At Mindful Weight Loss, we consistently advise our patients to focus on protein, fruits, and vegetables in their diets. While this guidance might seem straightforward, many of our patients often seek more detailed recommendations on how to implement this in their daily meal plans.
Making recommendations for proteins could be counterintuitive, given the reality that people like different things all the time we cannot give a plan that everyone will love or stick to, it's impossible. But we can certainly give you some ideas on how to make sure you incorporate more protein into your daily meals.
How much protein do you need? Sedentary adults need .8g of protein daily for each kilogram of body weight. You can read more about it in our previous post (Proteins 101).
Let’s say that my weight is 160lbs, using Google conversion tool, my weight is 72.6 kg
72.7 (my weight) x 0.8 (the minimum protein intake for a sedentary person) = 58.16
I would need 58.16 grams of protein every day to meet the minimum recommended for a sedentary person.
As your activity increases you can increase the amount of protein per body weight. Some bodybuilders aim for 2 grams per kg of body weight.
A good rule of thumb is that if you are somewhere in between sedentary and a bodybuilder, you should be ok with around 1.2 grams of protein per kg of body weight. At that range if my weight is 160 lbs (72.6Kg), my protein intake should be 87.12 grams per day.
If your goal is to reach a total of 80 grams of protein per day here are some ideas on how to get there:
Eggs for breakfast. A favorite breakfast protein. We believe in the benefit of eating both egg whites and yolks, but when you are trying to cut on some calories it may be a good idea to eat more whites and less yolks, for example, you can use a full egg and half a cup of egg whites. An egg white will have 17 calories and almost 3.6 g of protein, while a full egg will have 72 calories and 6.3 g of protein.
Half a cup of egg whites, scrambled with one mozzarella stick, big bunch of baby spinach.
This breakfast has 42 g of protein
Greek Yogurt for snack. 15 g of protein / 90 calories (Oikos Triple Zero)
* You can swap breakfast and lunch, having yogurt for breakfast and eggs for lunch, depending at what time you typically get hungry.
Fish for dinner. Salmon steak will have 28g of protein. You can serve with salad or roasted veggies.
With this plan, I should already have 80 grams of protein, with less than 800 calories in one day
Depending on your daily intake you still have another 800 calories, you can add fruits, and other healthy foods to fill your day.
More examples of protein:
Chicken breast
Turkey breast
Lean beef
Fish
Tofu
Cottage cheese
Nuts Seeds
Legumes such as lentils and chickpeas.
Edamame
Quinoa
Seitan
Tempeh
Peanut butter
Almond butter
Protein bars
Protein shakes
Protein powders
Here’s the fun part, for a plan -any plan!- to work, you have to create a list of foods that YOU like and enjoy. We highly suggest making an appointment with a health coach so you can get the help you need and get started on creating a plan that works for you.
Start off from this list and edit as you go, create ideas, make it your own project to find a way to eat the protein you need every day.
Have more questions or want more help? Call now to book your Health Coach apt today!
Our patients have unlimited health coach appointments and we love helping with nutrition feedback that is based on your goals and your life.
Carla Baccio is a National-Board certified Health and Wellness coach and has a master’s degree in Exercise Science, Nutrition, and Wellness from Liberty University.