The ideal protein intake for the keto-mediterranean, paleo, carnivore and low-carb diets

The contribution in proteins is probably one of the most misunderstood conceptsWhether as part of a standard diet, or as part of a healthy diet such as the " Mediterranean "or in food low-carb. In some cases, too little protein is consumed, and in other cases, too much, from poor-quality foods. In other words, there are many mistakes on this central topic, essential to optimum nutrition. As a reminder protein is the macronutrient essential, and to understand all that's at stake, I refer you to the introductory chapter devoted to it at the beginning of the guide.as well as to the one dedicated to the complementarity of plant proteins. Other protein-related content addresses weight loss or muscle gain via protein intake adjustment, which you can find here.

In the meantime, for never again have to doubt your ideal protein intake for good healthIn this premium content for Blooness members only, you'll learn about longevity, lean body mass gain and fat loss:

• What can we learn from the recommended daily allowances for protein?
• Should the recommended protein intake be increased?
• For those who need to increase their intake, what would be the optimal range?
• How much protein do you need for sport?
• Protein intake in the diet ketogenic ?
• How much protein do you need in Mediterranean diet ?
• How much protein do the elderly need?
• Ultimately, how much protein should we ideally consume on a daily basis?
• What are the practical bases for increasing or decreasing your protein intake?
• Conclusion.

All this content will be available below to Blooness members in text and podcast format. Are you ready? Let's get started!

Premium content in audio/podcast format

Lessons to be learned about recommended protein intakes

1/ Getting to grips with calculations and conversions

The first lesson to be drawn is that, through these recommended intakes, and therefore by trying to put them into practicewe're discovering just how interesting learn how to convert a macronutrient into caloriesandget an idea of what protein can represent in grams a 100-gram slice of meat, fish or seafood, or the equivalent in grams of carbohydrates a portion of rice, pasta or bread.

It's not about becoming a conversion professional or obsess about caloriesbut simply to have an idea, when you want to prepare or consume a meal, of what it can represent. in terms of caloriesbut above all in terms of intake of each macronutrientto optimize your diet for better overall health. And I refer you to an indispensable content of the Blooness guide, the famous chapter on the optimal balance between proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

It is therefore essential to practice these conversions at firsteven if it seems laborious, so that this intellectual gymnastics becomes relatively intuitive so that, at a glance, you can quickly see what a plate can initially represent in terms of protein intake - since this is the most essential - and secondly in terms of contribution in lipidsand carbohydrates.

Again, the idea is not to become rigid about every meal, or to question an unexpected meal, a social occasion, or some other pleasurable snack that crosses your palate and is by nature occasional, but rather to optimize the majority of the meals you consume on a daily basis, at the canteen for example, or at the restaurant you go to almost every day.

2/ Realizing that we are sometimes far from the recommendations

The second lesson we can learn from this kind of recommendation is that for many people, we're not even close. Put another way, many people think they're doing the right thing by eating little, or by prioritizing plant-based foods. But if vegetables are welcome as part of a "blue" diet aimed at longevity, they complement proteins, which are essential for survival.

In concrete terms, many people are unknowingly protein deficientIf they are not, they consume poor-quality proteins (and we'll come back to the qualitative part in later content, once the quantitative part has been completed).

Take the example of someone who eats a slice of butter and jam, or even a bowl of oat milk and muesli in the morning, followed by avocado toast with a salmon fillet at lunchtime, and a salad with a little tuna in the evening: this certainly wouldn't cover the daily protein requirement, and in fact it often does. the reason behind cravingsThis is because the body tries in one way or another to cover its daily needs, to the point of finally lowering the basic metabolism, i.e. getting used to eating little, and therefore limiting certain aspects of the body, such as vitality, mood, libido, the hormonal cycle, etc...

If we go back to the recommendations, we realize just how much most of us, especially when we want to be "careful", are far from meeting our protein requirements.

