I plan on starting to eat meat a lot more now that i'm trying to put on weight/muscle. Also it's a good idea as I have Anemia and Thelacemia minor. How many days a week should I eat a steak? I go to the gym 4/5 days a week.
I also plan to balance this with vegetables and fruit etc. Thanks in advance, guys.
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Of course, this advice changes if I'm incorrect in my assumptions. So, are you looking to bulk up, or lose weight?
How do you like your meat cooked? I've heard that the rarer the meat is the more nutrients it maintains (this may be splitting hairs even if it is true). I wouldn't go with rare, but medium rather than well might be better.
I can't find anything about it on the web so I think you're right. Huh.
Speaking from experience I couldn't put on weight/muscle if I didn't get (at the time) over 160 grams of protein a day.
Maybe you didn't have a high enough calorie intake?
But yes, beef is extremely good if you're trying to put on weight (muscle mass). Chicken has very clean protein, easier for your body to use, though, but l;ess calories. But Thanatos is pretty much right on everything there.
There's a myth out there that too much protein can hurt your kidneys, so don't overdo that. If you really wanna put on muscle mass it's best to (WITH eating more meat) take a protein shake or two a day.
This is pretty much wrong. You can damage your kidneys if you dehydrate yourself horribly while consuming vast quantities of protein, but assuming you don't go out of your way to ensure you dehydrate yourself this won't be a problem.
AFAIK he's right. I've never seen anything that says a person with normal kidney function has any risk from protein intake. If you have something more recent what would contradict this, please post it.
How do you find this?
Thanks for the info. I'm getting kind of burnt out of my current protein shake mix (hey, the drum the size of my head was on sale BOGO). Must find alternate vegetarian proteins.
A word of caution. Thalassemia (whether Thalassemia major or Thalassemia trait) is an anemia that has nothing to do with Iron deficiency (there are many different kinds of anemia, Iron deficiency anemia being just one of them). If anything, the more severe forms of Thalassemia are associated with Iron overload syndromes. The mechanism is to complicated and lengthy to warrant explanation here but I would suggest getting your protein from a healthy balance of lean meats and plant sources. Chicken, turkey, fish, legumes of all kinds (especially lentils) and Tofu sound like good bets. Try and stay away from too much Iron if possible. However if all you have is Thalassemia minor or Thalassemia trait (milder versions of the condition) then don't worry about too much or too little Iron.
FYI, you can buy some body fat calipers for like 5 bucks online. They even come with a manual. I'm sure you can find about a billion different ones on amazon.
It gets even easier though, as you can go to www.bodyforlife.com and they have a tool in there where you can input your weight, height, and measurements on about 4 different places, and it'll spit out your body fat %. I got tired of doing the conversions, so I prefer this method.
This sounds like a job for Tofu!
Also I'm on creatine before I work out and have a protein shake within 10 minutes after working out. Both the same brand for "more efficiency". I only plan to stay on teh creatine for about 6 weeks though, i;m in about week 3 now...
I would *very much* doubt the veracity of any test based purely on linear measurements.