7 Simple Habits to Boost Your Protein Intake

Protein is essential for our health, but you may not be getting enough of it.

Not every day will be perfect, but nutritional guidelines say the average adult should be eating at least 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight (PDF). If you weigh 150 pounds (68 kilograms), for example, you should aim for about 55 to 68 grams of protein per day. One of the easiest ways to make sure you hit the mark is to divide your required amount of protein by the number of meals you eat daily. That way, you know how much protein should be included in each meal.

Active people, those who lift weights, or those who compete in sports or have labor jobs may benefit from consuming more protein than the recommended minimum. Older adults, especially those at risk of sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) can also benefit from eating more protein. To calculate how much protein you need, try this dietary reference intake calculator from the United States Department of Agriculture. CNET’s visual guide also shows you what it is 100 grams of protein appearance

Here are seven simple strategies to increase the grams of protein you eat daily. For more information on improving your diet, find out what foods you can eat to boost happiness, how to eat your way to a healthier heart and how to master the Mediterranean diet.

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1. Make protein a fire

The adage “consistency is key” has become universal advice because it is true and applicable to almost anything. custom you want to start and keep – or any habit you want to quit.

Ritualizing things can help – or linking one action to another consistency, which eventually lead to habits. For example, if you want to get more steps in each day, you could say, “I will walk for 10 minutes after breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.” A boost – that’s an extra 30 minutes of walking each day.

Try ritualizing protein in that sense. Maybe you drink milk for breakfast every morning, or maybe you drink a protein shake instead and then make protein part of your breakfast ritual. With 20 to 40 grams of protein, a daily protein shake can quickly increase your total protein intake.

You can also ritualize protein by drinking a post-workout shake. This may seem like common sense, but trust me, it’s easy to forget your post-workout drink if you say, “Eh, I’ll drink it after dinner or after I shower.” Go ahead and do it as soon as your workout is over; drink it during your post-workout stretch or cool down and it will be a ritual.

2. Eat your protein first

When you eat meals with protein sources, try to eat most of the protein before moving on to the other food sources on your plate, especially grains, which can fill you up quickly. Eating your protein source first ensures you eat it all before you get too full.

An added bonus: Protein can make you feel fuller, so if you’re trying to lose weight, eating adequate protein can help you reach your health goals.

Read more: Meal Replacement Shakes: Can They Help You Lose Weight or Not?

3. Top foods with chopped nuts

Nuts aren’t necessarily the best source of protein by volume, but adding them to your meals throughout the day can give you a nice protein boost.

Try adding chopped walnuts (4.3 grams of protein per serving) to salads, chopped peanuts (6.7 grams per serving or almonds (six grams per serving) to oatmeal and chopped cashews (5.2 grams per serving) before serving) with occasional frying.

In addition to their protein content, nuts contain a lot of healthy fats, fiber, vitamins and minerals, so you will be doing your health a service in all aspects by adding nuts to meals.

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4. Choose leaner meat

Leaner meat has less fat per portion, which means more lean meat, therefore more protein, per portion. This is a very easy way to add more protein to your daily intake if you eat animal proteins every day.

Lean meat has fewer calories than fattier meat and protein promotes satiety, so this is a good tactic for anyone trying to lose weight. According to the Mayo Clinic, the leanest cuts of beef are:

• Top sirloin steak
• Top-round roast and steak
• Roast round bottom and steak
• Round roast eye and steak
• Sirloin tip steak

If you’re going for poultry, a good rule of thumb is to choose white meat over dark meat. For pork, the Mayo Clinic says the leanest cuts of pork are shoulder, loin chop and leg.

5. Choose brown rice or quinoa over white rice

Here’s one easy swap you can use often to get more protein in your diet. Both quinoa and brown rice have more protein per serving than white rice and can replace white rice in most meals.

The texture is similar, although quinoa has a nuttier flavor than rice. Each serving of cooked quinoa packs 8 grams of protein per cup, while brown rice has 5.3 grams per cup — white rice has just 4.4 grams of protein per cup.

Quinoa beats both white and brown rice in terms of protein, but brown rice still provides more protein than white rice and is a good choice if you don’t enjoy quinoa.

6. Add beans to anything

Beans are an often overlooked source of protein. They are easy to add to salads, pastas, tacos and many other dishes and, depending on the type of bean, can add up to 10 grams of protein per half cup.

This isn’t much compared to animal sources of protein such as poultry and eggs, but adding beans to meals can fill some gaps in your daily protein intake. In addition, beans are a great source of fiber and other nutrients.

7. Swap white bread for whole grain

Bread is an unlikely place to increase your protein intake, but some breads pack a protein punch: Just as brown rice has more protein than white rice, whole grain bread has more protein than which is white bread.

This is because whole grain foods retain all parts of the grain — the germ, bran and endosperm — as the refining process shreds grains down to just the endosperm, which contains few nutrients.

For example, Dave’s Killer Bread 21 Seeds and Whole Grains contains five grams of protein per slice. If you eat two slices for breakfast, that’s an automatic 10 grams of protein that you wouldn’t get with refined white bread.

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