Protein

If I was allowed to deliver a right hook in the jaw handed a penny ( I promised to be nice and less judgemental) every time someone asked me "You don't eat meat? Where do you get your Protein?"; I would have been able to fund more Ironman races and buy a nice TT bike and pose for nice photos with motivational quotes. (Being nice is so hard)

When people with paunches told me I was too thin while gulping down copious amounts of fried food, I, to my credit, admirably smiled while mentality listing down cuss words I would have said out loud had my upbringing been less gentlemanly. A friend of mine told me that I was too nice and even if people were wrong, I just smiled and said nothing which was wrong and that I should be more assertive about things I know are right.

Firstly, I'll dwell a little on why Protein is important. No it is not an energy source but I think most people know that. Carbohydrates are the energy source and Fat is an energy source and you can actually train your body to use Fat as an fuel source in endurance training which actually has numerous benefits.

Protein is obviously needed for recovery and but how much Protein do you need exactly?

Well the simple answer is given by this formula:

Max Amount of Protein your body can absorb in grams = Your body weight (in kgs) * 1.5 (gms)

So if you weigh 50 kgs, your body can absorb 75 gms of Protein beyond which your body can't absorb Protein (Thanks Subbu for this!)

And where do you get that Protein from?

So dummies people who think that meat is the only source of Protein and vegetarian food can't give you Protein, get this :




This is a chart which gives you the amount of Protein you get from 100 gm of Vegan/Vegetarian food.

While considering foods for which you kill innocent animals meats : 100g of belly pork contains 258kcal, 19g protein and 20g of fat, while a pork chop weighs in with 227kcal, 15g protein, and 18g fat. However, this is not the whole pork story. Pork fillet is lean; containing 147kcal, 22g protein and 6.5g fat, whereas chicken comes in with 148kcal, 32g protein and 2.2g of fat. (Source : shields 144. "How much protein is in 100g chicken breast??" www.muscletalk.co.uk. n.p., 3 Feb 2011. Web. 19 Aug 2017.)

So basically 100gms of Pumpkin seeds give you the same amount of protein as a Chicken breast.

So when you give me that sob story about why you became a non vegetarian as an athlete, do me a favour. Don't.

I don't blame you. You see the root of all evil is ignorance. Obviously, it is a common perception that meat is protein and all athletes eat meat and those who don't have enough Protein to recover. So I blame your coach and his education I think it was the ignorance of not really understanding food properly which prompted you to make statements which had no base at all.

Also Protein is not the only thing you need to recover, try to sleep more. It helps a lot. You can listen to my podcast with Connor on that : https://soundcloud.com/arunaabhshah/podcast-sleep-as-a-performance-enhancer

And I have nothing against people eating meat. It must taste good or something and if you eat it, it your choice and your conscience. I don't eat meat because I love animals too much and it makes me uncomfortable knowing that someone who can't even fight back was killed to be my food. (I know, I'm such a softie).

And that is my choice. I'm not judging anyone here. I can't have it on my conscience and so I don't.

But the next time you ask me where I get my Protein from because I don't eat meat, I will hit you in the face with sledge hammer because animals are much better than humans and don't ask moronic questions ask you to educate yourself and get a better understanding of food groups.