High Protein Diet for Muscles

High-protein diets are typically used by people who are looking to build muscles. This type of diet is preferred for muscle building, as it encourages your body to burn fat, which helps increase your muscle mass. If you want to use a high-protein diet to build muscles, you will find that a lot of food has protein in it. However, there are a few foods that are better sources of protein that others.

Daily Requirements for Muscle Building

The amount of protein that you need to eat depends upon your weight and body fat percentage. Convert your body weight from pounds into kilograms by dividing the pounds by 2.2. For example, 150 lbs. is 68.18kg. Once you have your body fat percentage, you will need to multiply it by your weight (in kilograms). Take the number you get from that calculation and subtract it from your body weight to get your lean mass weight. For example, 150 lbs. and 15 percent body fat would be 68.18kg multiplied by 15 percent equals 10.23kg. Then 68.18kg minus 10.23kg equals 57.95kg for lean mass body weight.

Now that you have the lean mass body weight, you can figure out how much protein you need to eat each day. Get this amount by multiplying your lean mass body weight by 2.75. For example, 57.95kg multiplied by 2.75 equals 159.36g for the 150-lb. person with 15 percent body fat.

Chicken

Chicken is an excellent source of protein that is low in fat content. While the white and dark meat each have a lot of protein, the white meat has less fat. This makes the white meat a better choice from a nutrition standpoint. You can get 35g of protein in one 4-oz. boneless chicken breast.

Seafood

Fish is another great source of protein. While fish is somewhat higher in fat than chicken, the fat in fish is unsaturated fat, which is commonly called the good kind of fat. Tuna is an inexpensive and easy way to get your protein from fish. One can of tuna has roughly 40g of protein. If you prefer something like scallops, you can get 26g of protein from 4 oz. of scallops.

Beef

Beef presents a comparable protein content to chicken. However, beef has a much higher fat content and it is not the same kind of good fat that can be found in seafood. For that reason, only the leanest cuts of beef should be used for a high-protein diet. Vitamin B-12 and creatine can be found in beef, each of which contribute to muscle building. A 4-oz. serving of beef gives you 36g of protein.

Dairy

Dairy foods such as eggs, cheese, yogurt and milk all have a decent protein content that can help build muscles. Like beef, dairy products can be full of saturated fat. Only low-fat dairy products should be used for this reason. One cup of yogurt offers 14g of protein. Four oz. of mozzarella offers 36g, and one egg offers almost 7g.