Protein in the Diet

A reader asked in a comment: I am just curious – how do you get enough protein if you only eat one meal/day?

I am not a doctor and I am definitely NOT giving medical advice. These are just my thoughts. Most of the recommendations I see for protein requirements for a 50+ year old woman weighing between 140 and 150 are in the 56+ grams range. I try to stay in the 50 gram/day range and if I go up to 55, I’m ok with that.

My feeling is that if we’re eating a well balanced meal, we’re getting enough protein. And, I think it’s more important to get protein from fish or chicken, than from beef.

There is also protein in some vegetables, as well as nuts and eggs. Let’s take what I ate yesterday for example, and let’s leave off the turkey stuffed celery because I wouldn’t normally eat that when I’m eating one meal per day:

• 1/2 chicken breast – 27 g.
• 8 almonds – 2 g.
• Purple Hull Peas – 9 g.
• 8 walnuts – 4.5 g.
• String cheese x 2 – 14 g.

That’s 56.5 grams of protein. Take off the almonds and walnuts and that would have been 50 grams of protein and that’s closer to where I like to stay.

I use the Carb Manager app, which I highly recommend. Once it’s set up, it has the recommended carbs, fats, protein, etc. All I have to do is enter the foods I eat each day and it shows if I’ve met or not met the recommended numbers.

Each morning I will put the foods I plan to eat into Carb Manager and see where I stand. If I’m short on protein or fat, I’ll add a tablespoon of almond butter. Half of a deviled egg adds 5 g. of fat and 3 g. of protein so I often will boil an egg, scoop out the yolk, mix with a little mayo, mustard, chopped onion, paprika and spoon it all back in . . chill it for a bit and that’s a snack for us.

But putting all the foods into the app, it’s easy to see if I’m going over or if I’m consuming less of one aspect and then I can add or take away foods or just eat more or less of something.

That’s close enough on everything. The fats look like a lot but MCT oil is a good oil to be taking. I take 3/4 tablespoon of that per day and that’s 12 g., the omega-3 that I’m taking adds 6 g., we’re having olive oil over our broccoli and that adds 14 g. and the Caprese salad adds 9 g., also from olive oil. The steak adds 10 g., and that’s not great fats to be eating. There are also almonds and walnuts in there.

The foods I’m eating today are:

• 4 oz. ribeye
• 3/4 cup. broccoli with 1 T olive oil (most runs off and doesn’t get consumed)
• Caprese salad
• 8 almonds
• 8 walnuts
• string cheese stick (1)
• 4 Omega-3 capsules

You can see that with a little planning, it’s easy to get all the requirements in with one meal per day. And, when I say one meal per day, I try to do at least an 18 hour fast between our last meal of the day and the first meal of the next day. “Meal” really means just eating anything, according to Judy’s Dictionary. Yesterday we ate about 3:00 p.m. and I didn’t eat anything else. until 11 a.m. today, when I had a cheese stick, walnuts and almonds so that was 20 hours between eating “meals”.

Today, we have a video call with a realtor in AR (don’t ask!) at 1:00 p.m., then we have to go to town to get my car out of the shop, then Vince is going to go shopping so it will be later today before we have our dinner.

It all works out but, as with most everything, planning is key. Know what you’re going to eat and know how much of it you’re going to eat. It’s a very easy diet to follow.