BEHIND THE BODY

Diet • Fitness • Lifestyle for Women 40+

I've dropped a lot of things from my diet over the years. Carbs, sugar, dairy, gluten, all animal products. Protein was never one of them.

Not during my strictest phases, not on vacation, not in the busiest weeks of my life. It's the one thing in my diet I treat as non-negotiable because, for muscle retention and building, and even as a weight-loss and maintenance tool, it's a MUST over 40. And I want to share what that looks like on a completely normal day for me, with actual food and amounts, because "eat more protein" is advice you've heard 100 times, but seeing a full day is what puts it in perspective.

First, why it matters more now than it did at 30. You've probably heard that after 40 your metabolism slows down, but that's not what's happening. A 2021 study in Science measured the daily energy expenditure of over 6,400 people and found that metabolism remains steady from age 20 to about 60. What changes in our 40s and 50s that slow our metabolisms are what we do: we move less, we train less, and we eat less protein. That's what slows your metabolism, not your age.

So your muscle mass starts to decline unless you give your body a reason to keep it. The 2 reasons are strength training and eating enough protein. When you lose muscle, your body burns fewer calories at rest, and when you lose weight without enough protein, more of what you lose is muscle instead of fat.

My target is 140g per day, which I don't always nail, but I try to get close. Here's how to find yours: 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of your goal body weight. If your goal weight is 150 pounds, that's 105-150 grams per day. When I first calculated that number for myself, I laughed out loud, because I was eating maybe half of it and it seemed impossible to get that much! It’s not.

Here are all my meals from yesterday + protein totals:

Breakfast: a smoothie with a banana, berries, dates, chia and flax seeds, psyllium husk, and a scoop of protein powder. About 32 grams.

Lunch: 2 slices of Hero bread with avocado and tuna. About 36 grams.

Snack: nonfat Greek yogurt with fruit and cacao nibs, and walnuts when my day has room for the fat. About 35 grams.

Dinner: mahi with air-fried potatoes and a salad with avocado and sunflower seeds. About 35 grams.

Total: about 138 grams, right at my target.

Notice the structure, because that's the whole trick: protein is in every meal. That's honestly what got harder for me after 40. Appetite shifts, days get busy, and the default day of coffee and a banana for breakfast, a salad at lunch, and a normal dinner lands somewhere around 50 or 60 grams. Hitting your target takes intention at breakfast and lunch, because you can't fit a whole day's protein into dinner alone.

So that's the one thing I never cut. As a result, I’m able to build and keep muscle, feel full after eating, and have my metabolism firing on all cylinders. Everything else about my eating has flexed over 10 years (including cutting out meat, which makes this even harder but more important). Protein is what made the difference between weighing less and looking different at 45.

My Suggestion For You

For your own knowledge and as a baseline, count your protein intake for one day. Pick any free tracking app or use your notes app, log your grams from morning to night, and get your day's total. Then compare it to 0.7-1 gram per pound of your goal body weight.

It's important to count it because of what that number tells you. Everything in this issue comes down to whether enough protein is landing on your plate, and almost nobody can answer that from a feeling. I definitely couldn't. One counted day replaces the feeling with your real number, and once you see it, you'll know whether protein is your gap and how big the gap is.

If the total comes in low, good. That's the information you needed, and it's what finally makes "eat more protein" mean something you can act on.

What I'm Loving This Week

If you need some inspo, these are my grab-and-go protein for the weeks I'm running from place to place, going to the office, or short on time, because a busy day is when protein consumption is the hardest. First pick: Chobani's high-protein drinks. 30 g of protein, 0 added sugar, and one bottle covers a fifth of my day. Second: OWYN shakes, 26g, plant-based, with a short ingredient list. And the grocery store does the rest: tuna packets, hard-boiled eggs, beef jerky, and string cheese.

Because You Didn't Ask...

Happy August to my Swifties! ☺️

Great chat! Let's do it again next Tuesday.

Xx,

Andrea