Recommended daily allowances for protein in America have been a loaded topic for years. It seems obvious that the federal recommended daily allowance (RDA) for protein is bloated to support America's bloated beef agriculture, fast food industry, and the midwestern "meat and potato" diet. For that reason, I ate a significantly lower amount of protein than "recommended" for years. If you eat a balanced 2000-calorie diet where your main source of protein is low-fat, sustainable nuts, beans and plants, you will never reach the recommended 46 grams of protein. At the same time, the current cultural hate on carbs stemming from the fad-love of the Atkins Diet has further bloated the American idea of protein consumption. However, as a physically active adult prone to falling asleep after eating, I've found that eating more protein, especially for my first meal, helps sustain my energy and level of wakefulness throughout the day. It goes without saying that my protein needs would be decreased when I am less physically active. I found it easier to loose weight under the Weight Watchers plan by cutting out exercise. It is much easier to stay within the Weight Watchers point system, which depends on eating large amounts of fiber, by eating 15 or less grams of protein a day.
Now that I'm focusing on athletic training and not weight loss, I am not sure how much protein to eat. You can find as many different recommendations as you can sources. So when the Cycle Oregon spring training handbook came out with it's 60-20-20 recommendation, I decided to follow that. I started tracking my food intake on MyFittnessPal, a much simpler, faster, and more comprehensive tracking software than the WeightWatchers tracker. I manually adjusted my macronutrient goals to match Cycle Oregon's 60-20-20 recommendation. Over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten closer to meeting my goal, but have yet to reach it. A great sale on avocados stymied my goal, as eating a half cup of avocado every day for a couple of weeks always shot my fat consumption up too high. However, even in my first avocado-free week (see above), I still haven't reached the 20% protein goal. It continues to go up every day, and there are several days I meet my protein goal in grams, but I haven't reached the ratio quite right. I'll keep trying, just to see if eating at this ration does improve my training and energy level. We shall see.
