Vegetarians getting around 150 +\- 30 grams of protein a day how?

Shits hard man  
clocking in around 80 per day 

Weight 160

When I was eating vegetarian I would consume a pretty intense amount of eggs along with an astronomical amount of beans. 

Protein powder helped me along the way. 

@Lane I read that as "an astronomical amount of beers" and was like "just eggs and beer, I mean I could probably make that work..."

4-6 eggs, box of chickpea pasta, protein bar, + protein powder in my coffee normally gets me north of 100g

I haven't counted grams of brotein for a long while, but I do try to consciously increase my intake when I'm training.

I don't know how rigid your adherence is (I'm pescatarian plus collagen) but Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides has been great for me. 20g brotein per serving. I mix it in with my morning green smoothie along with five grams of creatine, chia seeds, peanut butter, B12-fortified soymilk. That shake clocks in at around 40g. Then I slug the collagen again at night with water - this blend is fairly tasteless and soluble. Costco has it for cheap.

With meals? Man, there are so many tasty plant options. Tofu deep fried to a crisp in olive oil. Banza chickpea pasta. Kodiak pancake/muffin mix. Breakfast burritos with eggs, black beans and sweet potato. Peanut-butter curry. Taco salad with hella beans. Morningstar Chickpea sausage patties. Even a moderately sexy bagel has 10g.

The trick to being a healthy veggie or vegan, in my experience, is to actually eat real vegetables to replace the animal products you eschew. None of this "I'm vegan so I just eat Oreos all the time" stierscheisse.

I've been everything from vegan to keto carnivore, but I always feel best landing back in vegetarian with some fish and lots of raw vegetables.

Jaggers has been at it far longer than me and undoubtedly has some good suggestions.

Whatever your motivation, I applaud you for pursuing a more plant-based life! :-)

In addition to the usual lots of eggs/beans/tofu:

1) I really like kodiak cakes pancakes (or krusteaz extra protein or similar) to prevent me from having to eat tons of eggs for breakfast every single day. Eggs every other day or so feels more tolerable.

2) I think tofurky sausages taste OK raw, so I often use them as "cheap savory protein bars" as snacks / before workouts / if I need a quick way to inject an extra 20g of protein into a meal. If I've really blown it on protein that day I will eat 2 or 3 in a sitting for 40-60g protein but I will not formally recommend that.

3) Silk makes 20g/serving "ultra protein" soy milk that's sold at some supermarkets, but it's kinda viscous and weird for digestion and you're probably better off just using protein shakes / regular milk / normal soy milk according to your taste.

4) Also bulk order normal protein bars (usually use the AAC probar discount) for snacks/pre-workouts.

Even so I'm not sure it's enough... definitely hard to make the numbers add up.

F r i t z wrote:

... 20g brotein ...

Hah, barely mid-Feb and there's a candidate for best portmantbro I'll see all year   

I really don’t think you need that much protein, are you training for the Arnold Classic or something?

As far as stuff that's pretty easily available: greek yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, peanut butter, almonds, beans, fortified pasta, and throw protein powder in everything you can - shakes, oatmeal, pancakes etc..

I’m vegan and get minimum 150g per day.

I weigh around 195.

60-80 comes from food, and I have a morning, 4pm and bedtime shake for the rest.

Noticed a huge improvement in my well being and recovery times once I added those shakes in.

I’m actually more confused on why you are struggling. Beans, eggs, tofu, yogurt, whey, hell even oatmeal. The list is endless. What does your current diet look like? 

Hey, so I say this all in the context that diet is very personal and different things work for different people, but here goes:

I ate a largely plant-based diet for approximately 6 years, eating meat only once a week, no cheese, eggs almost daily, supplemented with vegan protein shakes and a healthy whole food diet. I was a "proper" plant-based athlete, meeting all of my vitamin and mineral necessities and sticking to the rule of thumb about protein uptake for my weight.

In the last two years I've increased my meat uptake to daily, including things like steak, lean ground meats, and dark meat chicken. I even eat meats you may consider unhealthy, like bacon, etc. I've switched from vegan shakes to collagen, and still eat eggs daily, along with a healthy whole foods diet. I've noticed a dramatic increase in my recovery time, general well-being, and resilience to injury. Getting the necessary protein is way easier than smashing your metabolism with ultra-processed shakes and unnecessary carbs, all to chase low quality plant-protein with low bio-availability. If you want genuine health advice on how to perform as a climber, don't be a vegetarian. The results make me wish that I didn't spend the years of 22-28 eating so little meat, The fats in high quality animal products just make you feel different than the fats in almond butter, coconut oil, avocados, flax etc. for long days climbing.

