Trying to hit around 130 g of protein a day at about 80 kg. I currently get maybe 90 g from food, and the entire gap is breakfast, which I skip because I leave the house at 6:40. Chicken and dairy are cheap where I live. I don't want to buy powder to solve a problem that's really 'eat some eggs', but I also keep missing the target four days out of seven and I've been doing that for months.
Do the cost-per-30-g maths on both before deciding. Where I live a tub works out cheaper per 30 g of protein than chicken breast and more expensive than eggs or milk. It flips by country, and it flips again when a tub is on offer. That single calculation settles most of the argument in this thread and almost nobody does it.
Ran it while reading this. Powder is roughly level with chicken here and about double the cost of milk protein. Less clear-cut than I hoped.
Level with chicken plus zero prep time is still a reasonable trade at 6:40 in the morning. The maths is an input, not the verdict.
The thing powder does that food doesn't: it doesn't fill you up. When I was pushing towards 150 g I physically could not eat that much chicken. A shake goes down when a meal wouldn't. That's the real mechanism people are describing when they say 'necessary', they just describe it badly.
Ran a year at a similar bodyweight hitting the target on food alone. It took planning, it was more boring, and I saved the money. The 'necessary' framing irritates me because it sells a habit as a requirement. That said — if your realistic alternative is missing four days a week, the powder beats the ideal you don't actually do.
Skimmed milk powder and Greek yoghurt got me most of the way for about a year. Not glamorous, no shaker bottle, no branding, works fine.
Check the label for protein per scoop rather than per 100 g. Scoop sizes are not standardised and the big number on the front of the tub often isn't the serving you'll actually take.
@negativesplitz · 2w ago · 3 replies
Necessary, no. Convenient enough to change the outcome, frequently yes — and 'the gap is breakfast at 6:40' is exactly the case where it does. Powder isn't magic protein, it's protein you can get down in ninety seconds with one hand while finding your keys. If you can genuinely solve 6:40 with boiled eggs prepped on Sunday, do that instead; it's cheaper and it's food.
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@thesis_wrangler · 2w ago
I've tried the Sunday eggs thing twice and eaten all of them by Tuesday evening both times.
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@negativesplitz · last wk.
Then you have your answer and it isn't a nutritional one, it's a logistics one.
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