How Protein Can Change Your Body, How Much To Eat & How To Do It
Don’t Underestimate The Power of Protein!
Everything you need to know about this essential nutrient, including how to eat more of it.
You’ve probably noticed a trend on social media. Every fitness influencer in your feed seems to be telling you to eat more protein.
They’re not wrong. Protein is super-important. Eating enough protein has the power to improve your body composition, your strength, your recovery, and potentially how long you live.
Protein in food has amino acids in it. And those amino acids get used by your body to build new muscle, and repair the muscle you’ve already got after a tough workout.
So if you don’t eat enough protein, you simply won’t be giving your body the building blocks it needs to make those awesome things happen.
The problem is, you probably don’t crave protein. It’s also not always convenient or easy to grab at a moment’s notice.
And even when you do try to make high-protein choices, clever marketing often leads you to high-calorie foods that really don’t have much protein in them.
In this blog, I will:
Convince you that you need to make protein a priority
Show you how to identify good sources of protein
Tell you how much protein you should eat every day
Show you how to track how much protein you eat
Show you options for protein that aren’t meat
Help you plan your protein-centered daily diet
Teach you about optimal protein timing
Bust the common myths about protein and your kidneys
Is Protein Actually Important To Eat?
Have you seen the show ALONE? For a chance to win a cool million bucks, 12 contestants are dropped off alone in a remote location with only a few hand-selected items. The last person to quit wins the money.
Most people give up solely because of the mental health impact of isolation, but some quit or get removed for medical reasons. Typically malnourishment.
The most precious resource for the contestants besides water and shelter? Protein.
If a contestant is able to hunt a large animal, there’s a good chance they’re going to win.
The folks who tried to survive eating bugs and plants quickly start wasting away (literally) as their bodies cannibalize their existing muscle (which contains protein) for energy.
See, protein is an essential nutrient. That means that if you don’t get it from food, you can’t make it yourself.
So it really doesn’t matter if you like eating protein or not. If you don’t eat it, you’re not going to be doing very well.
Why Is Protein Important to Eat?
You’re probably not trying out for the show ALONE, but you should still care about eating enough protein.
Protein in food is made up of chains of amino acids. Since our body doesn’t make all of these amino acids itself, it takes the ones in the protein you eat and uses them to build new tissue like muscle in your body.
The process (Muscle Protein Synthesis) is the cornerstone of changing your physique, building strength, and preserving your metabolism.
I like to tell my clients that the work you do in the gym is the signal that tells your body to change, and what you eat determines if it’s going to happen or not.
So if you don’t eat protein, your body isn’t going to change much no matter how hard you’re hitting your workouts. Sad right?
If anything, working out without supporting muscle building and repair with enough protein could lead to being really sore, make you more likely to get injured, and hit plateaus more easily. Double sad.
What Sources of Protein Are Good?
Ok, so you’re committed to eating enough protein. Now what?
Well, we need to establish two things.
First, we need to know what foods are high in protein. Notice that I said high in protein. Almost anything you eat has some protein in it. Even a cup of broccoli has a couple of grams, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good source of protein to focus on.
Here are the foods that are naturally highest in protein:
Lean Meats (Chicken breast, Turkey breast, Pork Tenderloin, Bison, Venison, Lean Beef & Lean Beef Jerky)
Lean Dairy (Skim or 2% Cottage Cheese, Greek/Icelandic Yogurt, Whey Isolate, Ultrafiltered Milk)
Eggs (especially egg whites)
Lean Seafood (Shrimp, Tuna, Tilapia, Cod, Haddock)
Does that mean that this is all you should eat? Absolutely not. But including foods on the list above in your daily menu will make it much more likely that you start eating more protein than you already are.
The next thing we need to talk about is learning the skill of reading nutrition labels to figure out if a food is high in protein or not.
How To Know If a Food Is High In Protein
Food companies and the pencil-pushing marketers who work for them know that people are keen on protein right now.
So in an effort to sell more products, they’ll slap the word protein across the label in bold font no matter how much protein is in the food.
Sometimes they’ll also proclaim the number of grams of protein on the label as if just stating the amount means it has “a lot” of protein.
Luckily for us, the FDA requires every food to have the nutritional information printed clearly on the back of the package. Understanding how to read that label puts the power in our hands to figure out if a food is high in protein or not.
We have a podcast on YouTube explaining exactly how to read nutrition labels. Click the picture below to check it out.
If you don’t have time to watch, here’s what you need to know.
