How Can I Incorporate More Protein Into My Diet?

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How can I incorporate more protein into my diet? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert and Fitness hall of Famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Ainsley Bustos from Facebook asks, how can I incorporate more protein into my diet? I already eat lots of chicken, but I'm looking for more vegetarian options to add in. Thanks. Hey, it's J.J. and I'll be right back with that answer.

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Okay, Ainsley, how much protein do you want to incorporate in? And the reason I ask this is I think sometimes we think that we can just kind of eat as much protein as we want. And the deal with your diet is that you want to make sure that you're eating the right choices of foods. And that means you want to unprocess your diet. Eat as close to nature as possible. Eat nutrient dense, low sugar impact foods. You want to make sure you're eating them in balance in the right amounts and then at the right times. Oh my gosh, it's like you need to get a PhD in this. So today we're talking about macronutrient ratios and how much protein. And the way I look at protein is we've got to look at a couple different things. Number one, you want to make sure that you're getting clean sources of the right of what you need and I'll talk about that. And then you also want to make sure that you're actually digesting it and assimilating that super important. If you're over the age of say 35, you're under any amount of stress, which right now I don't know who isn't. You have lower stomach acid and it can be harder for you to break down protein. So big shout out. I would highly recommend doing some digestive enzymes. I know that's something that I use every single day to help break down those proteins. Especially if you've got any kind of food intolerances because it can help you not react to foods if they happen to sneak in next thing there. So how much protein do we need? So man, this is, this is like hotly debated in the nutrition field. You'll hear people say you need 1 gram per pound of body weight. You'll hear people say you need 50 grams a day. Like what is it? Here's where I fall in the perfect world. I would have you test your body fat and then look at your body is made up two things, fat and everything else. And I would dose your protein needs based on the everything else. Your lean mass, right? And I would have you do somewhere around probably 0.75 grams to 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. And I would vary that based on and the lowest it would ever be would be a half gram but for Most people probably 0.75 grams and then a full gram. If you you are healing like you had surgery, you're under a lot of like under a lot of physical or emotional stress where you're very catabolic, you've had surgery and you're healing, then it's super important. I got my son had a lot more protein when we were going through all of healing from his massive 13 fractures and being hit by a car and all the surgeries that followed. So I'd have more there. So that's where I look at is are you in a state where you're more catabolic, where you're burning up more, where you need more protein, your protein demands are higher than I err on the higher side and otherwise I I do about 0.75 there. So that's where I fall and ideally you have a body fat scale like a Tanita body fat scale, where you can weigh yourself every day, which you should be doing and really looking, watching how you're doing body fat mass looks because that will really tell you how hydrated you are, if you're staying fairly stable, etc. This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetojay.com. Foreign.

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