How much protein, and how often to eat?

The Precision Nutrition blog is a good source of diet information. Although it often points to its own publications and members-only articles, it generally conveys some useful information for free.

Three recent articles are especially worth reading. The first is helpful if you're trying to build muscle, and have heard about the "20g limit" of protein use by the body.

John Berardi wrote Limit Protein to 20g Per Meal?. It's a good look at the recently-ballyhooed studies that show a limit to the amount of protein you can utilize for muscle synthesis (science talk for building new muscle). It's also a great review of what eating protein does for you.

The second article is a video article by John Berardi. If you're a beginner getting into strength and conditioning, knowing how frequently to eat - and why eating frequently can be beneficial - is a great piece of knowledge to have.

Eating Frequency covers the basics of the "eat often" approach to nutrition. There is another school of thought, called Intermittent Fasting, which is quite the opposite. But for now, just stick with this one...knowing when not to eat at all is a big blog post on its own.

I think it's worth watching that video right before, or right after, you read Grocery Store Techniques - a nice review of the basics of shopping for healthy foods. Shop the perimeter, not the aisles, is a very basic, and very useful tactic. Do it enough and when you do foray into the inner aisles, you'll be like me and get lost because you don't even know what's in the store besides fruit, vegetables, meat, and dairy.


Eating well isn't that hard, but it helps to know where to start. Those articles are a good place to get started.