no added palm oil none of that no added sugar none of that stuff by just adding a couple of tablespoons of that we're enriching that yogurt and we're boosting that yogurt by around seven or eight grams of protein so that's 20 grams in total i'm going to add a handful of mixed nuts to that so that's again around eight grams or so, depending on how big your hand is.

5:22And then I'm also going to have that with some berries. And on the side, I had some of my doctor's kitchen bread with a bit of hummus as well. So it was a bit of a mix and match situation this morning. And that got me close to, I'd say, 35 grams of protein just from those elements. So that for me is like a healthy high protein breakfast. It's got nuts and seeds, they're anti-inflammatory. I've got some berries in there. i've got my protein i've got my base that's like an i an ideal way of of eating let's say i haven't had lunch yet but um my lunch is gonna be some some like a do you know farmer farmer j's yeah i love farmer j's it's so good it's just like so easy i feel like you should have created that i know i really feel like i should have i i like and when it came out i was so jealous i was like farmer j's name sucks but but in all honesty like it's really good so you know if anyone's in london you you know what i mean they have these field trays you can see everything and they have like they portion it out don't they portion it out and so if i go to farmer j's i know i want i tend to eat plant-based when i'm out so i will go for the tempeh option if you look at tempeh in the book per 100 grams it's around 25 grams of protein which is uh really might not even heard of tempeh Yeah, well, tempeh is a fermented soybean product.

6:41And the benefit, and I talk about this in the book as well, the benefit of fermenting your legumes is that it increases the availability of those proteins. It makes it slightly more gut healthy as well, because you've got some of those parabiotic benefits of the microbes. It tastes delicious as well, and it's easier to digest. So that, you know, 200 grams of that, that's going to give you around 30 grams of protein as a minimum. And then I'm going to be having it with like grains and like some greens and stuff. All those different elements, like your grains and your greens, they also have protein in as well.

7:13Not very much. And I put that in the... Apart from quinoa. Yeah. Because quinoa is actually more of a protein food than a carbohydrate food, which is different to rice. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a pseudo grain. So it's not strictly a grain. It's a seed, which is why it's got like a weird sort of look to it when you cook it. But you're right. Yeah, quinoa is like slightly higher in protein. And then even your green. So when you have like a cup of greens, like 100 grams, that's around anywhere between two or three grams of protein in that alone. A lot of people realize that. So every little bit adds up.

7:45And this is where you can actually quite easily achieve a healthy high protein meal with some of these different elements as well. and I have this sort of like thing I don't think I wrote about in the book but you want to start with your core protein so that could be chicken or fish or tempeh or tofu these are high quality proteins eggs another really good high quality protein about six grams per average egg cooked then you want to have a plant-based partner so that could be your legumes it could be lentils because as you'll realize when you read the book lentils and chickpeas when they're cooked are relatively low in protein.

8:23They're not a core protein source. So they average between six and eight grams per hundred gram of cooked bean. And even at the higher one, like black beans and pinto, we're looking at eight to nine grams. So A, it's not a complete protein, and B, it's not enough total protein either. So you want to have a core protein, plant-based partner, and a topper. And the topper could be nutritional yeast. It could be hemp seeds, one of my favorite seeds. They're about 30 grams of protein per 100 grams. It could be mixed nuts. It could be peanut. It could be whatever you want. But if you have this formula every single mealtime, that's how you're going to easily get to your protein goal.

9:04And then like, you know, dinner, I mean, last night, my wife came back from holiday and I cooked her, it was like an arrabbiata sauce with, I think we put aubergine in it. I put chickpeas in it, some chicken that I'd made. I'd spatch cooked some chicken at the weekend. So I just shaved a bit of that. And then I added some protein through that and then added some moringa leaves. Have you ever used moringa leaves fresh? No, I haven't heard of that. Oh man. So there's like a Turkish store nearby to us. We live in North London. And moringa fresh is like a really bitter version of rocket. And when you put it into a sauce with tomatoes and other acidic, it kind of mellows the flavor and is absolutely delicious.

9:46But if you don't want to be that bougie you can just use spinach i mean at one point kale wasn't i know it's having a moment and it's costing more than anything else yeah yeah yeah i'm a big fan of cavallonero as well yeah that's how like i like i want people to visualize what it means to eat a high protein meal in a healthy way because we've been led to believe that high protein has to be chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken like chicken for breakfast lunch dinner and dessert It doesn't have to look like that. That's bland, it's boring. It's this idea of high protein having to be about muscle food and muscle growth.

10:27And whilst that's very important to preserve, particularly as it pertains to the longevity sphere, it does not need to look that mundane and bland. Thanks so much for listening. To hear the full episode, there's a link in the description. You