gimme gimme gimme some protein

It may be the first question people ask - oh, no wait, the first question is "why the heck would you go VEGAN?" The second question is, "How do you get enough protein?"

For an average, moderately active person, a vegan diet has plenty of food options that have enough protein. All plants have a little bit. Some, like peas and beans and grains, have quite a bit.

Being vegan isn't really that restrictive. I mean, come on, Oreos (tm) are vegan. You can eat a whole lotta junk, and still be eating vegan. You can eat almost every potato chip and tortilla chip under the sun. Lots of dark chocolate. Lots of cookies, breads, pasta, and other processed stuff. Lots of sugar, HCFS, all manner of things that most people generally recognize as not being good for you.

Being on a vegan whole foods, low fat diet, however, has its challenges. And being an endurance athlete on this diet makes it trickier! (I do so love a challenge.)  It's become important to me for two reasons - one, after more than 3 weeks on this diet, I think I've lost some muscle. My body fat measuring scale agrees with me, it says I'm up 2 % on average in body fat, but I'm the same weight. So that means I've burned up some muscle, which I'd rather not do. The other - I've been getting very odd muscle cramps the last 2 weeks - hands, feet, calves, quads, hamstrings. This is more likely related to not getting enough sodium, potassium, calcium or magnesium, but could also be related to my protein and amino acid intake.

The whole foods part of the diet is just that - eat mostly things that haven't been altered. Veggies, fruits, nuts, whole grains. The low fat is supposed to be 10% of your calories from fat. Yowch, that's low. So now I know how much fat I get per day. What about the rest?

How much protein does a very active girl need, anyway?
Going to the literature, an average person needs 0.8 g of protein per kg of body weight. For me, That'd be 44 g of protein. Easy. (Take your weight and divide by 2.2 to get kg.)  An athlete, which I am going to consider myself even if it makes me sound like I have a big head, needs 1.2 - 1.4 g of protein per kg of body weight. Oooookay, so for me, that means 65 - 76 g of protein. Ok, I can probably get that....

But wait, there's more.

The bioavailability of plant sources of protein is markedly less than that of animal protein. It comes out to about 80%. So of the plant based protein I take in, I actually get 80% of that. Which means that now, as a vegan athlete, I need 81 to 95 g of protein a day.

Holy cats, man. That's a lot of protein.

and what does that mean for my overall nutrient intake?
total calories per day are about 2200
fat = 10% or 220 calories, or 24 grams
protein must be ~85 grams, so that's 340 calories, which is 15.5%
and that means that carbs make up the rest - 74.5%

The problem is, it rarely plays out that way. With such a low fat ceiling, basically nuts are out. Straight out. Because there's enough fat in grains, beans, potatoes, veggies alone to make up that 24 grams, never mind a handful of almonds. And it's not like I can go out an grab a hunk of beef jerky to get my protein. What about tofu, you say? yes, but that IS processed. It has lots of protein, but also has a fair amount of fat -  7 g of protein, and 4 g of fat. So that doesn't really solve the problem. And if I keep to that caveat of no processed stuff, then seitan is out, too.

To answer the original question, my protein comes from beans, whole grains (quinoa, brown rice, oats, whole wheat), lentils, peas, and did I mention beans?

And I'm relaxing on the fat %. That is a difficult target to hit. I think I could do it, but that would mean cutting out the ground flax, the pumpkin seeds, the pecans, and just about any bread, tortilla, or other baked product out there. When I was trying to hit that target, I'd actually be around 15%, and although I felt full even stuffed, I still wanted to eat. An odd sensation. Upping the fat has helped that go away. My target is going to be 20%. With more wiggle room, it will be easier to eat more protein too.

But even with these changes, I find I'm only getting 50 g of protein a day.

More beans, anyone?