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I have just found out that for the past year I have not been eating enough protien to build muscle? Does anyone on here know what amout it takes, it seems to be hard to eat over 200g a day. And do you need to consume that amount on days you are not training ? I work out 4 days in a row on, and 3 off. Thanks for your help in advance!

Well bro, this varies a lot and there are as many opinions as people on this. In general though it depends a lot on your body type, how fast you generally are capable of building muscle and your metabolic speed. If you are training to build muscle, and by this I hope you are lifting intensely, 1 gram per pound of bodyweight is generally the accepted baseline. Although I know some guys that are definitely in that 1.5 to 1.8 grams per pound category. You will find it difficult to get the necessary amounts of protein at those levels without protein supplementation. I recommend that you check out Optimum Nutrition's Pro Complex, it has a great amino acid profile, it tastes great, disolves well, and has a mix of both fast and slow digesting protein that creates a sort of time release action of continuous protein release. Based on your profile weight you should be aiming for a a range of protein between 150 and 270 grams, and I seriously would consider being at the higher end of that instead of the lower.

Good luck

Jay Cutler who is the current Mr. Olympia eats roughly 1gm of protein per lb of bodyweight. So for him, he eats about 300g a day since he's nearly 300lb in the off season. I used to think one had to eat double this amount, but hey if less works for Mr. Olympia I thought I should consider less for myself. I cut back my intake to about 1g per lb of bodyweight and I haven't gotten any softer or weaker in the gym.

For FriendlyGuyinAZ you can focus on getting 150 a day. How much were you getting by the way that lead to your trainer or nutritionist advising you on increasing your intake?

When I eat I like to have several sources at once. I'll have a scoop of protein powder and some eggs for breakfast. I do this as a way to have a slow steady supply of protein to digest.

I take egg powdered protein after the gym with glucose to be absorbed quickly since I just tore down my muscles and want to feed them as fast as I can after my gym workout.

You also want to eat protein consistently everyday. Even on days that you're not training, your body is still rebuilding all the time. So JACK IT UP!

Thank MMTM,
I was eating about 100g they advised me to eat 240 that's going to be hard to do though.. So I started and am at around 200 now. We'll see what happens?

Wow, that is rough. I think that is too high. I have to be careful to get enough fiber because just eating 200g of protein a day can really block me up. I can't imagine if I had to eat 400g as your trainer would more than likely recommend for me.

I'm also a certified personal trainer through A.C.E. I have no certification in nutrition but I do study it a lot and have my own personal experience. So I like to think I have some idea of what I'm talking about.