Latest / What The Peri? - With Kirsten Cooke / Perimenopause & Protein - What You Need & Why It Matters More Now (Ep 10)

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Perimenopause & Protein - What You Need & Why It Matters More Now (Ep 10) · What The Peri? - With Kirsten Cooke

0:07
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to What the Perry.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host Kirsten Cook, personal trainer, menopause coach, and a woman living it right alongside you.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: This is the podcast for women navigating perimenopause and menopause.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: The change you didn't ask for, but the conversations you need.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Very often, when a woman first comes to me, she's already done something about her protein.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: She's heard it's good for her at this stage of her life, and she's taken that on board.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: So she adds a poached egg to her breakfast.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: One poached egg on her toast next to her coffee, and she feels like she's ticked the box and protein is done.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say there's nothing silly about that at all because she did exactly what the message told her to do.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: What the message never told her was how much.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's where it comes unstuck, because this is a numbers problem, not a willpower problem.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: One egg, a normal 60 gram egg out of the carton, gives you about six grams of protein.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: What I'd like to see in a meal at this stage of life is closer to 30 grams of protein.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: So the poached egg she's feeling good about, the one she's gone to the trouble of adding, is covering about a fifth of what that breakfast needs to do.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: A fifth.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: And the thing I end up walking her through is the difference between how much a food weighs and how much protein is inside it, because they're two completely different numbers, and maybe nobody ever sat us down and explained the gap.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: You look at an egg and it seems like a decent little parcel of protein, but the weight of the egg and the grams of the protein in it are not the same thing, and your muscle only cares about the second one.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Once I coach a woman through that, the lights come on all over the place.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: She finds out, for example, that most of the protein in an egg is sitting in the white, and most of the good fats are in the yolk, and that changes the way you build a breakfast out of eggs, which I'll come back to later because I've got a way of doing it that makes sense.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing complicated about it.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: It's simply seeing what's on your plate in a way you can use.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: And once you see it, you can't unsee it, and every meal you build from then on gets built a little bit differently.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want you walking away thinking that this is about one egg, because the egg is only a symptom.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: For a very long time, the message handed to women was cut your calories and move more.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: That was the lever and we pulled it hard.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: And when you cut calories, protein gets cut right along with everything else because it doesn't get a special pass just for being important.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: So you end up with less food and less protein inside that food at the very stage of life when your body is asking for more of it.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's so hard to get enough protein without making it a priority.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: It won't happen by accident, and I can promise you it won't happen with one egg.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Protein has to be a priority now.
3:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what today is all about.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to What the Perry.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm Kirsten Cook.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: Last week was all about exercise and the three jobs your training has to do in perimenopause.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Build and defend your muscle, keep your bones and look after your fat and your heart.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And right at the very end, I made you a promise.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: I said this week we'd be doing protein, what you need and why it matters so much now more than it used to.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's two things I owe you today, a number and a reason.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna give you both.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna go one step further, because a number on its own isn't much help when you're standing in front of the fridge at six in the morning trying to get yourself out the door on time.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: Here's what we're covering today.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: First, why protein matters more now than it did 10 years ago.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Then how much you need, and I'll keep the numbers as simple as I can.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Then where it tends to go wrong across a normal day, because for a lot of us the problem isn't only the total, it's where the protein lands.
4:09
SPEAKER_00: Then I'm gonna read you a list of what 30 grams of protein actually looks like in real food.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna stop at the yogurt shell for a little while, because it's a perfect example of what a label will tell you if you know where to look.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: And three things to do this week, right at the end.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: There'll be some numbers along the way, but I'm only gonna give you the ones you can use, and I'll keep coming back to the important ones, so you don't have to remember them all at once.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: And protein earns its keep, whatever your week looks like.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: If you're lifting, it's the material your training is asking for.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: If you're not lifting at all at the moment, it's still holding on to the muscle you've got, and it's still keeping you fuller for longer.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: So there's something here for you either way.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And the one thing I'll say up front, nothing in this episode asks you to eat less.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: Every single thing I'm going to suggest today is something you add.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Why does protein matter more now than it used to?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: The short answer is muscle, and the reason it's muscle comes down to timing.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: Your muscle starts falling from about two years before your final period and keeps on falling until roughly two years after.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: That's a run of about four years, and across that very same stretch your fat is going up.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: We talked about that window last week, and I'm using the same words on purpose because it's the reason protein can't sit in the background anymore.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And notice what that window lines up with it.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: It lines up with your final period, not with a particular birthday or a number on a cake, but with your hormones and with estrogen winding down.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: That's why it can arrive without any warning you'd recognize.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: You're eating the same, you're training the same, you're running the same busy life you've always run, and underneath all of it, your body has quietly started moving in a different direction.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be careful about how I describe this because the words matter.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: It isn't sudden and it isn't a cliff, it's gradual.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: The muscle starts coming off a little at a time in the background, so slowly you wouldn't notice it from one week to the next.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: But gradual doesn't mean it doesn't count.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: A few years of a little less muscle, with fat going up at the same time, adds up to a body that looks and feels different to the one you knew.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's a body with less of the tissue that keeps you strong and steady on your feet and able to do the things you love.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do about it?
