Do I need more carbs or protein?
 

How do I know if I need more carbs or protein? Are there any indications? Like, bad skin, weird twitches... impotence?

it's hard to know. if you eat too little protein, despite hard exercise, you won't gain muscle mass, or you may even lose it (muscles being sacrificed to feed the brain).

that being said, hardly anyone in North America eats too little protein. in fact, they eat too much animal protein, which brings along saturated fats.

so, in the course of a day, how much protein DO you eat, and how big are you anyway, and how many miles do you ride a week, and what other exercise or work do you do?

Are you sure you're getting enough rest/sleep?

So pretty much the only way to tell is if I weigh myself?
Lately I've been taking some supplementary protein in addition to my normal food load and I've felt a little better during the week, no more being worn down by midweek from doing time trials on my commute. I think my daily estimate is that I'm getting around 1.75 grams per kg of my weight.

The reason why I'm wondering is, if I'm not getting enough vitamin c, i usually feel it in my skin and gums, if I'm not getting enough calcium, I see it in my nails. But I don't know any indicators for when I'm not getting enough protein.

I also only get about 5-6 hours of sleep a night.

I can see that you had another thread with low heart rate, and at the same time have other symptoms with fatigue etc. To err on the side of caution you should see your doc and get some blood samples especially low metabolism related.

Is this an indication or a problem?

Dohh... I meant kg. Damn metric.
1.75g/kg. So I end up getting about 110-120 a day.

Almost certainly not enough sleep: if I'm riding a lot I really feel tired if I get less than 7 hours.

Also, you don't need that much protein. I think the standard is about 1.2g per kilo (not pound) of bodyweight daily for people doing recreational sports, and up to 2g per kilo for hard-working athletes. That's all the body can use to repair and build muscle (unless the science has changed since the book I read came out). You're getting nearly 4g per kilo. :eek: Shouldn't do you any harm (long as it doesn't come with loads of saturated fat attached) but it won't do you any good either.

Oops - shouldn't have answered that phone call in the middle of doing my last post :o

Sounds like your protein intake is fine

Chances are you don't need more protien as the average western diet is very protien rich. If you were a pure vegetarian you may want to include some whey protien supplementation but other than that you're most likely getting enough already.

Whenever I hear about some bodybuilder that's consuming 30 grams of protien 5 and 6 times a day I just cringe. All their doing is overworking their kidneys.

have a banana. potassium.