For example, even if we take what might be considered a low range, i.e. 60g of protein per day for a person weighing 75 kg, according to French ANSES recommendations, we would need to consume (if we were to rely solely on animal protein intake) :

• 3 eggs in the morning;
• a steak of white or red meat for lunch;
• a piece of fish in the evening ;

And we're talking about the lowest range here.. On the one hand, many people don't eat protein in the morning (when they don't skip breakfast), let alone fish in the evening, but rather pasta with bacon or other meals rich in carbohydrates and fats, leaving a quality protein window only at lunchtime, when they barely reach 100 grams of meat or fish.

If we do the math, we're at about 40 grams of protein at most on those days, offset, it's true, by other days when the protein is more present, but in general, many people are actually deficientWe'll be taking a closer look at the signs of both protein deficiency and protein overconsumption.

This brings us to a subject we've already touched on towards the end of the chapter dedicated to dried oleaginous fruitsThis study explains the under-nutrition that is characteristic of two very specific categories of people: the underprivileged on the one hand, but also the well-to-do on the other, who, particularly in big cities, eat mostly plant-based lunches that are very low in protein, while skipping breakfast in order to keep their figure or due to a lack of time, and all this linked to high levels of chronic stress. The problem is that this behavior inevitably leads to a drop in basal metabolic rate, and a loss of the muscle mass so precious to longevity.

And even if there were no obvious signs of protein deficiency, most individuals who under-consume protein often end up compensating for their needs with sometimes too many carbohydrates and fats, at bad chronobiological times, leading to overweight.

And there's another piece of data that's important to put into perspective, and which drives home the point about this alleged protein deficiency.

Are recommended protein intakes underestimated?

The other important piece of information to know is that protein intakes may well have been underestimated, which explains why public authorities have taken greater liberties with recent recommendations, with slightly wider ranges.

The aim of this section is not to call into question the amount of protein initially recommended by the authorities, but simply to explain how these values were estimatedIt's a good idea to determine your personal protein intake in consultation with a health professional and by testing to find out what's best for you.

What's more, while the average daily protein intake is set at around 0.8 grams per kg of body weight, public bodies are quick to point out that the upper limit can be as high as 1.8 or even 2.2 grams per kg of body weight in certain cases, without posing any danger to the body. So we can see that we're tending more and more towards more liberal recommendations in terms of protein intake.

Protein intake and nitrogen balance

Recommended protein intakes were originally calculated in the United States. in the 1940sbased on the need to balance the body's nitrogen balancewhich is in fact protein synthesis versus degradation in the body. The body's nitrogen balance refers to the difference between the total intake of nitrogen from food and other sources, and the total amount of nitrogen excreted by the body in the form of urine, faeces, sweat, etc.

The nitrogen balance is therefore often used as a indicator of the body's protein balanceIt is positive, for example, during growth or when an individual gains muscle mass through a training program coupled with a protein-rich caloric surplus.

On the other hand, it can be negative for example when prolonged fasting or inadequate nutritionwhich translates into degradation of part of the tissue proteins to provide energy, which we try to avoid as much as possibleexcept in certain special cases. This is precisely what we were talking about at the beginning of this chapter, when we mentioned that we wanted to spare our muscle and bone capital as much as possibleand therefore our protein capital, during energy expenditureby using, as a priority, carbohydrates provided by the diet, or lipids contained in the diet and in our energy reserves. fats bodily.

To return to our recommended protein intake, official values were therefore set in the 40s and 50sThe aim was to issue standards for the armed forces, civilians and the overseas population who might need food aid, based on the need to balance this famous nitrogen balance.

To achieve this, recommended protein intakes were set at 0.6 to 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. However, over the decades, scientific knowledge has evolvedand only protein intake has changed little or not at all in recommendations over the course of the 20th centuryThe USDA's protein recommendations range from 10 to 35% of total calories, which can be as little as 50 grams a day or as much as... 175 grams, which is not the same thing at all!

So there's been very little progress on these recommendations, and it could well be that today they're more or less outdated.

On the other hand, there is a consensus among most emerging dieticians, medical nutritionists and nutrition enthusiasts that the values recommended by the public authorities could well represent a kind of living wageThis is the opposite of the recommended total calorie intake, which should be either a maximum or an average value to be respected to a greater or lesser extent, particularly for sedentary people.