6:31
SPEAKER_00: You build it back.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And building muscle takes two things working together.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: The first is lifting, which is what we spent all of last week on, because lifting is the signal that tells your body it needs more muscle than it's got.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And the second is protein, because protein is the raw material your body builds that muscle out of.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: The signal without the material doesn't get you very far, and the material without the signal doesn't either.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: You need both of them turning up, week in, week out.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, a word for the women who are already training because this one is for you.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: If you're lifting two or three times a week and working hard in those sessions and you're not eating enough protein to go with them, you're doing the hard part and skipping the easy part.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Get your protein right and you'll get far more out of your lifting.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: The same sessions and the same effort, with more to show for it at the end.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about how much of yourself goes into a proper strength session, that's a very good trade to make.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why this one matters so much to me.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: What trips women up here is so rarely effort.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: What so often trips them up is the part nobody explained, which is how much protein it takes to hit a goal at a meal and across a whole day.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: That isn't a discipline problem, and I don't want anyone hearing it as one.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: It's an information problem, and the good news about an information problem is that it can be fixed.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: But I promised the women who aren't training that this episode was for them as well, so let me keep that promise.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: Every decent serve of protein switches muscle building on for a while, whether you've trained that day or not.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Lifting makes that response bigger, but it's there either way.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And if you're eating less for any reason, like a busy week, a poor appetite, a diet you've decided to do, enough protein is what protects the muscle you've got from being used up along with everything else.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: So protein does a real job all on its own.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: Where it has a limit is that once you're eating enough, piling on more protein by itself won't add much new muscle.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: That's the part only lifting can do.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Protein protects what you've got.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Protein plus lifting builds more.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: And there's a bonus in all of this that I think you're gonna like, which is that protein fills you up more than carbohydrates does.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Put more protein into your meals and you tend to eat less across the rest of the day without even trying to.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: Not because anyone's told you to cut back, but because you're simply not as hungry.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: And in my experience, it's the protein you've already stacked up earlier in the day, at breakfast and again at lunch, that makes the afternoon quieter.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: By the time you're hunting through the pantry at 3 o'clock, that hunt was decided hours ago.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Now fiber still matters every bit as much as it did when we talked about it in episode six and eight.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't protein instead of your vegetables and your whole grains, it's protein alongside them.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Here's the long view, and I'll say it gently.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Further down the track, muscle gets slower to answer a serve of protein.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: It still answers, it just takes more protein to get the same result.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: So the muscle you build and protect in these years is the muscle you carry forward into all the years that come after them.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: You're not only doing this for how you feel over the next few months, you're building something you're going to keep using for a very long time, and that makes it worth doing properly now.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: So how much do you need?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give it to you as a ladder because you're not all doing the same thing, and one number was never going to fit everyone.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: And before I start, one thing worth knowing.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Most of us are not going short on protein in the sense of running on empty.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: What we're short on is enough to hold on to muscle through these years, which is a different question and a higher bar.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: And even when the total for your body looks alright on paper, it's very often sitting in the wrong place, which is where we're headed next.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: So here's the ladder.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Your bottom rung, your floor, is around a gram of protein per kilo of body weight per day.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the number from episode 8, and it's still the one to start with.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's the easiest number in this episode to remember, because it's your weight.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: If you weigh 70 kilos, your minimum number is about 70 grams.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: That's your weight today, by the way, not the weight you'd like to be or the weight you were 10 years ago.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Your weight in kilos is your minimum in grams.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: The next rung up is for when you're lifting.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're doing two or three strength sessions a week, you want to be somewhere around 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kilo.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: So for that same 70 kilo woman, that's somewhere around 85 to 110 grams a day.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And you don't need to memorize any of that because the idea underneath it is simple.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: When you ask more of your muscle, you feed it more.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you will be looking at those numbers and thinking that sounds like an awful lot of food.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: It's less than it sounds once it's spread out properly across your day, and I'm going to show you exactly what it looks like in a few minutes.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: For now, the thing I'd like you to hold on to is that you don't have to get there overnight.