Do I count grams of dietary protein for the day?

I understand why I need to count the carbohydrate grams in my diet, but shouldn't I count protein as well?–Alisa in Freeport, ME

This is a good question, since there are only two other food stuffs to choose from, proteins and fats provide the remainder of our calories. Our body produces the hormone insulin primarily in response to carbohydrate intake, but we also release some insulin, to a lesser degree, in response to dietary protein.  Overall, the addition of dietary protein in a carbohydrate restrictive diet is shown to improve the maintenance of lean body mass during weight loss, the control of blood sugars and self-regulated appetite control.  As long as you realize you are getting "enough" protein, there is no reason to tightly regulate protein intake.

How Much Protein is enough?  No diet should exceed 200 grams of protein per day; Protein at less than 30 grams per day and the World Health Organization will considers protein malnourishment; The USRDA for minimum protein is about 50 grams.  In the FatBack Diet, those who are not exercising significantly will settle at about 75-100 grams of protein.  Those with frequent and high level exercise will typically be between 100-200 grams of protein.  No organization has come up with a hard and fast rule about optimal amount of dietary protein for an individual.  Research has shown that high protein diets are likely safe for the vast majority of people.  And even for athletes, timing of a meal, the mix of specific amino acids, and the athlete's unique metabolic response play as much of a role as the total amount of protein ingested daily.

FatBack Rule:  Ingest about 0.5-1.0 gram per pound of lean body mass.  Lean Body mass being your body weight minus your percentage body fat.

What happens when I ingest protein?

Insulin increases following the ingestion of carbohydrate foods, but it also goes up following protein.  For reference, we can use the type 1 insulin requirements as discussed in the invaluable reference book by Dr. Richard Bernstein, "Diabetes Solution".  A type 1 diabetic will inject a unit of insulin for every 8 grams of ingested carbohydrate but will only use about 1 unit of insulin per 20 grams of pure dietary protein.  Many other studies that reference the less researched insulin index compared to the glycemic index find that there is variability in protein and the effect of insulin from one person to another.  In practice, for those without type 1 diabetes, the increase in dietary protein while restricting carbohydrates has a net improvement on glycemic control between meals.  [See Donald Layman, et al. J Nutrition 2003]

Case example:

Let's say you are reducing your carbohydrate amount to 20/40/40. That's 20 grams at breakfast and 40 at lunch and dinner, the total will be around 100 grams of carb for the day. This adds up to 400 daily calories from carbohydrate.  If 2000 calories is the maintenance goal for you, the other 1600 calories comes from fat and protein.  Say your total body weight is 150 pounds, and your body fat % is calculated to 30%, your lean body mass is calculated at 105 pounds.  Your protein could be up to about 100 grams per day.  This too is equal to 400 calories.  The remaining 1200 calories come from dietary fats.  Dietary fats have minimal to no significant effect on insulin, so visceral fat and circulating triglycerides tend to impove in response to the FatBack Diet