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by yodsanklai 979 days ago
Do you really need that much protein though?
2 comments

That’s quite a contentious question, there aren’t that many good studies, and they are difficult to do well
It’s really not: https://examine.com/guides/protein-intake/. There is tons of quality research quoted on examine.com, and the results around protein are very conclusive. The short answer is that the recommendations are for much higher protein intake than most people think, and than most standard food will give you.
That site you linked says people with active lifestyles can need as much as 3g/kg, if you weigh 80kg that's 240g of protein a day.
Their recommendations are always a range, and for athletes the recommended range generally tops out at 2g/kg. But the recommendation can be higher for people with very strict body composition requirements, especially when trying to lose the last bit of fat when you are already very lean (e.g. bodybuilders before a show, action movie actors etc). But the range for most people is pretty wide, and it’s not a requirement, it’s just that you’ll probably get better results when gaining or losing weight if you err higher.

But yeah, even the minimum is a lot, and it’s hard to achieve without building all your meals around protein.

Need for life? Maybe not. But for sports performance, 1.4 to 1.6 grams per kg of bodyweight is about where the ROI tapers off for most people so far as i know. More probably only if one is very lean or anabolically reistant.