It’s essential for hormonal function, brain function – you name it. If you’re bodybuilding or lifting weights a lot, it’s even more important to ensure that you are eating a high amount of protein.
Of course, increasing your protein intake isn’t always easy.
It can sometimes be difficult to know what the best foods are to improve your protein intake, or how to have more protein without eating so much that you become bloated.
Thankfully, we’re here to help. Here’s everything that you need to know about how to eat 150 grams of protein a day.
How Much Protein Do You Need A Day
So how much protein do you actually need to be healthy?
This will always depend on the person in question, but based on a person of a healthy weight who doesn’t do any lifting or exercise, around 0.36-0.6 grams of protein per pound is what you will need.
This means that the average person typically needs between 46 – 75 grams of protein every single day.
Naturally, this amount will increase if you are active or your weight is higher or lower.
Typically, people who lift weights need to eat more protein since the protein helps with muscle recovery.
The muscles tear and repair through lifting weights, which is why protein is more important. 150 grams of protein is thus a decent amount for a person that is very active and lifts weights.
Benefits Of Protein
Of course, protein is beneficial for everyone, not just for people who are lifting weights. The benefits are in abundance.
For starters, eating more protein can often help to aid people in their weight loss goals.
Protein often tends to be a lot more filling, meaning you’re less likely to consume more calories than you actually need. It can even help with boosting your metabolism.
As previously mentioned, protein can also help you with muscle strength and gain since it provides the enzymes and nutrients that your body needs in order to recover from strenuous activity such as weight lifting.
It’s even beneficial for people who are pregnant and breastfeeding.
In short, it’s vital that you are getting the right amount of protein each day in order to be your very best self.
Ways To Increase Your Protein Intake
Make Protein A Priority
Here’s the one piece of advice that’s crucial in improving your protein intake – make protein your priority at every meal.
Choose your protein, then base the rest of the meal around it. For this, it can often help to use a tracking app to help you figure out how much protein you are getting with each meal.
Just check out your macronutrients on the app to get more information.
If you would prefer not to use manual tracking, you can instead just make sure that you are getting protein in at least a palm sized amount at each meal.
Start With Protein
It can be tempting to leave the protein on your plate until last – after all, it’s typical the star of the show. This is often not the best course of action, however.
Instead, you should eat your protein source first. This is because it tends to make you feel full and it can keep your blood sugar and insulin in check.
If you start with your protein you are also far less likely to waste it than you would be if you had already filled yourself up on fats and carbohydrates.
Know What Protein To Use
It’s a good idea to look into what protein sources are out there so you can choose what to use based on your preferences.
Typically it’s best to lean towards lean protein since it typically contains fewer calories. This includes things like chicken, fish and turkey.
Alternatively, you can also opt for red meat every once in a while like steak or beef. For the sake of variety, you may want to switch it up depending on what you feel like eating on the day.
If you’re following a vegan or vegetarian diet then don’t worry, protein isn’t only in meat.
You can also get protein from tofu, lentils, nuts, soy milk, nutritional yeast and more. You can get it from dairy too like cottage cheese.
There are so many options out there – you can even use more than one source of protein in a meal if you like.
Do Some Meal Prep
Meal prep can be incredibly helpful if you are trying to improve your protein intake since it saves you having to figure out how much protein is in your meals every day.
Instead, you can prepare a batch of meals in advance and all the protein is ready to go. Preparation is key, especially when it comes to diet goals.
Make sure that you have all of your protein sources ready to go on a day where you have some free time, and prepare a couple of meals.
You can then put them into the freezer or refrigerator until you are ready to consume them.
Drink Your Protein
If you’re struggling to eat enough protein, why not try drinking it instead? Protein smoothies can often be helpful and they are jam packed full of protein.
By using the right kinds of protein, you can get more than 30 grams of protein in just one drink. You can make a smoothie as a substitute for breakfast too, which is ideal if you’re on the go.
Conclusion
Getting more protein into your diet is a lot easier when you’re well informed.
Getting more protein into your diet is often just down to preparation and knowing about the hidden sources of protein that you may not have known about before.
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