1 - All food has calories. The calories in a serving of that food are listed at the top of the nutrition label.
2 - All calories can be broken down into 3 categories: Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fat
3 - Protein and Carbs have 4 calories per gram, and Fat has 9 calories per gram.
Knowing this, you can multiply the number of grams of protein in a serving by 4 (the number of calories in a gram of protein) and see how many of the calories in the food are from protein.
If you think back to the list of foods that are “good” sources of protein, the reason they’re good sources is that out of all of the calories in the food, almost all of them come from protein.
So the more calories in a food that come from protein (based on your math skills), the better source of protein that food is.
Once you know this and start crunching the numbers, you might be surprised to see how many foods that you thought were good sources of protein are in fact not.
Let’s take one of America’s favorites for example.
Peanut Butter!
A serving of peanut butter is 2 Tablespoons, and it has 190 calories in that serving.
Each serving has 7 grams of protein. 7g x 4 calories = 28 calories from protein.
That means only 28 of the 190 calories in peanut butter are from protein!
That’s only 15%!!!
That means that 85% of the calories are coming from fat and carbs, not protein.
Let’s compare peanut butter to my favorite beef jerky.
The label on the front proudly proclaims 14g of protein per serving, but is that good?
The nutrition facts on the back reveal that a serving of jerky has 70 calories and 14 grams of protein.
14 grams x 4 calories = 56
56 out of the 70 calories in this jerky are from protein! Holy smokes, that’s 80%!
Peanut butter = 15% protein
Lean Jerky = 80% protein
See how having the knowledge to evaluate this stuff on your own takes the power away from the marketers and puts it back in your hands?
Here’s a guide we give our clients that helps them quickly check if a snack is a good source of protein:
The Digital Barbell High Protein Snack Guide
Save this on your phone!
Watch out for processed foods that are “protein versions” of foods that don’t normally have much protein.
I’m looking at you, protein pancakes, protein cookies, and “energy balls”.
These guys are notoriously high in calories and contain a paltry amount of actual protein. But now that you know how to read labels for yourself, you’ll be able to spot these imposters right away.
How Much Protein Should You Eat Every Day?
I’m going to assume I’ve done a good job convincing you that you should eat enough protein per day, and now you know what kind of foods to focus on.
Now you’re probably wondering how much protein you should eat in a day. Great question.
The most honest answer I can give you is: It depends.
I’m sure that’s a letdown, so let me get more specific.
Everyone’s protein needs vary based mainly on these factors:
Your age
Your weight
Your sex
Your estimated body fat percentage
Your muscle mass
Your training volume
Your daily activity levels
Your goal (Fat loss vs. muscle gain)
To try and simplify things for the average person, you can use a multiplier of your current body weight to set your goal in grams of protein.
Disclaimer - Using multipliers is great for getting you in the ballpark. However, when we work 1 on 1 with a Nutrition Coaching client, we don’t use them. We take all of the factors I listed above into account when setting their daily protein goal.
Ok, with that out of the way let me give you the formulas.
Men who lift weights 3-5 times per week and weigh less than 200 lbs.
Take your current body weight and multiply it times 1.1.
This is your daily protein goal in grams.
So if you weigh 185lbs, you’re shooting for about 204g of protein per day.
Don’t get too wrapped around the axle about the exact grams. Nothing different will happen, and your results won’t be impacted if you only get 197g, or you go over at 207g some days.
Men who lift weights 3-5 times per week and weigh more than 200 lbs.
Set your protein goal as a range between 225g and 250g per day.
In your case, using a multiplier would set your protein goal much higher than is necessary, and all of that extra protein would cut too far into your calories for carbs and fat.
Men who do not lift weights and weigh less than 200 lbs.
Take your current body weight, and multiply it by 1. Tough math, I know!
This is your daily protein goal for fat loss.
Men who do not lift weights and weigh more than 200lbs
You get off easy again with no math needed. Lucky you.
Your protein goal is a range between 200g and 225g per day
Ok, moving on to the ladies…
Women who lift weights 3-5 per week and weigh less than 150lbs
Take your current body weight and multiply it times 1.1.
This is your daily protein goal in grams.
So if you weigh 135lbs, you’re shooting for about 150g of protein per day.
Women who lift weights 3-5 per week and weigh more than 150lbs
You get a protein range to work with. Aim to get somewhere between 150g and 175g of protein every day.
Women who do not lift weights and weigh less than 150lbs
Take your current body weight and multiply by .9.
This is your daily protein goal in grams.
