Rarely a day goes by that protein isn’t dominating headlines, mostly for its benefits and the best ways to eat it (hello, Parmesan?), but far less frequently for when we should be eating it.
Many of us get our protein in one of the classic American ways: all at once at dinner, or downed quickly in a shake. But in reality, timing is key—there’s only so much protein our bodies can absorb at a time, and eating more than that amount in one sitting won’t increase benefits.
So when is the best time of day to eat protein, exactly? According to registered dietitians, the answer isn’t a clean-cut hour on the clock, but there are instances when the nutrient definitely deserves more of your attention. Here’s when you should focus on getting a little bit more—and when you might actually want to take it down a notch.
To understand when you need protein, we first need to talk about why.
Protein gets the most hype for its muscle-building and repairing capacities, but it’s foundational to every part of the body—from our fingernails to our internal organs. Through protein was once reserved for bodybuilders and athletes, the truth is that we all need some amount of it no matter how physically active we are, as SELF previously reported.
Exactly how much you need is determined by a handful of factors like your size, height, and age, but one to two grams per kilogram of bodyweight, or roughly 70 to 140 grams per day or 15 to 30 per meal, is generally recommended, Edwina Clark, MS, RD, tells SELF. The per meal stat is what’s most important here, because that’s roughly the max amount of protein the body can absorb in one sitting, Jessica Cording, RD, health coach, and author of The Little Book of Game Changers and The Farewell Tour, tells SELF. She explains that eating beyond that threshold won’t typically increase the benefits, but may actually cause problems both in the short and long term (more on that in a bit).
Why do we overload on protein at dinner—and why shouldn’t we?
Dinner is when we’re most likely to overemphasize protein, though it’s not totally clear why, Wendy Lopez, MS, RD, CDCES, cofounder of Diabetes Digital, tells SELF. It could have something to do with the fact that chicken and beef are the most widely used sources of protein in the United States and abroad, and that those ingredients don’t usually get top billing outside of the last meal of the day. She notes that breakfast and snack preferences also tend to skew largely towards carbohydrates, and the type of protein sources you might rely on in those moments may not deliver as much of the nutrient—like eggs, which only have six grams of protein a pop, or yogurt, which may offer as little as five grams of protein per six-ounce serving.
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