Nutrition Tip of the Week: 5 Simple Ways to Add Protein to Your Diet

Nutrition Tip of the Week (6/18/2021)

5 Simple ways to add protein to your diet:

Are you struggling to increase your protein intake and looking for a solution other than protein powder? Here are some quick and easy ways to consume more quality proteins throughout the day without all the fuss.

1. Add an egg (or egg whites) to it. A fried egg tastes great on just about anything. Add it to a burger patty or scramble it and mix it into your favorite dishes. If you don’t like it on top or mixed in, have it on the side. Consider hard-boiling some eggs for the week or buying some premade ones for protein in a pinch.
2. Have some Greek yogurt as a healthy snack or dessert. Opt for low-fat Greek yogurt with some fun mix-ins for a snack or yummy dessert. One of my favorite snacks is Greek yogurt with honey, blueberries, slivered almonds, and a sprinkle of high-fiber cereal or chia seeds. For dessert, I mix in fresh strawberries, chopped walnuts, and mini chocolate chips. Try putting it in the freezer for about 10-15 minutes before consuming it if you really enjoy frozen yogurts.
3. String cheese isn’t just for the kids’ lunches. Cheese squares or cheese sticks make an excellent snack pairing with fruits and veggies. One regular string cheese generally contains about 80 calories and 7 grams of protein. An added bonus is that it also contains about 20% of the daily recommended intake for calcium!
4. Drink a good old-fashioned glass of milk. Regardless of whether it is skim, reduced-fat, or whole, milk contains 8 grams of protein in just 1 cup (8oz). In addition to drinking it plain, you can add a fair amount to your morning iced coffee and turn it into an iced latte. There are a lot of foods that you can add milk to instead of water, such as hot oatmeal, overnight oats, and smoothies.
5. Choose leaner and larger cuts of meat for your main meals. The absolute easiest way to increase your protein intake without a ton of extra prep is by eating larger servings of the foods that you already consume. For instance, there are about 7 grams of protein in an ounce of trimmed chicken breast. Four ounces of chicken would give you 28g of protein. Increase that serving size to 6 oz, and you now have 42g!

How crazy is this? If you added 1 egg to breakfast, opted for a “yogurt parfait” instead of cookies for dessert, had one string cheese with your afternoon apple, drank one 8 oz glass of milk after your workout, and increased one of your meat servings by a mere 2 ounces…you will have added 50g of protein to your day coming from real food!

For a fun little spin on number 1 above, try whipping up some simple breakfast fried rice as a way to get in your eggs. This is one of my favorite recipes! https://lexiscleankitchen.com/breakfast-fried-rice/

Coach Gillian Ward is Barbell Logic’s Director of Nutrition. She has spent a lifetime as a high-performing athlete, coach, and fitness and nutrition educator. If you have a question for Coach Gillian that you’d like to see answered in future issues of the Friday Five Newsletter, please fill out the form below.