Quick Paleo/Primal Lunch 3

Quick Paleo/Primal Lunch from saul jimenez on Vimeo.

This is really unscripted, but that’s how it happens sometimes.

Erin, can you please post you aoli recipe to the comments?

There have been a number of questions about quantity of food that I would like to address in a quick post and a link to Robb Wolf’s blog/podcast.

First of all, check out Robb’s podcast episode 10. He talks about protein and food amount, at least for a person wanting lean out and gain strength (about 25:00, the Norwegian post).

Here are the gory details, let’s start with protein and work out from there. There are a number of recommendations for protein consumption they seem to range from about .66g to 1 (or more) g per lb of body mass per day. OK, fine so what does that mean in real life? Let’s do this for a few people and go for .85g/lb/day (there are 7 g of protein in an ounce of meat).
125 lbs: 106g or 15 oz of meat – 4 oz at each meal and 2 snacks
150 lbs: 128g or 18 oz of meat – 5 oz at each meal and 2 snacks
175 lbs: 149g or 21 oz of meat – 6 oz at each meal and 2 snacks
200 lbs: 170g or 24 oz or meat – 7 oz at each meal and 2 snacks

If you want to down to .66g/lb/day and you are 150 lbs, use the 125 lbs. Conversely, if you are 150 and want to use 1g/lb/day use 175 lbs recommendation. Interesting fact: Men and women will be eating similar portions.

OK, now, let’s continue down the road of how much food to eat in general. There are two methods:
1) Just guess, eat ’til you are full, then stop. In general, listen to your body. This way is pretty right most of the time.
2) Make an educated guess, then use calorie counter, web application to help you get closer. I found a calorie calculator on the Internet. It doesn’t really matter which one you use because you are just going to use it for a starting point. For me, it is somewhere around 2800 calories. Remember, you will start here, most of these web applications are about calorie counting and that is not what we are doing with this way of eating. However, we are trying to see if we are a magnitude off, we are not trying to fine-tune yet. (Protein and carbohydrates contain 4 calories/gram, Fat contains 9 calories per gram. Remember that most foods are made up of some of each). Let’s start with 2800 Calories total per day – 512 g protein (128g x 4) – 400 g carbs (try to keep below 100 g carbs/day). That means I need to eat about 1900 calories of fat/day. Some of that will be in the meat I eat, but some will have to come from external sources.
Coconut Oil: 14 g/1 Tbsn
Coconut Milk: 72 g/can
Almond Butter: 17 g/2 Tbsn

This is where a calorie counter web application like Daily Plate can come in handy. I can help verify that you are hungry for a reason, wither from hormonal hunger (i.e. too many carbs) or because you just aren’t taking in enough food).