If you’re reading this post, you probably already know protein is essential for overall health and wellness. It’s crucial for muscle growth and repair, producing hormones, maintaining a strong immune system, and much more. However, sometimes it can be difficult to meet your daily protein goals! Protein is probably the least accessible macronutrient, compared to the abundance of high-fat and carb foods that don’t require too much planning or cooking. So today we’re revealing 5 protein hacks that will help you reach those daily protein goals.
Keep Quick Proteins on Hand
Let’s face it, you won’t always have time to plan and cook your protein from scratch for every meal and snack. Keeping ready-to-eat options on hand is an excellent protein hack. With the following examples, you can whip up a balanced meal or snack in no time:- Chomps: the perfect protein and flavor-packed meat stick
- Rotisserie Chicken: Add this pre-cooked chicken to salads, bowls, or wraps
- Canned Tuna: Make a quick, protein-packed tuna salad with chopped onions, celery, pickles, and Greek yogurt
- Greek Yogurt: Parfaits, high-protein desserts, a sour cream or mayo alternative – the possibilities are endless with this protein-packed ingredient
Increase Your Portions
If you’re struggling to hit your daily protein goal, an easy solution is to increase your portion sizes. For example, one extra once of chicken breast adds 7g protein. Another ½ cup of Greek yogurt adds 10g protein. And adding one more egg to breakfast will give you another 6g of protein. These small tweaks will significantly boost your protein intake throughout the day without much effort.
Eat More Complete Proteins
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. Out of the 20 amino acids, nine are essential, meaning our bodies can’t make them on our own – we need to get them from food. Luckily, complete proteins contain all nine of these essential amino acids. Some excellent sources of complete proteins include animal products like Chomps, chicken, beef, pork, and eggs. Regularly incorporating these foods into your diet ensures you’re getting all the essential amino acids needed, which play a role in a variety of bodily functions ranging from fat metabolism to neurotransmitter production.
Plan Your Proteins
Planning your meals ahead of time is an effective way to ensure you’re consuming enough protein throughout the day. Start by creating a weekly meal plan that includes a source of protein at every meal.Here’s a simple example:
- Breakfast: Blueberry Vanilla Smoothie with a scoop of protein powder
- Lunch: Grilled chicken salad with mixed greens, onions, carrots and lemon vinaigrette
- Dinner: Pan-seared salmon with quinoa and roasted garlic broccoli
- Snacks: Chomps Turkey stick with a Honeycrisp apple
By planning your meals, you can ensure you’re not only hitting your protein goals but also enjoying a varied and balanced diet.
Eat Protein Snacks
While fruit, nuts, chips, and dips are popular snack choices, snacking can be another opportunity to eat more protein throughout the day. Also, including protein in snacks helps you stay fuller for longer. Some protein snack ideas include Chomps, turkey pinwheels, hard-boiled eggs, or string cheese. By choosing protein-rich snacks, you can prevent mid-day hunger pangs and keep your protein intake steady throughout the day.
Hopefully these helpful protein hacks have shown you that hitting your daily protein goals doesn’t have to be hard! By keeping ready-to-eat proteins on hand, increasing portion sizes, incorporating complete proteins, planning your meals, and snacking on protein-rich foods, you can easily meet your daily protein needs. These simple hacks will help you maintain a balanced diet, support muscle growth, and enhance overall health.