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: If you're a long way under your number, move towards it one meal at a time, and give your appetite a chance to catch up with you.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: And if you're training harder than that, or more often, the number goes up again.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Stacy Sims from her work with women recommends going up towards about two grams per kilo for active women.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: And Professor Stuart Phillips, one of the leading names in muscle and protein, whose group has looked at protein in women who train, supports going higher as training gets heavier.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: So the more you lift, the more you need.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing before we go and double what's on your plate.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: If you've got kidney disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure, have a chat with your GP or an accredited practicing dietitian before you push your protein up.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: That isn't me trying to frighten you off.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: It's simply the sensible first step.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: So you're doing this with the right people in your corner.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather give you a ladder than one number, because you're not all doing the same thing.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are lifting three or four times a week and loving it.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are just getting started, and some of you haven't started yet and aren't sure you will.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: You can all find your rung on the same ladder and move it up as your training changes, and that's what I love about it because nobody is being handed a number that doesn't fit their life.
12:50
SPEAKER_00: Please don't turn this into one more thing you have to be perfect at.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to weigh every mouthful or live inside an app to get this right.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And for most of what I'm asking, a rough idea is plenty.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Know your numbers, know roughly what a good serve looks like, and I'm going to give you that shortly, and check in on a normal day to see how close you are.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: You'll learn more from one honest look at an ordinary Tuesday than from a week of trying to be perfect.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's the latter, a gram per kilo as your floor, more if you're lifting, and more again if you're training hard.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And if the numbers are already starting to blur together, he's the only one you need to walk away with.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: Your weight in kilos is your minimum in grams per day.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Everything else is a step up from there.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: If the daily number is the first half of the answer, then the second half is where that protein lands across your day.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: And for a lot of women, it lands in a lump at night.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: Breakfast is where women tend to run the lowest, on average, somewhere around 11 grams, and dinner ends up carrying about three times that.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: So the total for the day can look perfectly reasonable while the morning is almost empty.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: We touched on this back in episode 8 with the coffee and whatever's quickest on the way out the door, and it's exactly the meal I'd most like you to fix.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: And I understand exactly why breakfast is the one that gets squeezed.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Mornings can be a rush with a list already running in your head before your feet hit the floor, and a coffee in the car is sometimes the only thing standing between you and the day.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not asking you to cook a big breakfast every morning.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking you to get about 30 grams of protein into that first meal, and in a few minutes I'll show you how quick that can be.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Because what your muscle responds to is a proper serve at a sitting.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: In episode 8 I said that somewhere between 20 and 40 grams at a meal is roughly what switches muscle building on, and that still stands.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: What I'd like you to aim for is about 30 because it sits comfortably in the middle of that range and it's an easy number to build a meal around.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: If you land at 25, that's a good meal.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: And if a meal goes over 30, it isn't wasted.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Your body doesn't tip the extra down the sink, it gets used.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: There's no hard ceiling sitting at 30.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: What I'd love you to picture instead of one big serve at dinner is three proper serves spread across your day.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: What I'd love you to picture instead of one big serving at dinner is three proper serves spread across your day, one at each meal so your muscles get a good signal in the morning, another in the middle of the day, and another at night.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Snacks can top it up, but they don't have to carry it.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: And if you train, the small snack before your session that we talked about last week earns its place twice, because it gets a little more protein into your day as well.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And this is the one I said I'd come back to because it catches so many of us out.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: When you look at a plate, you see food.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: The size of the piece of the chicken, the pile of eggs, the tub of yogurt, and what you can't see is how much of it is protein.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: A hundred grams of chicken is not a hundred grams of protein, it's about thirty.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And one egg is about six grams of protein, and the rest is water and fat and everything else that makes food food.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: So a breakfast can look generous and still be well short, and you'd never know just from looking at it.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: And then there's the old lever again.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Eat less, move more.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Cut your food back, and the protein goes down with it quietly unless you've decided in advance to protect it.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: I told you in episode 8 that I ran short on protein myself for years while I was teaching class after class on watching my calories, and knowing better made no difference to it at all.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Here's the part that matters now.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: When your protein is low while you're losing weight, more of what comes off is muscle, which is exactly the tissue you're working so hard to keep.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: So, what about timing around your training?
