To Be a Beast in light of the recent changes to protein intake recommendations

Nutrition Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi there!

Thanks as always for taking some time to address my questions. Appreciate it very much! On with it:

I have been strength training for the past year and a half. I’m 6’5" and weigh 268lb with a waist circumference of around 42". I’m trying to eat at a calorie restriction and figured the To Be a Beast article would be a good spot to look. That article suggests for fat loss that 1.25 g/lb of body weight is appropriate, which puts me at 335g. This is a lot, and I haven’t hit it even once haha. I recently came across the Black Friday newsletter where it said that obese folks should use their lean body mass to do the calculation for protein intake. I plugged my weight and height into a few calculators and they came out with ~180lb or 82.5kg. I have two main questions after this:

  1. Would it be appropriate to use that number to calculate my protein intake? These sites also estimated my body fat at 31%, but I’ve used a scanner that said I was way less than that. So maybe 180lb of lean body mass is too low.
  2. Where should those calories go now that they aren’t coming from protein? Carbs or fat? Does it matter?

Using 82.5kg gives me 132-255g of protein (from 1.6 to 3.1 g/kg). 132 definitely seems too low.

Sorry, this has gone on too long, but once again I do appreciate any insights you have for me.

2

  1. Yea I would definitely lower your protein intake and calculate the recommended protein level off your LBM- 180lbs.

  2. Doesn’t matter to me. Splitting it between the two seems reasonable.

3

Sounds good. Final question I think: The range of 1.6 to 3.1 g/kg seems like a broad range, so how does one choose how many g/kg? Is it a matter of picking something and then experimenting with how you respond? Or is something better than others based on their current body composition?

4

I’m now going with this split: 247p/315c/92f. I think I did the math right where removing 90g of protein would be 360 kCal I need to spread out. With 9kC/f I added 20g to fats, and with the remaining 180 kCal I put 45g into carbs.

Does my math work?

5

247p is 3g/kg of my lean body mass. (sorry, I can’t edit my post)

6

In the protein rec’s article, I discussed that the leaner, more active, and those who are actively dieting should be towards the higher end. Given your demo, I think 2.2g/kg of LBM is fine.

7

Great, thanks Jordan!