How much is too much protein?

First of all, a little history:

I am almost 5'3" and currently weigh 146 pounds. I had a baby 3 months ago and am currently breastfeeding. I am currently trying to lose the baby weight and then some. I was 130 pounds before I was pregnant and was at 170 on my delivery date. My ideal weight is 118. I am not very active...I try to get in 30 minutes of physical activity each day through workout videos or playing outside/walking with my 4-year-old.

Now, on an average day, I eat about 100 grams of protein. I am not trying to eat a high protein diet but I am trying to eat a low-fat, reduced carb diet which is why I eat so much protein. The protein accounts for about 40% of my calories, fat accounts for 20% and carbs are 40%. I get the protein from lean meat (I rarely eat beef), reduced-fat cheese, egg substitutes, soy milk and whole grains.

Am I eating too much protein? I cannot reduce my calories due to the breastfeeding and I hate to eat more fats, even if they're good fats. I'm having a hard time finding info about this on the internet so does anybody have any ideas?

Gah! That is a lot of protein and too little fat/carbs, yes. A good ratio is 50-60% carbs, 10-15% protein, and 25-30% fats.

if you were still 170 lbs then you would need to consume at least 85 grams of protien a day to be healthy. what i was taught is that you devide your weight by two and that is the amount of grams of protein you should eat.

if you were 130 lbs then you should consume 65 grams of protien at least.

100 grams of protein a day while you are breast feeding sounds good but im no expert. i do know this, you need a higher percentage of healthy fat in your diet, fat is not bad. it just gets a bad rep because it has more calories per volume than carbs and protien, plus the fact that there is a load of different kinds of bad fats out in the processed food world.

i would say that because you are breastfeeding and milk is mostly fat and protien, that you need even more fat in your diet.

You don't want to go any higher than that, but 100g of protein is just fine. If you want a balanced diet, try to have somewhere around 25/25/50... if you eat a little more carbs and a little less meat, it should balance it out - 40% carbs is a bit low for most people.

I just finished my Maternal-Newborn rotation last semester so I am going to give you what I tell my patients about dieting during lactation. This is a common question in women. First off, you want to make sure you are eating 300-500 cal more than you were eating when you were pregnant since you are lactating. Don't worry about adding on weight by adding these calories because most of it goes into your breast milk and provides nutrition for your infant. Carbohydrates should be 50% of your total calories (take your calories and multiply it by .5, once you get this number divide that by 4 since 1 gram of carb is 4 cals). Breast milk has carbs in it that is essential for newborn development. If you eat enough carbs, protein will be spared in metabolism which is good because it is needed for infant tissue development. Pregnancy and the postpartum period is the worst time to go on a diet if you are breast feeding because breast milk is essential for brain development. You body modifies these fats in a way that makes it essential for the brain, hence why breast fed babies have a higher IQ than formula fed infants during the first 6 months of life. Also, your breast milk is custom tailored to your infant. Your protein intake should be 1.1 times your weight in kg, thats roughly 66.22 kg so you should be getting at least 72.9 Gg of pro. A normal individuals protein intake is 0.8 x their weight in kg.

This is straight from my textbook: Protein 20% (at least 1.1 x wt in kilograms), fat limited to 30%, carbohydrates 50%. Also 8 to 10 glasses (8 oz) of fluids/day. Limit caffeine to less than 300mg/day. eat good sources of folic acid, iron, and vit C and avoid fish with high levels of mercury.

A lot of women differ in how they lose weight and their nutritional needs but this is just the standard information that we use when formulating a care plan for our labor and delivery and postpartum mothers. 

I don't really log my calories or stats, but I get around 25% of my calories from protein, along with 25% fats and 50% carbs.

I'm a builder and gainer though, so I have to eat about 3,000 calories every day. This means I get almost 200 grams of protein daily and about 70-80 grams of fat. I haven't found any problems yet (knock on wood) but I don't think anyone who isin't doing heavy lifting, gaining, or bodybuilding would need that much protein.

Dieting; I'd say that anywhere from 100-150 should be fine for you. I know people who've eaten more and been fine, but there's really no set number.

Wow, nigerianboriqua, thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed. I have been eating my maintenance calories, not over what I ate while pregnant. After my first child, the nurses told me to increase my calories but this time around they did not. That probably explains my inability to increase my milk supply even while taking Fenugreek and why I'm not losing weight. I'm going to share your post with the ladies in the "Pregnancy and Parenting" forum.

Everyone else, thanks for the info. It looks like the consensus is that I'm eating a lot of protein but not TOO much. I obviously need to work on upping the carbs and good fats. :)

The article below gives you some idea about how much protein you need.

How much protein do you need?

I don't know how much is too much though.

you are welcome... these are the type of questions they prepare us for in school.