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Last week I asked you not to train on an empty stomach and to have something small with a bit of protein and some carbohydrate about half an hour beforehand.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: That still holds.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: What I want to add today is the other end of the session.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: Make the meal after your training a proper protein serve, your 30 grams.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And you don't need a stopwatch for this because it's hours, not minutes.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: If you train at 6 and sit down to a good protein breakfast at 8, you've done it.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Dr.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Stacy Sims from her work with women likes to see it going a bit sooner than that.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And if that suits your morning, then great.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: But please don't stand in the change room panicking because you can't get something into you within 20 minutes of your last set.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: The meal matters far more than the minutes.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: What I would ask, same as last week, is that you eat afterwards rather than letting it slide all the way to lunchtime because the morning got away from you.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And one more thing, because last week I split lifting into three different goals strength, muscle size, and power.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: You don't need three different protein plans for those.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Nobody has a separate protein number for each of them because it's the same muscle being fed whichever of those jobs you're asking it to do.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So whichever kind of lifting you're doing this week, the number and the timing stay the same.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: That's one less thing to think about, and I'm always happy to hand you one of those.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: So let me gather that up because here's where it tends to go wrong for a lot of us.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Not enough at breakfast with too much of the day's protein piled up at dinner, a plate that looks like more protein than it actually is, and less food all around with the protein quietly shrinking along with it, and the meal after training left to chance.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: None of that is failing, and none of it means you weren't trying.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: It's simply what happens when nobody hands you the numbers.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: So let's make 30 grams real because I promised you a list and I'd love you to be able to picture it next time you're at the shops.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: These are rough amounts and they're cooked weights where it matters, but they're close enough to build a meal around.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: We'll start with meat and fish.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Chicken breast, a palm sized piece about a hundred grams once it's cooked, and that's your 30.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: Lean steak, a small one around 95 grams cooked.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: Tuna, two of the small tins because one small tin is about 15 or 16 grams.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And salmon, one fillet.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: Now eggs, and this is where I get a little bit excited.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Remember the one poached egg?
19:16
SPEAKER_00: To get 30 grams from whole eggs alone, it takes about five of them, and that's around 370 calories.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: Which is fine, but it's a lot of eggs.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: So here's the way I like to build it.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Most of the protein in an egg is in the white, well, over half of it, and the white brings almost nothing else with it.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: The yolk is where the fat sits and most of the calories, and also the vitamins and the good fats, which is exactly why I keep a couple of yolks in and leave the rest out.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Two whole eggs and four or five egg whites, that's about 30 grams for somewhere around 225 calories, and you still get the good of the yolk.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And if you'd like to go lighter again, one whole egg and six whites comes to about 30 grams for around 175 calories.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Egg whites on their own will do it too, and it takes about eight of them.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: But I like keeping at least one yolk in there because that's where the flavour and the good fats are.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: So you're not throwing the egg out, you're just getting more of the part that does the protein job.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Dairy necks, the same 30 grams.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Cottage cheese is about 175 grams of the regular kind, which is about three quarters of a cup.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: If you're watching your calories, the low fat one gets you there for fewer calories.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit more food, around 250 grams, but it's lighter.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: High protein yogurt, about 300 grams, which is about two of the small tubs.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Regular milk, about three and a half cups, so it's useful, it just takes a lot of it.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't come across the high protein milks, they're worth knowing about.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: They sit in the same fridge as the ordinary milk, and they're dairy milk with the protein concentrated.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: So a cup gives you around 15 grams instead of the eight or nine of regular milk.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Two cups makes up your 30 grams.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: There's no plant milk that does that, so if you switch to almond or oat milk, don't expect it to carry your protein.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Now if you're vegetarian or vegan, you've got good options, and I'll give you grams as well as cups, because the packet sizes can be all over the place.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Firm tofu 230 grams.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Do check your brand because tofu runs anywhere from about seven to twenty four grams of protein per hundred grams.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: So one block can hold more than three times what another does.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Tempe 240 grams.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Saitan a hundred grams.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: Edomame two hundred and forty grams of the shelled beans, which is about a cup and a half or so.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: P protein powder, a scoop and a bit.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: And beans do a real job here.