So, while the total recommended calorie intake is an average to be respected the recommended protein intake might be a minimum.

Since protein is an essential macronutrient that has enabled human beings to survive over the millennia, it is commonly accepted that 50 grams of protein are sufficient for a person weighing 75 kg. a minimum thresholdand that exceeding this recommendation should not pose a problem as long as the individual is in good health and under regular medical supervision.

So, in the light of what we explained earlier, which shows just how far some people are already from meeting the 60 grams of protein they need every day, Imagine if we realized that the optimum would be 80 or 100 grams of protein a day?

We'd be even further away from the modest 40 grams that many people consume without realizing it, in the belief that they're doing the right thing, especially when it comes to noble causes like animals or climate change.

In France, individuals consume on average about 17 % of their calories in the form of protein, i.e. about 85 grams per kg of body weight, which is a fair intake, but still considered insufficient by most nutritionists with sensitivities to protein. paleocarnivorous or even low-carb. Other less-developed countries are less "fortunate", and access to protein-rich foods is much more expensive, which generally results in a great deal of health problems, particularly when populations compensate for the lack of protein with a high intake of carbohydrates, leading to epidemics of type 2 diabetes.

Optimal protein intake of 1 to 1.6 grams per kg of body weight?

According to current general recommendations, the recommended daily protein intake for most healthy adults would be in the range of 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight. However, some scientific research suggests that slightly higher intakes could be beneficial, particularly for the elderly or for sports enthusiasts.

Some emerging nutritionists thus suggest that it might be appropriate to approach at least 1.3g per kg of body weight for a sedentary person, the rest of the caloric intake being either lipid-dominant or carbohydrate-dominant, depending on whether you are more or less resistant to insulin, whether or not you engage in intensive sporting activity, etc...

Furthermore, even when based on official recommendations, the latter have recently emphasized that healthy adults should can safely consume up to 25 % of their total calories as proteinFor a person consuming 2,000 kcal per day, this would correspond to 125 grams of protein per dayor 1.65 grams per kg body weight for a 75 kg person. A far cry from the 60 grams per day, and the ratio of 0.8 grams per kg of body weight.

Once again, this is the upper limit according to the authorities, but a priori, for an individual in good health, and subject to being monitored by a doctor, it should not pose a problem, even if it means adjusting it later in the event of symptoms linked to protein overconsumption.

Recommended protein intake for athletes

In the athletesThe daily protein intake generally recommended by most experts based on scientific literature is :

• 1.3 g/kg body weight for endurance sports ;
• 1.7 to 2.5 g/kg body weight for strength or resistance sports such as bodybuilding.

Here again, we can't count the number of athletes who fail to achieve their goals due to a lack of protein, either because they're afraid to consume enough, or because they don't have the budget to consume enough, or a bit of both. On the other hand, the ideal would be to have at least 3 grams of leucine per protein meal if you're looking to build muscle mass, which can easily be achieved with 30 to 40 grams of animal protein, something often overlooked by beginners to bodybuilding or individuals who are stagnating. Beware, however, of unnecessary excess protein intake by some athletes, sometimes coupled with an overestimation of their needs.

Recommended protein intake on the ketogenic diet

There are several methods for estimating protein intake on the ketogenic diet. Generally speaking, unless you have a lot of body fat to lose on the one hand, or are a top-level athlete on the other, the methods give more or less similar results. But it's important to understand them so that you can choose the right method for your particular situation.

1st method: recommended intakes in percentages based on total calories

In the ketogenic diet, protein intake is often estimated at 15-25% of total caloric intake, with the remainder made up by fat. This would be equivalent to around 75 to 125 grams per kg of body weight and 1.2 to 2 grams per kg of body weight.

As a reminder, in the ketogenic diet, it is estimated that 80% of calories must come from fat, 15% proteinsand 5% maximum of carbohydrates, at least during the adaptation phase, after which you can try to reduce your fat and slightly increase your protein, especially if you practice a resistance sport, want to lose weight or gain muscle mass.

