6 Easy Ways to Get More Protein in Your Diet

Do you struggle to eat enough protein in your daily diet?

Consuming an adequate amount of protein is essential when it comes to performance, recovery and manipulating your body composition. It helps retain muscle mass when you’re in a calorie deficit or cutting weight and is required to build muscle.

It’s especially important for those who do high-intensity exercise to consume a sufficient amount of protein. It’s well established that loss of muscle mass can significantly affect an athlete’s performance, strength and power capacity. Therefore, it’s important to avoid such losses by maintaining a neutral or positive protein balance.

Athletes and those leading an active lifestyle should aim for 1.8 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body mass per day to ensure this, increasing up to 2.7 grams per kilogram of body mass when in an energy deficit.

HOW CAN I INCREASE MY PROTEIN?

Here are six easy ways to help increase your daily protein intake:

1. Start your day with protein

Most people have a low-protein breakfast like cereal or toast, which makes it harder to hit their protein target for the day. Aiming to get about 30-40g of protein in your breakfast will help make reaching your daily target so much easier! Here are some ideas: 

• Protein oats
• Ham & veggie omelette
• Protein smoothie
• Protein pancakes
• French toast

You don’t need to give up your favourite breakfast – often just adding a protein shake will do the trick!

2. Bulk up the protein in your main meals

Your main meals are often the easiest opportunities to increase your protein intake. Try to get a minimum of 30-40g of protein in your lunches and dinners. The easiest way to increase your protein intake is simply by increasing the portion of protein in these meals. So for example, if you normally have 100g of chicken breast, increase it to 150g instead.

3. Eat high-protein snacks

Choose snacks that are higher in protein. Some ideas are: 

• Protein shakes
• Protein bars
• High-protein yoghurt
• Boiled eggs
• Tuna & rice cakes
• Beef jerky
• Cottage cheese
• Home-baked goods

4. Treat yourself to a high-protein dessert!

Dessert is another opportunity to increase your protein if you struggle to get enough during the day. Some tasty options include: 

• Low-calorie, high-protein ice cream
• High-protein yoghurt
• Chocolate protein brownies

5. Invest in a protein supplement

Including protein powder in your diet is an extremely convenient way to help increase your protein intake and is particularly helpful for vegetarians, vegans and those who travel a lot. Simply mix it with water or your favourite milk and drink as a shake or add to smoothies, oats, yoghurt and baking. The options are endless! 

Not sure where to start? Our CMBT Reload Recovery Protein makes the decision easy. Using pure, high-quality ingredients, our formula is smooth, tasty, easy to digest and goes above and beyond to deliver you benefits beyond recovery to boost your hydration, gut health and immune function as well! Click here to find out more.

6. Opt for leaner sources of protein

We often find that people struggle to reach their protein because they are over-consuming carbs and fats, which doesn’t leave them enough calories for protein. The easiest way to increase your protein without adding excessive amounts of carbs or fats to your diet is to choose leaner sources of protein. These include:

• Chicken breast 
• Extra-lean steak or beef mince
• Turkey breast
• Kangaroo
• White fish
• Egg whites
• Plant-based protein powder
• High protein yoghurt

Boosting your protein intake each day doesn’t necessarily require huge changes to your current diet. Making small adjustments like these can quickly and easily add up to your daily protein needs and make the world of difference for your performance, recovery and overall health.