Top 5 Ways To Eat More Protein In Your Diet

If you are looking for ways to eat more protein, you have come to the right spot.

I am going to lay out some clear and actionable steps you can take to start implementing more protein into your diet.

Protein is by far the most under consumed nutrient amongst humans for many reasons.

One being that it is a tad bit harder to work protein into your diet with your busy life you live. I mean, you can’t really just grab a fresh chicken breast out of the vending machine after all.

So much of our food is based around carbs and or fats because they are cheaper, last longer, and easier to distribute.

Again, kind of hard to carry a warm steak around with you 24/7 (though I will give you an option in this article on how to do that!) .

Point being I know it is difficult to consume the adequate amount of protein you need in your daily diet, but that is why I am here.

I am going to give you my top 5 ways to eat more protein here right now in this article.

The last one is going to be in my opinion the most important, so stick around for that.

Let’s dive right in, but before we do, let me give you a brief overview of why protein is so important.

Top 5 Ways To Eat More Protein

Why Is Protein Important?

If you are here reading this you probably have some inclination as to why protein is something you need to be focusing on.

Yet quickly, let’s cover why you should be focused on getting more protein in your diet.

Before I go on I do want to say I did an entire in depth YouTube video clearly describing and laying out why protein is so important, especially for fat loss.

I will link that video here below if you want to watch that.

In short, here is why.

First off protein is the most satiating nutrient you will find.

This means that protein keep you full and satisfied the longest.

This can help with a few things, but the main one being hunger and cravings.

The more protein you eat the less hungry you are. The less hungry you are, typically the less food you consume.

The less total calories you consume the easier it is to maintain a healthy body weight and or lose weight.

Second, it has the highest TEF, which stands for Thermic Effect Of Food.

What this means is your body has to expend more energy to break down and digest protein. More energy expended equals more calories burned.

The more calories you burn the higher your metabolism is. Therefore simply eating more protein is going to have a positive impact on boosting your metabolism, which again, can help you lose weight or maintain a healthy bodyweight.

Third, it is the only macro nutrient that helps build and repair lean muscle mass.

This is important for a few reasons.

Number one is because the more lean muscle mass have you have, the higher your metabolism is.

I talk about this in my article HERE a bit more in depth, but essentially the more muscle mass you have the more oxygen your body has to pump to it.

The more oxygen your body has to pump means more work your body has to do which, you guessed it, means more calories burned and a higher metabolism.

By the way, if you want the complete low down on how to naturally increase your metabolism, I did an entire YouTube video on that HERE.

The second reason protein for lean muscle mass is important is because it will get you that “toned” and lean look you are chasing.

That look only comes from being able to have and show lean muscle mass. If you don’t have the lean muscle mass, you will not be able to achieve that look.

Again, if you want to go more in depth on why protein is important I would suggest watching my YouTube video above but for now those are your three main reasons.

I am very big believer in educating you on why you are doing something so you can fully understand the reasoning why. Don’t just follow something blindly.

Now that we know why it is important, let’s get into some practical ways to eat more protein.

Practical Ways To Eat More Protein

1. Increase Portion Size

Starting off our list we have something that is going to require next to no immediate change or addition from you and that is simply increasing your portion size.

For example, let’s say you have 3 meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

At breakfast you have 2 eggs, at lunch you have 4oz of chicken, and at dinner you have 4oz of steak.

If you want to beef up your protein number (get it? Beef? No? I’ll stick to coaching not comedy..) simply just eat a tad bit more!

Starting off with breakfast.

This is one of my biggest hacks I use with my online coaching clients actually so take note.

If you are currently eating 2 eggs for breakfast and you are wondering ways to eat more protein, you probably don’t want to eat more eggs because of the fat and cholesterol.

Which, btw, the cholesterol and fat in eggs isn’t bad or should not be avoided, but that is a different article for a different day.

Or let’s say you are doing egg whites because you are trying to keep things lower calorie so you are not doing whole eggs.

The beautiful part is, you don’t have to choose, you can have both!

If you are looking to boost your protein up, you should have both!

Two whole eggs are around 12g of protein. While this is good, it is nothing to be jubilant over.