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: A tin and a half of black beans drained gets you to 30 grams.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's much the same for kidney beans or cannellini.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Lentils or chickpeas are about two cups cooked, 400 grams and upwards, and soybeans are the standout of the lot.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: A cup and a third does it.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: Green peas are worth a mention too, because for the calories they carry, they're better than any bean on the list.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: The catch is the volume, it's about three and a half cups of peas to reach the 30 grams.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: So I'd use them to top up a meal rather than to carry it.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Now all of those vegetarian options come with carbohydrate attached and plenty of fibre, and that's completely fine because it's good food.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: I'd just like you to know that that's what you're eating, so you're not surprised by how much food it takes.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: And then there's nuts.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: I think nuts are great food, and I'm not going to say a word against them, but as a protein source, they're a poor deal.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: To get 30 grams of protein from almonds, it takes about a cup, and that's somewhere around 870 calories.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: The same 30 grams for chicken is about 145 calories.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: So if you're working on getting leaner and you're keeping an eye on your total calories, nuts can be a poor choice because the protein is low and the calories are high.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: Eat them for the good fats and the nutrients and have your handful.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Just don't ask them to do the protein job for you.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And then there are a couple of others that get talked about in a similar way to nuts, so let me save you the trouble.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: Quinoa and chia both carry a reputation as protein foods, and the numbers don't back it up.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: 30 grams from cooked quinoa is four and a half cups.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: 30 grams from chia is nine or ten tablespoons, which is a lot of fat and an enormous amount of fiber.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: And I know some of you are making chia puddings, so here's the honest answer on those.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: The chia isn't where the protein is coming from.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Two tablespoons of chia is about six grams of protein.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Soak it in a big serve of high protein yogurt or high protein milk, and the whole thing comes in at around 30 grams for around 270 calories.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: But the yogurt did the work.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: Which is the same story as the nuts.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Lovely food, real nutrients, just not a protein serve on its own.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: So put them on top of a meal that already has your protein in it.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Now let me put together a whole day for you just so you can hear how it adds up.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Two whole eggs and four whites at breakfast is your thirty.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: Two small tins of tuna through a salad at lunch is another thirty.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: And a palm sized piece of chicken or a salmon fillet at dinner is another thirty.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: That's 90 grams across three ordinary meals.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: And then a glass of high protein dairy milk or a tub of high protein yogurt somewhere in the afternoon takes you past 100 grams.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in that day that's strange or expensive or hard to find, and I didn't need a single protein bar to get you there.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to take you to the yogurt shelf because it's the perfect example of why you read the label and not the front of a tub.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: Take Chibani Greek Natural Like Yogurt, which is the high protein yogurt I mentioned a moment ago.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: To get your 30 grams from that, you'd eat about two of the small tubs, about 300 grams in weight, and it costs you around 180 calories.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: Now pick up a typical full-fat Greek style yogurt off the same shelf.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: To get 30 grams out of that one, you'd be eating about 700 grams of yogurt, which is most of a kilo tub, and it costs you somewhere around 850 calories.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Same 30 grams, but nearly five times the calories.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Same shelf, same word on the front, and a completely different food.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: In Australia, Greek style isn't a defined term, so it can mean almost anything.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time it's been thickened with cream or milk powder rather than strained.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Proper Greek yogurt is strained, which takes out a lot of the liquid and leaves you with more protein in every spoonful.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: So this isn't me telling you full fat yogurt is bad.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: Chabani's whole milk one has nearly the same protein as the light because it's strained too.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: The point is that the words Greek style don't tell you whether a yogurt has been strained and the protein line on the back does.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: I find this one so useful because it shows you how much the front of a packet can steer you.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Two tubs can sit side by side with almost the same words on them and do completely different jobs in your day.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: The only way to tell them apart is to turn them around.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: Turning a tub around takes two seconds, and that's how you know what you're buying.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And while you're standing there, the flavored fruit yogurts are worth a second look as well.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: But they can bring more sugar and less protein along with them.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying never, I'm saying turn the tub around, find the line that says protein, and look at the grams.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: That's the number that matters, not the size of the tub, not the picture of the berries, and not the word Greek.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, once you've done that a couple of times, you won't look at a yogurt shelf the same way again.
27:07
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do this week?
