Protein amounts

I saw a new dietician yesterday for my one year. I asked her if you can consume too much protein. She replied I should aim for 60-80. I said yes but can you have too much. She didn't seem to be able to answer the question. Has anyone else tried to get this information out of the dieticians?   I do not very often go really high but it would be nice to know what is considered too high

 Don't think you really need to sweat too much over this.    Anything can be overdone.   People have died from drinking too much water.  Anything to an extreme is not healthy.   If you were to say, have 3X your protein goal, it would be taxing on your body to process it all.   There are also people who think more protein is better so they will take in more protein (and thus more calories than they really need for their body).  Just keep following your goal and you'll be fine.   Don't worry too much.   

 

Dawn

This same question was raised on a recent thread and as I said then, there IS such thing as a condition called Protein Poisoning, or commonly called "rabbit starvation". I found this article on Livestrong:

"PROTEIN POISONING
Eating a diet too high in protein can, after several weeks, result in death. According to the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Institute of Medicine, "rabbit starvation" can occur when you get 45 percent of your calories from protein. Such protein-rich diets can lead to symptoms that include nausea, weakness and diarrhea, those these symptoms abate when the protein content of your diet is reduced by increasing the amount of fats or carbohydrates."

http://www.livestrong.com/article/519284-what-is-protein-poisoning/

In addition I might add that I'm not surprised a nutritionist wouldn't know much about this. You should speak to a doctor or pharmacist as they would have more in-depth knowledge of the chemical processes in the human body.

Thanks. I will check out the article but I was looking for more specific to our mal absorption. Since it was the dietitian who originally set the amount I thought she might have the info

Silly Patm!.. Thinking a dietician would know the answer

You would have to eat over 200 g of protein and pretty much no fat or carbs to run into problems.  I believe the formula is your current weight in pounds x 0.36 to give you the upper limit of required protein.

I don't try to get more than the 80g that they mention.  Sometimes I get above it, but as long as I get my minimum of 60g, I am fine with that.  Although now that I'm managing to eat more calories, I do try to keep my protein at at least a little over a third of the calories I consume, as per instructions from the dietitian.  But I don't try to go out of my way to have huge amounts of protein.  I make sure I have protein with every meal and snack, and I track my overall consumption in MFP to make sure my carbs and fat aren't completely out of whack with my protein. 

And I'm not freaking out about carbs.  It helps that I can't really eat raised bread without it sitting like a lump in my stomach, so I don't overeat that stuff (and in fact avoid it generally, except for maybe a corner of my husband's bread in a restaurant once in a while).  My pouch dislikes fat more than carbs, but it depends on what the fat or carbs are in.  So, for instance, my pouch seems to have no problem with nuts (which are high in fat), and no problem with beans or dried chick peas (which are high in carbs) or stews made with not-so-lean meat, or fruit.  But it gets grumpy over things like bacon, sometimes protein bars (I think it's the sugar), etc.  Maybe it's that I can handle some fat and sugar as long as there's a decent amount of protein or fibre (or both) in it?

Anyhow, I don't know whether it's possible to have too much protein, but I do know that my body feels much better when I balance my diet with carbs and fat along with the protein, through veggies, fruit, and nuts.