The Australian National Health guidelines’ recommended daily intake for protein is 70g per day, about 15% of the average person’s calorie intake. This might be enough to maintain your body’s normal healthy function if you have a sedentary job and an inactive lifestyle. But if you do regular intense exercise such as sport or weight training in the gym, or even lower-intensity activities such as light cardio, you DEFINITELY need more than 70g of protein a day. That’s because whenever you undertake strenuous activities, your body will shortly afterwards start the recovery process to repair the muscles that were used to perform the activity. As the body requires amino acids to build and repair muscle tissue, and protein-rich foods are high in aminos, you’ll need additional protein to support your exercise routine.

 For example, if you went on a 1-hour bike ride on the weekend with some friends, the body would need extra protein to repair the muscle tissue in your legs that you used to cycle continuously for dozens of kilometres. If you did a 1-hour weight training session in the gym focused on building more upper body muscle, you would need an even higher amount of additional protein afterwards as you’re not just trying to repair the muscle – you’re trying to grow it back bigger and stronger than before.

In my experience playing sport and training in the gym for almost 20 years, and training my clients for over 10 years, I’ve found that active people need significantly more protein than they think. People who regularly do moderate to intense exercise need close to x2 of their bodyweight in grams of protein, and if your goal is to build more muscle it jumps to about x2.5 of your bodyweight. So a 60kg woman doing several group fitness classes per week for fat loss would need 120g of protein per day, and a 75kg man trying to gain more muscle mass will need 190g protein daily. Are you getting enough protein to support your fitness goals?