Skinny Girl's Quest for Muscle

Skinny Girl's Quest for Muscle
Getting Started Part 4: How Much Protein Should I Eat?

In Parts 1 through 3, I developed my total caloric requirement for building muscle. The next step is to determine how much fat, protein, and carbohydrate should come from my daily calories.

Certainly I'd like to boost the protein levels if I want to build muscle. One nutritionist suggests 15 to 20% of calories should come from proteins(1). However, the article is written for an 18-year old, male audience.

Another author suggest that Athletes have different requirements depending upon activity levels and that an adult athlete building muscle mass should get from 0.6 to 0.9 grams per pound of body weight(2). Under this method, I'd need to eat 75 to 112.5 grams of protein per day, or about 14 to 21% of my total daily calories. (75 x 4 calories per gram of protein = 300 calories of protein. 300 divided by 2,150 = 14%).

Yet another author suggests that you can get too much protein(3). More than 2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight, per day, is too much. In my case, that would be 113 grams per day.

Finally, in the Iron Dolls ebook, it is suggested that 30% of calories come from protein sources. To back into the grams per day, multiply total calories 2,150 by 0.3 (30%) = 645. 645 represents total calories from protein. Each gram of protein is 4 calories. 645 divided by 4 = 161.25 grams. This amount is well over the 113 grams maximum recommended value.

Because the majority of articles suggest increasing protein, I'm going to attempt to get a maximum of 113 grams per day. This roughly equates to 21% of my daily requirements.

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references:
(1) http://www.providence.org/oregon/health_resource_centers/fitness/askanexpert_fitness_supplements.htm
(2) http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/caryn/protein.html
(3) http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/articles/nutrition/protein_2/