Women who do not lift weights and weigh more than 150lbs
You get a protein range to work with also. Aim to get somewhere between 150g and 175g of protein every day. Look at all of that flexibility!
Ok, your protein is set. If your first instinct was “Holy crap that is a lot of protein!” or “I can’t eat that much protein!”... Take a deep breath.
Just like everything else in life, you will get better at it with planning and practice.
Speaking of planning…Our Free Grocery & Meal Prep Guide will help you build your high-protein shopping list, and show you how to make meals you’ll love. Grab it ——>HERE<——
How To Track How Much Protein You Eat
What kind of person are you? The kind that enjoys tracking your financial budget down to the penny every month, or the kind that gets anxious just by reading the word budget?
How carefully you track something (like protein) can vary based on how specific your fitness goals are, and what your attitude toward tracking food is.
Just like budgeting your dollars, the more carefully you track your protein, the more accurate your results will be. Luckily for you, you don’t have to be insanely accurate to get insanely good results when trying to eat more protein.
As a matter of fact… When we start working with a new nutrition coaching client, we never start by counting calories or even exact grams of protein. We follow our 5-Step Nutrition Freedom Framework, which begins with awareness, and then habit change.
If you love tracking, and you are drooling at the idea of knowing exactly how much protein you’re eating, you can download an app like MyFitnessPal, and track your food.
Instead of doing that, we’d recommend starting with a simpler approach. Here’s what to do:
Use the note-taking feature in your phone, and start a new note.
Call it “get jacked”, or “get shredded” so every time you open it you’ll remember why you care about eating enough protein.
I suppose you could use a piece of scrap paper or a post-it note if that’s your style. 😉
As you go through the day, use the note to keep a running tally of how much protein is in the main source of protein in each meal.
How are you going to know that you ask?
Well, if your meal has a processed food like a can of tuna, just look at the nutrition label on the back. Be sure you look at the serving size on the label. Some pre-packaged foods have 2 or 3 servings per package.
If you’re having a less-processed food like a chicken breast, use an app like MyFitnessPal or simply Google: “How much protein is in a chicken breast?”
Since it’s the internet, you’ll find a few different answers, but you’ll quickly see that they’re all within about 5g of each other.
In your “get jacked” note on your phone you’ll type in “Lunch - Chicken Breast - 35g”.
Or if we’re talking about the omelet you had for breakfast: “Breakfast - 3 eggs - 18g”.
Most restaurants even have the nutrition information on their websites if you let your fingers do a little searching.
This simple running tally will do two things.
First, it’ll start to automatically teach you what sources of protein are good as far as protein goes. You’ll find out that 1 egg only has 6g of protein, whereas a glass of ultra-filtered skim milk has 13g. We call it awareness!
Secondly, it will help you eat more protein because the number of grams you’ve had that day is right there in front of your face!
The combination of those two things leads to the most important factor when it comes to your health and fitness. Permanant habit change.
Anyone can “go on a diet”. But the truth is that once the diet ends, most people lose their results.
People who change their habits get results that last a lifetime.
You might be wondering… What about all of the small amounts of protein in other foods like fruits, veggies, and grains?
Good question! As I mentioned before, even broccoli has some protein in it!
For the purpose of keeping things simple and sustainable, we’re going to ignore that extra protein. What we’re going to do instead is to make sure the daily protein in our note hits 85% of our goal for the day, and assume we’ll pick up the other 15% from the “extras” that aren’t the main source of protein in the meal.
If you’re feeling stumped about what foods are even good for protein in the first place, we have you covered.
Our Digital Barbell Meal Prep & Grocery Guide is all you need to build your high-protein, healthy grocery list.
You can download your copy right now.
If you’re more experienced with counting calories, or you just love the idea of tracking your food in an app, go for it! MyFitnessPal is the most commonly used app, and of course we have an article you can read to take the mystery out of how to do it. Check it out HERE.
How To Eat More Protein If You Don’t Eat Meat - Vegetarian and Vegan
It’s easier for meat-eaters to eat protein. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t improve your body composition and get the benefits of a high-protein diet if you’re a vegan or vegetarian.
Many of our most successful clients don’t eat meat.
The key is to recognize foods that aren’t meat that still have a good amount of protein. Then you can make those foods major staples in your daily routine.
Many vegans and vegetarians who are trying to eat more protein also rely on protein supplements like pea, rice, or soy-based protein shakes. That’s totally fine!
If you’re a vegetarian who still eats eggs and dairy, you’re in luck. Look at the numbers on these foods!
