Sometimes women with Type 2 diabetes are told they need to be on high-protein diets. Sometimes women with Type 2 diabetes are told they need to be on low-protein diets. But it’s always best to eat the right amount of protein, not an arbitrarily high or low amount of protein.
Here’s how to figure out the right amount of protein for health:
You’ll need to know you total weight, and your per cent body fat. You can get your per cent body fat from many brands of bathroom scales with built-in resistance sensors. This calculation is for women who use American measurements in pounds and inches for body measurement, but who use the standardized tables (or read labels) to find grams of protein in a serving of food.
1. Multiply your total weight, in pounds, by your percentage of body fat expressed as a decimal. If you know your per cent body fat is 25{a3acb2be643effc4b7b4b3705df5cb2eae026059a1d075d54be8af4d92e7e619}, for example, you will multiply by 0.25. This gives you your fat mass in pounds.
2. Then subtract your fat mass, in pounds, from your total body weight, in pounds. This gives you your lean body mass (LBM).
3. Next multiply your LBM by the factor associated with the description that best matches you:
- sedentary (never exercising). You need 0.5 grams of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. Multiply your LBM by 0.5
- moderately active (you do 20 to 30 minutes of exercise two or three times a week): You need 0.6 grams of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. Multiply your LBM by 0.6
- active (you do 30 to 60 minutes of exercise at least three times a week). You need 0.7 grams of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. Multiply your LBM by 0.7
- very active (you get more than five hours of exercise a week). You need 0.8 grams of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. Multiply your LBM by 0.8
- athlete (you are competitive athlete doing daily workouts of two hours or more). You need 0.9 grams of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. Multiply your LBM by 0.9.
The answer you get will tell you how much protein you need. Certain kinds of kitchen scales have a function that can tell you precisely how much protein is in a specific kind of food, or you can use the tables to check a typical day’s protein consumption.
But here’s what women need to know:
- if you don’t get enough protein, you can’t build muscle
- if you get too much protein, your body turns it into sugar.
Most women with Type 2 find they need a bit more protein as they start an exercise program, but going on the Atkins diet is really too much.
