No matter what you may have heard from various fitness experts, a body building diet doesn’t have to include huge amounts of protein. The average currently suggested is one gram of protein per pound of body weight. That works out to roughly 200 grams per day if you are a 200 pound man. The body building magazines recommend an even higher number compared to this.

The Recommended Daily Allowance for Protein consumed by the average adult is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

That would translate to about 64 grams if you’re weighing 175 pounds. So why is it these numbers are so widely varied? The RDA’s suggestions are based on research studies using college aged men. This was the amount of protein needed to keep the nitrogen balance in these young men stable. However, using a nitrogen balance as the basis to predict muscle gain or loss has not been proven to be 100% accurate. So this probably wouldn’t be a good protein intake estimation for the body building diet.

The AMDR recommends between 10% and 35% of all calories consumed daily to be protein.

So depending on what your daily calorie intake is, this will affect how much protein you should be eating. The acronym AMDR stands for Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range and the Institute of Medicine established it in 2005. The issue with this recommendation is that it is a rather large range. This is something not taken into account by this recommendation or by the RDA. Someone who trains hard would need to take their activity levels into consideration for their body building diet.

So is doesn’t seem like the AMDR or the RDA are much help when it comes to creating a body building diet for someone.

Some body building magazines suggest as high as 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight. That is 350 grams per day, for a 175 pound man! Let’s face it, body building magazines aren’t the most neutral parties. Selling ads to various advertisers is their main source of income. And the number one product advertised in body building magazines is protein supplements. There is no doubt that recommending 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight is a lot more than is required.

Did you know that the more protein you eat, the better you are able to digest it?

One of the weird things about protein is that if your body is already use to large amounts of protein in each of your meals, it will be okay with absorbing those same high amounts every meal. If you are used to eating less, then a high protein meal will simply cause an upset stomach due to the body’s inability to digest that protein. You would think that digesting more protein would mean building more muscle, but it isn’t that simple.

Just because you consume ten times more protein than you normally would doesn’t mean you will build ten times more muscle.

Research has demonstrated that the more protein your body consumes, the more likely it is to convert amino acids to fuel instead of fat and carbohydrates. The human body is fueled by carbs, fat, and protein. It will simply adjust what it burns for energy depending upon what you eat. Based on that information it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to keep increasing the protein, but exactly what is enough?

A Study Which Shows 70-120 Grams of Protein Per Day for Exceptional Muscle Gains

Brad Pilon is the author of “How Much Protein”, a book on this very topic. By comparing several different studies, he found that if a person eats between 0.55 and 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight a day, that is a good balance for increasing muscle. He quotes several of these studies which found that a protein intake of over 120 grams per day didn’t contribute in any way to additional muscle gain. So who’s advice would you rather follow; solid scientific research or the supplement companies? The choice is yours. My suggestion is to average roughly 100 grams of protein per day, which is easily doable without adding protein shakes to your body building diet.