For a sedentary person on a ketogenic diet, for example, it could be estimated that :

• it might be better to stick to around 15 to 20% of total calorie intake from protein;
• or approximately 87 grams of protein per day ;
• which would make approximately 30 grams at each meal with 3 meals a day ;
• which is consistent with eating 100 to 150 grams of more or less fatty meat or fish at each meal, in order to avoid gluconeogenesis (sugar produced by the body from excess protein ingested), which would raise the blood glucose and get the person out of ketosis unnecessarily.

And it could be estimated that for a resistance sportsperson on a ketogenic diet:

• protein intake could amount to around 20 to 25% of total calorie intake ;
• about 113 grams of protein per day, or even 125 grams on the high range 25% (assuming a total caloric intake of 2,000 kcal);
• which is roughly equivalent to 1.5 to 1.7 grams per kg body weight for a 75 kg personThis is consistent with the recommended protein intake for a more or less athletic person, estimated at 1.5 to 2.2 grams per kg of body weight in standard diets.

In general, bodybuilders on a ketogenic dieteven if they are rare, don't really care about gluconeogenesis, unlike sedentary people, because the surplus amino acids consumed should be used by the body as a priority to build muscleand rarely glucose, as long as energy continues to be provided by dietary fat, and by body fat reserves if there's a lot of weight to lose.

What's more, some athletes even add carbohydrates cyclically in order to replenish their glycogen storesThis is what we call "keto-adaptation". This is what we call metabolic flexibilityeven if this practice is the subject of much debate.

These issues of protein intake - especially in the ketogenic diet, with the fear of neoglucogenesis on the one hand, and glycogen replenishment on the other - are quite complex and open to discussion. We'll come back to all this in more detail in a dedicated piece of content.

In the meantime, the only way to get the best estimate of your protein requirements is to testing things and monitor the results in terms of health markers, vitality, daily energy and results, in line with set objectives, all with the support of a healthcare professional.

2nd method: recommended intakes in grams per kg of target body weight

Given the hormonal peculiarities of the ketogenic diet, some experts recommend estimating protein intake in absolute terms, based on the famous range of 1.2 to 2 grams per kg of body weight, rather than on percentages based on total calories.

In fact, one of the problems frequently encountered in the ketogenic diet is consuming too little lipid, especially in the keto-adaptation phase, which results in a total calorie value that's too low, and therefore an inaccurate protein value since it's based on a total calorie value that's too low.

The ideal solution is a ketogenic diet, stay within the range of 1.2 to 2 grams per kg of body weight (and in particular target body weight, which we'll come back to shortly), aiming for the upper range with age or sporting activity, rather than calculating protein intake in percentages.

Indeed, calculating 15 to 20% of a total calorie intake of just 1,500 kcal (which corresponds to the total calorie intake of a person in deficit who is trying to lose weight) would be equivalent to consuming 75 grams of protein. But if this person were to lose weight and eventually increase his or her caloric intake to around 2,200 kcal in maintenance, without regaining weight, via a healthy diet, then his or her protein intake, if we stay on the 15 to 20%, would be 110 grams instead of 75 grams. However, it might have been more beneficial for this person to be permanently around 1.5 grams per kg of target body weight (e.g. for 65kg of target weight, this would give 97.5 grams of protein per day), both to facilitate weight loss under the right conditions, and to maintain his tissues and overall good health.

This method has two advantages over the first, which is based on total calories:

• First of all, protein intake should be adjusted according to ideal weight, not total calories;
• secondly, protein intake is considered here as an absolute constant linked to this target weight, i.e. as an intangible foundation that depends on the target weight, and not as a relative value linked to a total quantity of food consumed.

To sum up, the ideal is to start with a range in grams per kg of body weight, and why not? a relatively low rangefor example 1.2 grams per kg of body weight, and gradually building upup to 1.6 grams per kg body weight for healthy adultsand up to 2 grams per kg of body weight for the more athletic individuals looking to continue gaining muscle mass (although these are still in the minority).

