I will try to explain this in brief. My girlfriend hired a personal trainer who also helps her with what to eat. My girlfriend is vegetarian. He trainer said she need to take protein since she is a vegetarian. So she bought it and was taking it after her training session. I believe it was around 24 grams of protien per shake. Yet all the food she eats is packed with protien since it is designed for vegetarians. These are meat replacements which contain all the protien she needs. 12-15 grams of protien per cutlet and she eats two. So she is eating around 30 grams of protien a day based on dinner alone. This seems like enough protein for a women.
There's a couple things going on here....
For starters, just because you're a vegetarian does not mean you need to take a protein supplement. If he made that recommendation without at the very least inquiring about the specifics of her diet, he's out of line.
Now there is some meat to what he's saying as most vegetarian's under-consume protein. And even when they eat "high protein vegetarian" diets, they're low balling it since the quality of protein tends to be a bit lower than those found in non-veggie diets.
But that leads us to the issue of how much protein does someone need. The RDA would lead you to believe .8 grams per kilogram of weight. I'd argue that this recommendation is quite off and antiquated. I wouldn't be surprised if we see them up these recommendations sooner rather than later. I mean, they're like 30 year old guidelines.
What's appropriate? Well the research is all over the place. From what I've seen in the research as well as anecdotedly, I'm thinking the 1 gram per pound of lean body mass isn't such a far out suggestion. If you don't know your lean body mass and don't feel like guessing it, using 1 gram per pound of goal body weight (assuming you're dieting) is fine as well.
It's also worth mentioning that protein needs actually go UP in the face of an energy deficit... something the current recommendations ignore. So during a diet, 1 - 1.5 grams per pound of goal body weight is probably closer to the mark.
So I'm not sure why you're thinking 30 grams or protein would be adequate for, well, anyone? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying.
So she has been trainig with the guy for over three months with little results. I told her that I don't think the guy knows what he is doing but to no avail.
I'm typically fast to say, "almost all trainers are boobs or morons." But I'll be nicer here...
Is your girl actually putting in the work in AND outside of the gym? I mean a trainer only has a client for a few hours per week at most, generally speaking. If he's having her lift weights, it's pretty hard to go wrong unless he's an absolute shit-for-brains. Granted, I'm sure he's screwing things up there since 99% of them do...
But what sort of results are you talking about? If the scale isn't going down, I'd say it's more likely the things she's doing outside of the gym rather than the trainer's advice causing the issue.
Now if she's getting injured and/or not getting stronger... well then you could say without a doubt. But if she's not getting leaner... well that's tough to do if she's not eating correctly - no matter how great his workouts are.
I feel like she is eating way to much protien to ever loose weight.
Let's say she's 150 lbs. I'm just guessing. Her maintenance calorie intake (where weight remains unchanged) is probably somewhere around 2000 calories.
To eat enough protein to prohibit her from losing weight, she'd need to eat 500 grams of protein, as there are 4 calories in each gram of it.
So I'm doubtful you need to be worried about this.
I understand protein builds muscle
While dieting, that's not likely. What it does it helps maintain it while dieting, which is HUGE when it comes to optimizing body composition.
It does all sorts of other great stuff like bump up metabolism slightly, fills you up better than the other nutrients, etc.
Muscle doesn't really burn fat. Sure, it's more metabolically active than fat tissue, but not to any degree where adding a pound of muscle melts fat away. And remember, she's not going to be adding slabs of muscle, if any at all, in the face of a calorie deficit.