Milk - 1 cup - 10g Protein -
Cottage Cheese - 1/2 Cup - 14g Protein
Greek Yogurt - 1 Cup - 23g Protein
Egg - 6g Protein
If dairy and eggs are a no-go for you, check these options out:
Tempeh (fermented soy) - 3oz - 20g Protein
Lentils - 1/2 cup cooked - 9g Protein
Black Beans - 1 cup cooked - 15g Protein
Chickpeas - 1 cup cooked - 12g Protein
I wrote a comprehensive blog article about how you can still build muscle and get in great shape as a vegan or vegetarian.
Everything you need to know about protein as a vegan or vegetarian
Click to read
How To Plan Your Diet To Eat More Protein
Think of something in life that you’re successful at. Guess what? There was effort and planning involved in that success.
A lot of people are looking for hacks that take away all of the work in eating healthy. Guess what?
There is none. You still have to do some work, including planning to be successful.
So when it comes to eating more protein, the same is true.
Lack of planning is at the root of most failed nutrition changes. In other words, you’re not going to go into the day with no plan and stumble upon a bunch of high-protein options.
If you downloaded our Grocery and Meal Prep Guide above, you already have a head start on planning.
Think about your day of eating in 5 different blocks.
Three meals, and two snacks.
Plan your three meals so that they make you hit 75% of your protein goal. For most people, they’ll have to bump up their typical protein portions to make that happen. Again, an egg only has 6 grams of protein 😜.
The other 25% of your daily needs will come from 2 high-protein snacks.
Here are some ideas:
Cottage Cheese (Skim or 2%) - 13-15g protein per serving
Greek Yogurt - 2% - 20g protein per serving
Icelandic Yogurt - 2%
Whey Protein Shake - 20-25g protein per serving
Fairlife Milk (Skim or 2%) - 13g protein per serving
Fairlife Core Power Pre-made Shakes - 26-42g per serving
Premier Protein Pre-made Shakes - 30g per serving
Quest protein chips-18g per bag
Sugar-Free Jerky - 13g-20g of protein per serving
Ostrim Bars - 12g of protein per serving
Epic Bars - 12g-15g of protein per serving
Chomps Bars - 9g of protein per serving
Cooked Chicken Breasts - 22g of protein per 2.5oz serving
Star-Kist Tuna Creations Packs - 15g-18g of protein per pack
Turkey Pepperoni - 10g of protein per serving
Give yourself a couple of weeks to find the combinations of meals and snacks that meet your needs, and that you love. If you like what you eat, you’ll be able to sustain it, which means lasting results. 💪🏼
Does It Matter What Time You Eat Your Protein?
Confession: There was a time when I believed if you didn’t drink a protein shake immediately after your workout, your workout was a waste.
Luckily, I’ve woken up, educated myself, and learned the truth.
The time that you eat protein isn’t nearly as critical as some believe.
Here’s what you need to know.
Eating enough protein throughout the day regardless of timing is your first priority. That will give your body the total amount
of protein it needs to help you improve your body composition, lose fat, and recover from your workouts.
You do have the opportunity to optimize the protein you eat by following the advice I mentioned above. The three meals, two snacks plan.
Essentially, when you eat a meal or a high-protein snack, you switch your body into its building/recovering program. Once you start that program, it lasts for several hours.
If you want to know even more about what and when to eat, click on the video below:
Is Protein Bad For Your Kidneys?
I’m sure you’ve heard someone say “Isn’t all that protein hard on your kidneys?”
Luckily we don’t have to rely on advice from our know-it-all co-worker when it comes to serious concerns in nutrition.
We can look at research.
And with protein being such a hot topic, plenty has been done on whether or not eating a moderate or high-protein diet leads to kidney issues.
The overwhelming results? Unless you already have kidney disease or dysfunctional kidneys, eating a high-protein diet doesn’t mean you’re going to have problems.
Dig in for yourself:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29315212/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20578205/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21194471/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20101008/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22653255/
These are just a few of many similar studies and control trials on the subject.
The bottom line… Have your Dr. check your kidney function as part of a routine blood test, and if things are working normally, go have a steak.
I hope this article convinced you that prioritizing protein is well worth the work. We know it’s been an absolute game-changer in our own fitness journey, as well as hundreds of our clients.
If you like digging into this stuff, be sure and subscribe to our podcast. We publish two episodes every week chock full of fun fitness advice.
If you have any questions or are ready to tackle your fitness and nutrition goals with a team that knows your name, you can apply for coaching today 💪🏼
Jonathan Fletcher