3rd method: recommended intakes based on the fat/protein ratio commonly accepted in the ketogenic diet

Another way of estimating protein intake is to refer to a recommendation often made in the ketogenic diet, or even on a keto-carnivore dietaccording to which we could consume 1 to 1.5 grams of fat for 1 gram of proteinThis corresponds, for example, to a person consuming around 125 grams of protein per day, to between 125 and 187 grams of fat.

And since the conversion from grams to calories holds no secrets for you, we know that it would give :

• 125 grams of protein * 4 = 500 kcal from protein ;
• let's take 170 grams of fat * 9 = 1,530 kcal from fat ;
• a total of 2,030 kcal, of which 25% comes from protein, and 75% from fat, which corresponds roughly to the breakdown recommended for the ketogenic diet.

To consume 1.5 times more fat than protein, you need to be familiar with certain techniques specific to the carnivore and ketogenic diets. One of these, for example, is to choose a high-quality fatty meat, to which you add just enough fat to satisfy your appetite.

For example: a 100-gram fat steak contains 25 grams of protein and 19 grams of fat. So, to bring the lipid content up to 1.5 times the protein content, you'll need to add fifteen grams of clarified butter, which will give you 34 grams of lipid for 25 grams of protein, i.e. just over 1.5 times as much lipid as protein!

In general, on a carnivorous diet, some bodybuilders who are looking to gain muscle while appearing relatively "dry" do not hesitate to increase their protein intake, by approaching a ratio of lipid / Protein ratio of 1:1 but with higher total calories, while more sedentary people, or those who practice endurance sports, will stick to a lipid/protein ratio of 1.5:1 with slightly lower total calories, often dictated by satiety, and this majority lipid intake provides constant energy for daily vitality, without seeking muscle anabolism and fat loss at all costs.

All this is very complex, and depends on each individual, his or her level of activity, past history and metabolic status. To carry out this kind of test, the best thing is to get to know yourself and to be accompanied by a health professional, or to be very lucky.

Recommended daily allowance of protein in the Mediterranean diet

Whether purely Mediterranean (with high-quality carbohydrates) or keto-mediterranean, the Mediterranean diet puts the emphasis back on good fats, vegetables and, last but not least - a fact that is often underestimated and under-documented - on the good stuff. quality proteins.

And while we're waiting to see what a quality protein is (we'll see how the quality of a protein can have a positive impact on health, and vice versa, in a forthcoming chapter), most experts recommend that proteins account for approximately 15% to 25% of total calories in a Mediterranean dietThis brings us back to the same figures as before, which are as follows 75 grams to 125 grams of protein for a person consuming 2,000 kcal.

In the end, whether it's a low-carb, Paleo, Mediterranean or even standard diet, we're pretty much on the same orders of magnitude. The only variable that can change is when you want to test higher ranges, whether to solve satiety problems, to lose body fat, to gain muscle mass (in conjunction with sport), or to slow down sarcopenia with age.

Visit Mediterranean diet, it cannot be stressed enough that the focus is on protein qualityby favouring food sources such as fish, seafood, quality white meat, vegetables and fruit. pulsesIn the first place, we're talking about high-quality dairy products (goat's, sheep's or free-range, grass-fed cow's cheese), and to a lesser extent nuts and seeds. So, whatever the value allocated to proteins in quantitative terms, the most important thing in the Mediterranean diet is that these proteins come from high-quality foods. This is the very principle of the Mediterranean diet, which puts food quality back at the heart of the equation, regardless of whether you choose a carbohydrate-dominant or lipid-dominant diet. And we'll be coming back to protein quality in a separate article.

Recommended intakes for the elderly

With age, the renewal of muscle proteins is hampered by a phenomenon of resistance to anabolism, which means that, for an identical supply of amino acids consumed, an elderly person has less muscle renewal capacity than a young person.

What's more, as we age, the liver and intestine capture more amino acids in their functioning, reducing the quantity of amino acids available for muscle synthesis.