The moral reasons for not consuming animal products are sound, but for a healthy, motivated athlete, eating high quality meats with tons of vegetables and leafy greens is the way to go.

I'm 30 years old, 5'9", 175 pounds, I started climbing when I was 19, I boulder V10 and climb 5.13 trad. I genuinely feel more fit and resilient than I ever have. I broke through a plateau of v8, 5.12 in the last two years. My progress was stymied by constant injury, I'm not feeling any end or plateau in my current progression.

Food for thought, man. You have to wonder how Honnold would be climbing if he just ate a pound of lean, grass-fed ground beef for lunch once in a while.

Don't forget to count protein in bread (esp whole grain) , pasta, couscous, broccoli, cheese, etc. 

Cole Darby wrote:

Noticed a huge improvement in my well being and recovery times once I added those shakes in.

Awesome!  For you and anyone else doing protein shakes, if you have not already done so, look into the importance of adding BCAA's.  I would think that BCAA's would also be a great supplement for vegetarians in general as the BCAA's are just the proteins needed to make any protein a "complete" protein, and so they have the ability to turn the protein in something like flour into something your body can use to build muscle.

Richard Randall wrote:

In addition to the usual lots of eggs/beans/tofu:

1) I really like kodiak cakes pancakes (or krusteaz extra protein or similar) to prevent me from having to eat tons of eggs for breakfast every single day. Eggs every other day or so feels more tolerable.

I make these with just the mix, 53g (I think that's the serving) of the chocolate and mix in 92g egg white, and some Lily's dark chocolate chips. Comes out to 290 k/cal and 25g of protein. Add in a latte with 240mL of ultrafiltered 2% milk gives me another 13g of protein. IANAVegetarian, so I have turkey or chicken sausages with this, but the tofurky has a pretty good nutritional profile if I remember correctly. 

Oh, not a vegetarian, but I am a chef who cooks for a lot of them, lots of the time, and my favorite vegetarian protein is seitan. If you don't have a gluten intolerance, it's the bee's knees. I made a bangin' seitan and black bean chorizo once that was *chef's kiss*

Consumption does not equate to absorption. Just because one consumes 40g of protein in a serving, does not mean one will digest and absorb those 40g. Muscle protein synthesis is typically maximized at 20-25g for a “serving”. This varies based on protein source because they each have a unique digestion rate. Whey has been shown to absorb relatively quickly at 8-10g per hour, while cooked egg protein is relatively slower at 3g per hour.
So one’s 20g whey protein shake will be absorbed in 2 hours, while one’s 4 egg scramble takes about 8 hours (assuming no adverse environmental constraints). 
Many vegetarian protein sources have been listed above, consume a variety over the course of the day to potentiate digestion and absorption!

I’m 163LBS and take in around 130 gm of protein a day. I use a app to track my intake. I eat a lot of all natural peanut butter, beans and supplement with protein powder.

Protein pancakes are your best frand. I can make a protein waffle in my glorious waffle maker that is in the 60-70 grams of protein range. I put a generous portion of peanut or almond butter on top with Nutella and bananas. If you can get two of those down a day your already in the 120s range and you don’t need any more protein than that IMO. Great before big days or hard training seshs too with all the carbs.

Think the general consensus is to use supplemental protein which is common anyway for meat eaters as well. Make sure you vary the type of beans, nuts, etc. every day. They’re  incomplete protiens but complimentary for the most part. If you really like certain things and want to eat mostly that (Peanut Butter and chick peas for example) then you should be supplementing BCAAs. Timing is also important when consuming that much. Getting 60 grams at once is much less helpful than getting 30 grams more often, especially pre/post workout and before sleeping. 

MorningStar Farms Meatless Sausage Patties, these things are good for quick protein.

If you're fine with lactose you can get 72g of protein if you drink 2 liters of milk a day. I did it for a while years ago when I needed to put on weight for the armed forces, worked like a charm. Its a high quality protein and makes up a solid chunk.