How Much Protein Do You Need For Muscle Building?

If you need to add muscle mass to bulk up your body you should not just eat a lot. If you stuff yourself indiscriminately you may end up just fattening your body. This is the exact opposite of your goal. You should in fact be eliminating fat and building lean muscles instead. To do this, you should support your weight lifting and cardio workouts with the proper diet. For your muscle building needs, this diet has to be high in protein. After all, protein is the primary component for muscle building. Just how much protein should you be eating to build muscles?

In general, in order to add muscle mass your intake of calories should exceed what your body is using for energy. It is the caloric surplus that the body uses to repair and build muscles. That surplus should come from proteins so that it will not be converted into stored fat. If you are serious about bulking up those muscles you need to take in 1.8 grams of protein for each kilo of body weight daily. If you only know your weight in pounds, simply divide this by 2.2 to get your weight in kilos. Someone who weighs 150 pounds would be weighing 68.18 kilos. He or she would therefore need 123 grams of protein daily.

If you want to get all the nine essential amino acids needed by the body for muscle building, you should make sure that your protein intake for each day is comprised of complete protein. This can be found in most animal sourced protein food such as beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, cheese, yoghurt and milk. Plant proteins are considered incomplete proteins. If you combine legumes with whole grains in one meal, though, you also come up with complete protein. The nine essential amino acids you need to supply your body with are tryptophan, threonine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine cystine, phelylalanine tyrosine, valine and histidine.

Not all protein is lean, though. Many complete proteins contain saturated fats. You have to be careful to choose those which contain only one to three grams of fat per ounce, or even less. Among the complete proteins, your best choices would be coldwater fishes such as tuna, salmon and mackerel. These also contain healthy fat in the form of Omega-3 fatty acids. Egg whites are likewise lean. Next to these are poultry like chicken and turkey, provided the skin is removed before cooking. For beef and pork, choose cuts with no visible fat or marbling.

It is easy to compute the amount of protein you need daily based on your body weight. It takes more effort to ensure that you get not only complete protein but, more importantly, healthy lean complete protein.

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