It should also be remembered that the body does not know how to store proteins. It is therefore important to consume sufficient of proteins every dayand contain at least all 8 essential amino acids.

From then on, with ageit seems prudent increase protein intake0.8 or 1 gram per kg of body weight to more appropriate values, which can range from up to 1.6 grams per kg body weight.

Unfortunately, many elderly peopleThis may be due to a lack of knowledge, difficulty in chewing, the fact that meals are already provided in retirement homes, or worse, a lack of money, consume very little proteinSome elderly people even start rationing their meals, a factor that further accelerates aging and death.

So how much protein should you eat?

It's true that with all this data, it's difficult to estimate your protein intake with any precision. In reality, the answer to this complicated question is not an absolute one, but depends on a number of factors, including :

• current muscle mass ;
• the long-term muscle mass objective;
• the sporting activity in question (or not);
• insulin sensitivity;
• sleep quality ;
• the age of the individual ;
• its kind;
• etc...

In practice, to determine your optimum, you can start from an official recommendation, such as 1 or better, 1.2 grams per kg body weight, and gradually increase your intake until you find what suits you bestWhether in terms of satiety, fat loss, muscle mass gain, etc... revolving around 1.6 grams per kg of target body weight, i.e. the body weight you wish to achieve in the short and medium term.

In this regard, it is very important to remember two things that are often misunderstood:

• protein intake does not necessarily have to be based on an individual's current weightbut according to its target weight. If, for example, this individual wishes to weigh 70kg but currently weighs 75kg, he will need to consume protein up to 70kg target weight ;
• however, when the objective is characterized by too great a gap between current weight and target weightit is imperative to go there in stages (from 3 to 5kg for example?) and not all at once. For example, if an individual weighs 120kg but is aiming for 70kg, ideally you should first aim for 110kg, then 100kgand so on. Ditto in the other directionto to avoid putting on body fat while the individual was mainly looking to gain dry muscle!

To sum up, we could start from 1.2 grams per kg of body weight for someone fairly sedentary, and tend towards 1.6 grams per kg of body weight for someone more active, or someone older, or someone very sporty, and the more the person's profile tends towards all three at the same time, the more we could tend towards 2 to 2.2 grams per kg of body weight.

To sum up and conclude

Protein, the underestimated basis of nutrition

If we were to sum up this training course in a few points, we would first say that protein can be considered the intangible basis of a meal or dietThese would be complemented by carbohydrates and lipids, in varying proportions depending on the dietary pattern chosen, and by vegetables to garnish the plate, add taste and benefit from micronutrients.

Protein should be the basis of a meal because it is the brick that nourishes the body's tissues skin, hair, nails and, of course, muscles.

And yet, protein intake is precisely one of the least controlled parts of the average person's diet, particularly in sedentary individuals, either because it comes from poor-quality foods (non-grass-fed beef, battery-fed eggs, reconstituted meats injected with flavor enhancers, etc.), or because it's under-consumed (because we tend to be afraid of protein foods, or simply because it's the most expensive).), or because it's under-consumed, as we often tend to be afraid of protein foods, or simply because it's the most expensive. So how do you estimate your ideal intake?

Recommended protein intake

ANSES estimates that "protein intakes of between 0.83 and 2.2 g/kg/d can be considered satisfactory for an adult under 60", which for a person weighing around 70kg means between 60 and 150 grams of protein per day. Except that the low range dates from nutritional recommendations inherited from the 50s in the USA, which have changed very little over the 20th century, and this low range is now increasingly considered as a vital minimum, but not as an optimum. A growing number of scientists and nutritionists consider that it is time to raise the recommended protein intake to at least 1.2 grams per kg of body weight.

In reality, protein intake depends on a number of factors, including current muscle mass, objectified muscle mass, age, sex, etc... But to simplify matters, and to define the protein intake that best suits us, we can start from a rather low range of 1.2 grams per kg of body weight for someone fairly sedentary, and tend towards 1.6 grams per kg of body weight for someone more active, or an older person (because as we age, we metabolize protein less well and need it more to support tissues and muscles), or a very sporty person, and the more the person's profile tends towards all three at the same time, the more we could tend towards 2 to 2.2 grams per kg of body weight, particularly among body-builders.

