vegan

In general, as long as you're eating enough calories and with enough variety (so, not a fruitarian or something), you're getting enough protein.

Fun fact: per calorie, spinach has more protein than dead cow flesh. I haven't compared spinach to real sources of protein (beans, tofu), because I usually use this fun fact when talking to carnists. But the point is: every food has protein. Focus on eating enough calories and the protein will follow automatically.

I see from one of your comments that you have a tendency to undereat, so I understand you need to track your food intake. That's fine, but if I were you, I'd concentrate on getting enough calories and eating a variety of foods. I wouldn't try to optimize protein ratios, because you simply don't need to.

If you were, say, an Olympic level athlete, or in some other way operating close to the limits of the human body, then you should probably be optimizing protein/fat/carbohydrate ratios. But if you just want to build some muscle, don't worry about it too much, just make sure you're eating enough, with a decent variety of foods, and you're good!

If you have the money they have vegan protein powders.

if you just eat enough it'll be pretty hard not to get enough protein tbqh.

speaking as someone who gets paid to lift for 25 hours a week, i just eat when hungry (a lot). My body generally craves proteiny food at most meals, but not all. I WILL suffer if i don't eat well at my job, so i am forced to eat well enough to make my job easy for me.

so truly, you'll know if you need more food or protein in general because you'll feel it as soon as you work out, or even before. sometimes i see people in fitness basically give themselves an eating disorder trying to keep track of this shit and it's like, unless you're a competitive athlete, just listen to your body, only you hold the answer to what you need.

I shoot for a minimum of .5g per pound of body weight. I substituted more protein rich foods for the things I was already eating and then figured out how much pea protein I needed to supplement with to hit that number with a little cushion.

I actually haven't bothered to calculate my actual protein numbers in a long time, but I'm definitely building muscle. When I do more work, I'm more hungry, so I think it ends up working out.

I don't think you need to go full spreadsheet mode on protein numbers unless you're trying to build/sustain muscle while cutting calories.

If you eat a calorie surplus of nuts, whole grains, and legumes, you will gain muscle easily as long as you lift heavy and sleep well.

There's no need to count protein intake or overcomplicate it. You just have to be consistent.

Not vegan myself but aspiring to be, been vegetarian for years though, and very into weightlifting. But the research around protein is generally consistent and metaanalyses support them: around 1 g per lb of body weight per day will maximize muscle growth for most people. However, for many people 0.7g/lb is sufficient; we all utilize it with different levels of efficiency. Others continue to find benefit at even higher levels than 1g/lb though. I personally stick to the 1 g/lb rule because with plant proteins I generally dont get my full amino acid recommendations from less than that. However you will still build muscle with less protein, it will just take longer. Protein deficiency doesn't generally kick in until your levels are really low, like <50g/day sustained type of levels.

Make sure the rest of your nutrition is dialed in as well though, calories in aggregate are as important as protein. If you're accidentally in a deficit when you're trying to bulk, you'll likely lose muscle no matter how hard you train or how much protein you eat proportionally, unless you have fat to burn to fuel that growth. And vice versa, an accidental surplus can harm your body recomposition if that's what you're going for.

I know some of the recommendations seem outlandish. I'm a naturally skinny person and once I started tracking my food I was shocked by how much I was undereating for my goals, and how much less protein I was getting than I thought. I was ~130 lbs when I started getting into fitness, now closing in on a lean 180. The recommendations are accurate, you need a lot of protein, and a lot of food to bulk up (hardest part for me is eating enough to even get to my surplus tbh)

Editing this to clarify: this is to maximize growth. You do not need to hit these levels in order to gain muscle, but to gain the most muscle for the work you do. I like to optimize my diet and exercise to get the very best outcomes, it is fun for me, but i know many don't find it enjoyable or healthy for them. You can keep those numbers in mind and set your sights wherever is most realistic for you. Less protein might mean a tradeoff in growth rates, but more protein might mean tradeoffs in your preferred diet and budget for meals etc. These questions are deeply personal and driven by your individual goals and situation.

Have done a lot of weightlifting and honestly the high protein stats are unrealistic and unsustainable. They define PEAK PERFORMANCE as prioritizing muscle gain above all else, and that is kind of bullshit. It's also bad for your kidneys to be slamming that much protein. The best health and general fitness advice I can give is to eat what feels, to you, like a healthy amount of vegetable, protein, fiber, and carbs, in that order from most important to least important. Pay attention to how your body feels with them and settle on that. Like, if I don't get enough protein, I feel bad. If I get too much protein, I feel bad. If I get too much carbs, I feel bad. If I get too little in the way of vegetables, I feel bad. In all these cases, cravings and food aversions kick in to adjust the diet based on what I probably need, and when I tried to adjust (e.g., slam in more protein because the calculations and macro tracking said I should) I just could not force myself to for more than a week.

When I lift more, I crave protein more. When I lift less, I crave protein less. I have found this approach to fitness far more sustainable than when I was tracking macros and trying to fine-tune it all. If nothing else, macro tracking can be useful for making people aware of bad habits, but that's really the best of it. You could track your macros, your lifting, and how you feel (energetic? exhausted? hungry all the time? overfull?) to help you figure out the best dietary approach for yourself.

I've always been a string bean (even during the periods when I've built up more strength), but commenting just to see what other people say lol