Blog / Food
How much protein does a man over fifty need?
Roughly your bodyweight in pounds, in grams, per day. About one and a half to two grams per kilogram. And more important than the number: split across three or four meals rather than piled into dinner, which is where nearly everybody loses it.
The number
A man at 180 pounds is aiming somewhere near 150 to 180 grams a day. At 200 pounds, 160 to 200. If you are carrying a lot of extra weight, use the weight you would like to be rather than the weight you are, or the arithmetic gets silly.
If the full number looks impossible from where you are today, aim at three quarters of it and get there before arguing about the rest. Going from 90 grams to 130 is worth far more than knowing precisely whether the target is 170 or 180.
Why it went up after fifty
The building response to a given meal gets blunter with age. The same steak that used to be plenty is now merely adequate, and a breakfast of toast and coffee, which used to be neutral, is now a hole you spend the afternoon in.
This is why the spreading rule matters more than the total. Three or four servings of thirty to forty grams does more than one serving of a hundred and twenty, because each meal has to clear a higher bar than it used to, and a small meal simply does not clear it.
What thirty grams looks like
Four ounces of cooked chicken breast. Five large eggs. One large tub of Greek yoghurt. Two small tins of tuna. A cup of cottage cheese. Around three cups of cooked lentils. One scoop of whey or soy powder.
Look at that list and then look at what you actually served yourself at lunch. Nearly everybody is at about two thirds of what they believe they are eating, and the gap is almost always at breakfast.
Fix breakfast first
If you change one thing, put thirty to forty grams into the first meal of the day. Eggs, yoghurt, cottage cheese, or last night's dinner reheated, which is a perfectly respectable breakfast and always has been.
It works because breakfast is the meal nobody defends. Nobody has strong feelings about it, nobody is out with friends at seven in the morning, and it is the same every day. That makes it the easiest habit in the week to change permanently, and for most men it closes half the gap on its own.
Count for four days, then stop
Do not track food forever. Count it properly for four days so you learn what your normal eating actually adds up to, then stop counting and eat that way.
Four days is enough to find the gap and short enough that you will actually do it. Anything longer turns into a project, and projects end.
Is more ever a problem
In a healthy adult with normal kidney function, protein intakes in this range have a long and unremarkable safety record. That last clause is the important one. If you have a kidney condition, or you take medication that touches it, this is a conversation to have with your doctor before you change anything rather than after.