On the other hand, for low-carb and ketogenic dieters, protein intake is generally estimated at around 20%, provided that the overall calorie intake is sufficient. The Mediterranean diet, considered to be the easiest healthy eating pattern to apply, is a cross between the lowcarbPaleo and flexitarian diets are relatively low in insulin and inflammation, and protein intake is generally estimated at around 20% of total intake.

Calculate your protein intake

There are two pitfalls that most beginners fall into when trying to take control of their diet. The first is to confuse protein with protein food, and the second is to fail to estimate what a percentage of calorie intake represents.

When we say that we should provide, for example, 1.4 grams of protein per kg of body weight, for a 70kg person this represents around 100 grams of protein. But 100 grams of beef steak does NOT equal 100 grams of protein, but only 22 grams of protein, the rest being water, lipids and other nutrients. That's something to keep in mind.

Secondly, when we say that protein intake could represent 20% of calorie intake, we're not talking about 20% of plate volume, but 20% of energy intake in calories. So it's vital to learn how to convert the amount of protein in a total food bowl into calories, so as to be able to estimate calorie intake as a percentage of total calories. In short, 1 gram of protein corresponds to 4 kcal, while 1 gram of fat corresponds to 9 kcal. The fact that lipids are more energy-dense changes everything when it comes to 20% of protein in a calorie intake.

For example, in a Mediterranean/low-carb plate or a plate typical of a blue zonesFor example, an avocado, two tablespoons of olive oil, 150 grams of salmon and, say, 100 grams of bulgur, as well as vegetables with negligible calories, would add up to :

• Calories: approx. 921.6 kcal
• Carbohydrates: approx. 35 g, i.e. 140 kcal
• Protein: around 37 g, or 148 kcal, as 1 gram of protein is equivalent to 4 kcal.
• Lipids: around 70.4 g, or 633.6 kcal, as 1 gram of lipid is equivalent to 9 kcal.

The 148 kcal of protein in this plate represent around 16% of protein intake. This is a relatively satisfactory intake, according to the 20% standards we advocated earlier.

This example illustrates just how much protein intake fits perfectly into the Mediterranean diet, contrary to the common belief that the Mediterranean diet is predominantly or even exclusively plant-based.

Vegetables in the Mediterranean diet are therefore often in the majority in terms of volume on the plate.However, they should not systematically replace proteins or lipids, and are in fact, mathematically speaking, the most important ingredients in the diet, largely in the minority in terms of energy intake. It's important to understand this subtlety if you don't want to fall into a low-calorie diet in spite of yourself, and fall victim to an overall lack of energy, vitality and libido, while at the same time being subject to episodes of food cravings, which is the lot of many city dwellers who think they're doing the right thing by favoring plant foods too heavily.

Distinguishing between current weight and target weight

Last but not least in the summary of this chapter, protein intake should not necessarily be set according to an individual's current weight, but according to his or her target weight, by successive strata (for example, by 5kg range, whether you're looking to gain muscle mass or lose body fat), and while adapting protein intake according to the situation (elderly, sporty, sedentary, weight loss, etc.).

Please note :

• if you're looking to build muscle mass, you'll tend to increase your protein intake, aiming for 1.5 grams per kg of target body weight for simply athletic people and up to 2.2 grams for body-builders, while maintaining or increasing your energy intake from carbohydrates and lipids;
• and if you're looking to lose body fat, you'll also want to aim for a higher range (from 1.5 grams to 2.2 grams, as mentioned above), while significantly reducing your energy intake from carbohydrates and fats, and doing so over a short period so as not to slow down your metabolism.

This content is now complete. If you liked it, learned something from it, or have any questions, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

For the rest, I invite you to consult the following contents entirely dedicated to proteins in the Mediterranean diet for health and longevity, some of which are already available, while for others you'll have to wait a little.

Back to summary of the Mediterranean Diet