I Have No Idea How to Get Enough Protein for My Body Weight Every Day. Any Suggestions?

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I have no idea how to get enough protein for my body weight every day. Any suggestions? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times bestselling author, celebr 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. DK LaRussa, 63 from Instagram asks. I have no idea how to eat. Consume 0.5 0.75 grams of protein per pound of my body weight in protein every day. I didn't even come close to that amount. Suggested for My weight is 75 to 125 grams. Any suggestions? Because I really don't know what to eat after reading that. I don't eat much anyway, so this will be an effort. All right, yes, I've broken it down for you and I'll even explain what protein is and why you want it. So stay with me. I'll be right back.

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Okay, so one of the questions I get asked probably more most often besides, you know, what do you eat? Is how much protein do I need? And protein needs vary. If you are going through a very stressful event, if you are healing from a surgery or an illness, you are going to need more protein. At the very least, what I tell people is a half gram per pound of body weight a day. To me, that's the least. But if you've got more stress, if you're healing, I push that up to three fourths of a gram per pound of body weight a day. So I divide that over two to three meals, depending on if you're eating two or three meals and if you're like when my son was in the hospital, 13 fractures healing from a massive traumatic brain injury. We had him up at a gram per pound of body weight because he had massive healing to do. But for most of us, it's probably in the range of a half gram to 3.4gram per pound of body weight. That's an easy way to look at it. If you want to get really scientific, I'd actually have you do your body fat. I'd look at your lean body mass and I do it based on that. But you know, most of us aren't looking at that. And this gives you a pretty good target to go hit. So what does that look like? So I'm assuming that your weight is about 150 pounds or close and you were looking at hitting and let's say you're looking at hitting hundred grams of protein a day. Well, let's look at that protein smoothie in the morning. So in the morning I take my smoothie mix and I actually use one of my paleo inspired mixes and one of my plant. I mix them together. That gets me probably 22 grams of protein right there. Then if you add in anything else, like I add in some nut milk and maybe I'll add in some freshly ground flaxseed meal, generally you'll get a shake that's going to be somewhere in the 25 to 30 grams. Probably more like 30 grams of protein. So that's how you start out. And I really like to start off the morning strong. You want to have protein at each meal. Protein, fat and fiber is what I call my satiety trifecta. I have it in both the virgin diet and the sugar impact diet. Because protein's super thermic. Like if you look at most of the programs that are designed to help you burn fat and lose weight, they use protein because it's so much more satiating and it's more metabolic or more thermic. So what that means is protein slows down stomach emptying, it helps you feel fuller, longer and takes more to metabolize. So that's the first reason we like protein so much. Now, the reason we have fat in there is fat reduces inflammation. First of all, these are essential macronutrients. You must have protein, you must have fat, you must have water. You can live without carbs, by the way. But I think of fiber as another key macronutrient, especially for any kind of weight loss detoxification, gut health, right? It's super key. So fat is going to trigger satiety signals to your brain from your small intestine to tell you that you're full. And then fiber from loads of non starchy vegetables, a little bit of slow, low carbs is also going to help stabilize your blood sugar. Right. So all of these things work together and slows down stomach emptying. So I love to start with making sure you're getting protein in the morning. Super important. So let's say you have a protein smoothie and you're getting somewhere in the 25 to 30 grams of protein. Depends on what kind of nut milk you use. I've been using this flax milk with a kind of a protein boost in it along with my smoothie powder. Then let's say for lunch you have a salad and maybe you have a salad with lots of greens, cucumbers, you have chicken breast, you have little garbanzo beans, you throw in some walnuts, you're 40 grams right there, like with that powerhouse salad. And then for dinner you have some salmon, some wild salmon, say six ounces of that, some brussels sprouts, and you have some wild rice, half a cup of wild rice, two cups of roasted Brussels sprouts, you're at 35 to 40 grams right there. So right there we got you to 110 grams of protein. So I think it's actually easier than you realize. The key winners, of course, for protein, where you're going to get the most from is going to be your protein smoothies. Make sure if you're not using my protein powder, first of all, use my protein powder. It's the best tasting, I swear. And we've got you covered. Whether you're plant based or paleo, make sure that you don't have something that's loaded with a ton of carbs, doesn't have a bunch of added sugar. Right? Because you really want it to be have clean protein that you could use every day that your body wouldn't develop an intolerance to. So protein powder. And then pastured chicken, pastured pork, grass fed beef, grass fed lamb, wild fish and shellfish. Those are the easy, those are the big hits of protein. And then you'll get some more from things like garbanzo beans, beans and nuts and lentils and quinoa and wild rices. But that's going to be, you know, way less. And generally any of those like beans and wild rice and quinoa are going to come with a lot of carbs and nuts and seeds are going to come with a lot of fat. So it's not going to be the same as what you do when you get the cleaner, leaner protein sources. All right? But as you can see, you can get that protein in. It's really, you might actually already be doing it without even realizing it. All right, if you've got questions, I've got answers. Jump on over to Instagram JJ Virgin DM me and leave a message. And if you're not subscribed, be sure to subscribe to JJ and you just do it@subscribetojay.com that way you never miss a daily dose. 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.

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