27:09
SPEAKER_00: I've got three things for you, and every one of them is something you add.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Not one of them asks you to eat less, and not one of them needs a new app, a cookbook, or a diet.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Step one, work out your number.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Your weight in kilos is your minimum in grams of protein a day.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: So if you weigh 70 kilos, that's 70 grams.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And if you're lifting, you're aiming higher than that.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Somewhere around 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilo of body weight.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: Write it down somewhere you'll see it, on the fridge or maybe in your phone, and treat it as your starting line, not as a test you have to pass on day one.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Knowing the number is the first win because you can't aim at something you can't see, and I'd much rather you knew it roughly than guessed at it perfectly.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Step two, get about 30 grams of protein into your breakfast.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: If I could only ask you to change one meal, it would be this one.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Breakfast is where it goes missing, so it's where you'll get the biggest return for the least effort.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: It might be two whole eggs and a few egg whites.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: It might be a big serve of high protein yogurt with some berries or last night's leftover chicken, or a smoothie made with high protein milk and a good quality protein powder.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you train in the morning, make this the meal after your session.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: If your 30 feels like a big leap from where you are right now, get to 20 this week and 30 the next.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Either way, you're adding.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Step 3.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Read the protein line on one label you already buy, just one, and the yogurt is the obvious place to start.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Turn the tub around, find the grams of protein, and ignore the weight of the tub.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: You might find it's doing a better job than you thought, and you might find it isn't.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Either way, you'll know, and the next time you're standing at that shelf, you'll be choosing with your eyes open.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And once you've done it with one label, I'd love to keep you going, because the habit of turning a packet around is worth more than any single number I could give you today.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say something to anybody who's listened to all of this and is feeling a bit behind.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: You're not behind.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: You're exactly where a lot of us were before somebody sat us down and gave us the numbers.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Nobody expects you to know how many grams of protein were in a tub of yogurt because nobody ever told you.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Now you know, and knowing is where every one of these changes starts.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's three things.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Your number, 30 grams at breakfast, and one label.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: And if that's more than this week can hold, do breakfast on its own.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: It's the one that changes the most.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Then give it a few weeks and notice what happens.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: How full you feel through the morning, how you pull up after a hard session, and whether that late afternoon slump still arrives on cue.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Everything I've talked about today is linked in the show notes, along with the food list, so you don't have to write anything down while you're listening.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: The numbers will be sitting there whenever you want them, and so will the research behind them.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Here's where I want to leave you today.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Think back to that one poached egg.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: The woman who added it to her breakfast wasn't doing anything wrong because she heard that protein mattered, and she did something about it, which is more than a lot of us manage on a busy morning.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: What she didn't have was the numbers, how much she needed, how much was in the food on her plate, and where in her day it was going missing.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted to hand you today, because in these years protein can't be left to chance anymore.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: It has to be a priority now.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And I know that's one more thing on a list that's already long, but I'd put this one near the top because it's one of the few things in all of this that sits completely in your hands.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need a prescription or an appointment or a gym membership and can start at your very next meal.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: So if you keep three things from today, keep these.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Your muscle is coming off across these years, and protein and lifting together are how you build it back.
31:05
SPEAKER_00: Your weight in kilos is your minimum in grams and more if you lift.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And aim for about 30 grams a meal starting with breakfast.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say this last because it's the thing I most want you to hear.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: None of this is about eating less, and none of it is about being perfect.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: It's about feeding the body you've got in the years when it needs it the most.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: So the work you're putting in has something to build with.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: For a long time the message handed to us was cut back.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: This is one place where the answer is more.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Next week we're doing supplements.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Which ones have something behind them?
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Which ones are just expensive, and what's worth your money at this stage of life?
31:45
SPEAKER_00: It's an episode I promised you a while back, and it's time I paid up.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: And if you know a woman who's added an egg to her breakfast and thinks she's sorted, please send her this one.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Not to catch her out because she's doing the right thing, but because she deserves the numbers to go with it.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't already, please subscribe so that next week's episode just turns up on its own.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: And if you've got a minute, I'd love you to leave a review, because that's how other women find the show.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad you're here.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: Look after yourself, and I'll see you next week.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Everything I've mentioned today is referenced in the show notes, along with all the links.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: And you can find me at Kirstencookcoaching.com.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Just a reminder, though, this is education, not medical advice.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: So take these conversations to a practitioner who will actually listen to you.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being here and for listening to the What the Perry podcast.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: The change you didn't ask for, the conversations you need to.