Overeating due to trying to hit protein goals

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi there,

I’m a 30 year old male, 178 cm tall (5,8"), 93,4 kg body weight (205,9 lbs) and I’m currently following the recomp protocol from To Be A Beast.
This puts me at ~2650 calories a day comprised of 70g of fat, 260g of carbs and 235g of protein (I rounded the numbers up a little bit for ease of use).
History of training with barbells is short - only ~6 months.

My problem is that when I try to hit my protein goal, I almost always end up overeating, mostly on the fat front,and I exceed my calorie limit.
I eat three full meals a day and drink protein between those meals, but sometimes when I slip even the tiniest bit (say I eat some fatty meat for dinner because I can’t get chicken on that particular day) I end up in a situation where it’s late in the evening, I still need for ex. 80 grams of protein but even if I get in only from whey (which is the most protein/calorie effective way AFAIK), I’ll go over the calorie limit anyway. Long story short, it’s very hard for me to get that much protein without exceeding something else, since protein always comes with something else :wink: And even if it’s pure protein, it still has calories.

The other commonly seen recommendation is 1 pound of protein per pound of body weight which would put me at ~200g of protein, which is slightly more manageable.
Would it be ok if I lowered my protein goal to say 200 and increase carbs and fat slightly to still keep that ~2650 calories daily limit?
I feel like this would still be enough protein, enough (not too much) calories but without overeating caused by trying to hit that high protein goal.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this topic.

Best,
Adam

2

I think that you should try to eat leaner protein throughout the day to save up for the fattier cut of meat at dinner time. While I don’t think there is likely to be a significant difference between 230 and 200g protein in a calorie excess, when you’re borderline losing weight I would try keep the protein a little higher.

3

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply Jordan!
Understood, I’ll try and keep the protein high then. Switching to things like no fat milk or low fat ham helps.

When I started LP I was at around 83 kg for a long time, and gained that 10 kg pretty fast (2~3 months).
In the beginning I wasn’t counting macros very much, I just focused on eating enough and only started being more diligent while lifts started getting heavy.
Just eyeballing it I think most of the gain was muscle (especially since I wasn’t eating crazy amounts of food), but I’ll keep monitoring the weight (it’s in the same place for the last 2-3 weeks at least) and waist circumference just in case.
I could certainly lose a few % of fat, but for now I think that recomp should be fine - I don’t want to compromise training and hopefully some fat will drop anyway. If weight and/or waist start going up, I’ll switch to fat loss.

Thanks again and keep up the good work,
Adam