Two egg whites are about 6-8g of protein. Again, nothing to brag to your friends about.

Yet if you combined the two, now you are getting somewhere.

If you have 2 whole eggs and 4 egg whites for breakfast, you are now looking at 12g of protein + 16g of protein, bringing your total to a beautiful 28g of protein for breakfast time.

While also keeping your calories low because egg whites are next to no calories.

Now THAT is something to bring home to mom.

To continue on, let’s use our 4oz of chicken and stead for example.

4oz of raw, uncooked chicken breast is normally around 20-25g of protein.

If you increase that to say 6 oz, you are looking at around 35g of protein , an extra 10-15g.

Same with our steak. A 4 oz sirloin brings you about 25g of protein.

If you give a simple increase to 6oz, you are now sitting pretty at almost 40g of protein.

Through these 3 small changes you have made, you could increase your protein by 40-70g throughout the day, without adding in any extra food.

Pretty cool huh?

This is by far one of the most easiest and simplest ways to eat more protein.

2. Have A Protein Packed Breakfast

One of the biggest faults I see people making when looking over their food logs is the lack of protein in the morning.

I get it, you may not have time to cook breakfast or you may not like eating breakfast.

Yet hear me out.

Let’s say you either skip breakfast or get really low protein counts at breakfast.

This means by the time lunch rolls around at noon or 1pm, you are pretty low in protein.

You have say 20-30g of protein at lunch.

Then, you go throughout your day and maybe you have a protein snack around 3pm if you are lucky (which we will touch on soon!).

If this is the case you may now boost your protein up to 45g.

Therefore by the time you get home, you have had 45g of protein all day long.

If your goal is 150g of protein, good luck eating 95g of protein from dinner to the time you go to bed.

That is damn near impossible.

** Btw, if you want to know what your protein goal is, head HERE To calculate that **

Where as like in our example above with the eggs, if you had around 30g of protein at breakfast, 30g at lunch, 15g for a snack, you are now in a much better position to hit your protein goal for the day.

Not to mention under eating in protein during the day is one of the main reasons you consistently over eat at night .

If you don’t have time to cook I respect that. But that is why doing something like a protein shake can help tremendously.

A few of my favorite ones are isopure and legion.

No I don’t have any affiliation with them nor do I have a discount code, I just genuinely enjoy their products.

Making protein a priority at breakfast is a huge key I have seen with my online coaching clients hitting their protein goals and absolutely one of the best ways to eat more protein.

3. Having High Protein Snacks

We mentioned earlier about how protein normally isn’t easily available or accessible like carbs and fats are.

This makes it harder to have it frequently and while you are on the go.

Yet that does not mean it is impossible.

Trust me I know you are busy. I coach people just like you everyday for a living who work full time, have multiple kids, has a spouse, dog, social life, you name it.

But I promise you it is possible, it just may take some planning on your part.

I am going drop a few of my favorite high protein snacks that myself and my clients use all the time to help them keep their protein front of mind while being extremely busy.

High Protein Snacks

1. Greek Yogurt. Greek yogurt is a great source of protein that is quick and simple. The ones by Oikos Triple Zero or Fage are my two favorite for the highest amount of protein.
2. Tuna Packets. These are a great way to get super high protein for super low calories while keeping things convenient. My favorite are the Starkest HERE.
3. Beef Jerky. The ultimate road trip snack. That is what makes it on this list, no matter what you are doing or where you are you can chomp on some jerky.
4. Protein Shakes. We touched on these earlier but again, great options for protein on the go. You don’t even have to take time to eat it, just drink!
5. Cottage Cheese. Much like greek yogurt, a very quick, easy, and convenient source of high protein.
6. Cheese Sticks. Much like the beef jerky, you can take a quick bite of cheese sticks really wherever you go or whatever you are doing.

These are simply some of my favorite snacks myself and my clients use.

I have an entire YouTube video laying out a ton of my favorite protein sources, I will link that here if you want some more options.

4. Using A Thermos

I hinted earlier at you being able to carry around a hot steak with you 24/7, well, this is how.

Let me tell you a story.

When I was coaching people just like you in person, I was the gym for 14+ hours a day on my feet.

There was no way I had time to cook food because all we had was a microwave in the gym and sometimes I did not have the time to use that.

I didn’t want to go all day without eating food because I knew that would be bad news bears for everyone involved, my clients especially.

From the advice of Stan Efferding I bought a thermos and put my meals in there.

I would pack it before I left at 4am and I would put all kinds of meat in there. Chicken, steak, fish, pork, eggs, you name it.

I would mix it with rice or potatoes and I would eat it just like that.

It would stay hot and warm the entire day and I never had to miss a meal because of it.

If you are busy, on the go, or just want to take some of the work out of things, I cannot recommend getting a thermos highly enough.

It was a life saver for me and if I ever had to go back to where I knew I wouldn’t have access to a kitchen or was going to be busy for a long period of time, I would make a thermos my first purchase.

Seeing is that you can keep all of your meat hot and even put full meals in there, it is by far one of the top ways to eat more protein.

5. Invest In Air Fryers Or Pressure Cookers

In this 24/7 moving world we live in, I know you are busy.

Like I said you have kids, a job, a spouse, there is a lot on your plate.

Spending 20, 30, 60 minutes cooking food might not be in your daily schedule.

Trust me, it isn’t in mine either.

This is why I have found a way around this and when I started doing this it changed my life.

You should invest in an air fryer and pressure cooker. Like, tomorrow.

These things can be life savers for you.

Again I will tell you a story with my own life.

Now I am busy but just in a different way than I was when I was training people in person.

I am writing articles like this, handling all of my clients, creating content on other platforms. A lot of what I do is non stop.

Yet again, I don’t want my meals to falter. So what do I do?

I turn to my pressure cooker or air fryer and let them do the work for me.

When you use either one of these two things, they take all of the work out of it for you.

I can turn on my air fryer, lightly season some chicken breasts, throw it in the fryer, press a few buttons, come back to my desk and work for 25 minutes, and bam my food is done.

It literally took me a grand total of 83 seconds to put some seasoning over the chicken, put it into the fryer, and press 3 buttons.

Same thing with the pressure cooker.

A little trick here too, always cook more than what you need.

I rarely ever cook for just one meal. I always make extra for the next meal or the next days meals this way I am always one step ahead.

These utilities make it incredibly easier to have protein cooked and on hand without spending hours actually cooking it.

I talked earlier about it is possible even though you are busy, this is how.

I will link my favorite pressure cooker and air fryer here!

This makes the top 5 list of ways to eat more protein because without these two things, there is no way even I would hit my protein!

Ways To Get More Protein : Pro Tip

Now that we have gone over the top 5 ways to eat more protein I want to throw this at you.

Truthfully what all of this comes down to is planning.

There are no magical foods here or things that you implement to see a huge difference.

This simply gets broken down to taking the time to plan out what your day looks like and working to get more protein in.

I can’t tell you how many times I sit down with my online coaching clients and we take some time to go over their day, hour by hour.

We look at when they will be home, if they can cook breakfast, what days are busier than others, what ways they can cook food and how long it will take.

Everything. We plan it all out. This helps them be able to implement all of these strategies we just covered here above.

We can know on Wednesday night since they are busier we are going to use the air fryer to cook food or on Thursdays they have meetings so we will pack some high protein snacks.

Both of us take time to look at their food log and see where we could add in more portion sizes and how much more protein that can get us.

Point being, we take the time to plan.

If you want to succeed with this whole dieting thing, you can’t fly by the seat of your pants.

That hasn’t worked thus far and it won’t work now. Life is too crazy and too busy.

You need to take time to plan. I promise if you do it will pay off.

Ways To Eat More Protein : Final Word

I hope this article gave you some insight on the best ways to eat more protein.

I know it can be tough, but you can do this.

Again if you want to dive a bit deeper and learn more, as well as find protein options if you practice a vegan lifestyle, I will link those here below.

I also have a podcast I did on it which I will link here as well.

Beyond that if you need anything from me don’t hesitate to reach out, I would be happy to help.

If you want to see if we may be a good fit for coaching together, feel free to fill out my application form HERE and I will get back to you ASAP.

Other than that, talk soon 🙂

-E