Practical Tips for Increasing Protein in Your Diet {Protein Part 4️⃣}

I couldn't do an entire series on protein without sharing some of the practical ways I ensure I have enough protein in my diet. These prevent me from blankly staring at the refrigerator wondering "what can I eat?"

In this final episode of my four-part series on protein, I cover:

• A variety of protein-rich breakfast ideas, from yogurt parfaits to protein pancakes
• High-protein snack options for on-the-go nutrition
• Lunch and dinner suggestions, including batch-cooking ideas for easy meal prep
• Tips for adding high-protein sides to your meals
• Plant-based protein options for those following a vegetarian or vegan diet
• The importance of tailoring these suggestions to your individual needs and preferences

Did you get the Protein Playbook?

This is the episode it was originally intended for. I just shared it early because I know I get impatient and thought you may as well.

Grab your free Protein Playbook download here.

Transcript

Practical Tips for Increasing Protein in Your Diet {Protein Part 4️⃣}

Hello everyone. And welcome to our final for now episode in our protein series.

I say the words for now, because I'm just, I'm wondering, like, do you have questions? Do you have follow-up comments? Things you want to know more about? 

If so then go to the show notes of this episode or any episode and click at the very top where it says, got a question, text it by clicking here. 

When you do that, it gives you the opportunity to ask a question anonymously and it sends it to me immediately.

If I get enough of those, then I will create an additional episode of Q and A's and respond to those. So if you have a question, be sure to click that it's super easy and super simple. So this is the episode I have been promising since the first part in this series. And this is practical ways to get more protein in your diet. I am going to give you several ideas today. 

And most of these are in the protein prep playbook that I have put together, which is your guide to nourishing protein, rich items that 

fit into your life. This answers the question. What kind of protein can I have now? Obviously, obviously this is not all encompassing. There are so many ways to do this. But I wanted to provide the things to you that have been working for me. These are all things that I do in my rhythms, whether they are weekly rhythms or daily rhythms or. Anywhere in between, these are things that I have used that have really helped me increase my protein in a reasonable. And appropriate way without totally going overboard. 

And without like, feeling like I have to obsess over things. I will also say, this is again what has worked for me. So it may be that. What I suggest is too much for you. It may feel like too much protein. Or you might need more so individualize this.

These are not rules, but these are guidance. 

You know, a playbook is something that has a lot of different plays. It's football season as this is airing and a playbook has a lot of things in there that. Sometimes the teams will use them, but they don't use them all. You have to pick and choose what works depending on what the situation is. 

Also. It's going to be different from game to game. So your protein consumption is going to vary from day to day. That's okay. I certainly don't get the recommended protein that I was talking about on the last part, the last episode every day. And I don't expect that you will either. I mean, if you do great, if it works, but if not, don't worry about it. 

I mentioned in an episode, gosh, a long time ago. And I don't remember what episode it was, 

but I said, focus on the trend, not the tenant. So it's what are you doing in general? Not what do I do every single time? That must be the way that it is. So none of that business, we're just looking at the trend. 

Okay. For today. Blood's just go through starting at the beginning of our day. And I'm going to share with you some ideas of ways that you can have more protein in that particular time of day. 

Many of these have recipes. When they do, 

they will be in the protein playbook if they don't, then they're not. I mean, some of them are just ideas. Let's start with breakfast. 

The first thing I will say I brought breakfast is there is no rule that you have to have eggs or overnight oats. For breakfast. If you want a chicken sandwich, have a chicken sandwich. If you want. Leftover fajita meat from the night before have the fajita meat. I would love it if you put a carb with it something with some fiber because just plain old meat, like. That's oh, that's just not very well balanced. And. Variety is our friend. But there's no rule that you have to have. 

What's called breakfast food for breakfast. So with that being said, I'm also going to give you some breakfast food, because I happen to like breakfast food, but get creative.

Figure out what works for you. 

Now in terms of the meals that I rotate, this is in no particular order. This is just how I wrote them down. So these are not prioritized. But one thing that I will have is yogurt. 

Like, we'll call it a yogurt parfait. I have mentioned that. Whey protein dairy just makes my allergies. It just doesn't work very well for me. I have found the sounds really gross, but it's not as gross as it sounds. Goat milk protein. I will have for yogurt and it does not have the kind of protein that typical dairy protein has. 

Three quarters of a cup of Greek yogurt has like 15 grams of protein. This goat milk yogurt has like six grams of protein. However, I do like to have it because yogurt is also fermented and that is a beneficial food for our gut health. So I just, I have that. Then with that yogurt, I mix a whole bunch of stuff in there. 

I will put hemp hearts or hint seeds. Those are basically one in the same. One serving of that is three tablespoons. I worked my way up to that. I started with one tablespoon. Cause I thought, I don't know if I'm going to like that. And I have slowly worked my way up to three tablespoons because three tablespoons of hemp hearts has 10 grams of protein, which is a really nice amount. Chia seeds is something else I will add in there. 

I'll just put one tablespoon of that. Which is not super high protein, but it does have two grams of protein. Sometimes I will put flax seeds in there. Sometimes I won't two tablespoons of flaxseeds has three grams of protein, and then I will put some sort of berries in. Most of the time I do frozen blueberries because I always keep an enormous bag of frozen blueberries in my freezer because that's just something my husband and I go through a lot. 

I will also add some honey, I don't know how much it's probably half a tablespoon or so, but just to sweeten it up a little bit.

But with that, you can get a decent amount of protein. We have talked earlier about having 20 to 40 grams. Of protein per meal, three to four times a day for that meal. Oh, with the goat milk protein. We're on the lower end of that. We're probably more like 20 grams, but Hey, it's good enough. Like it's, it's just fine. 

If you are using or a Greek yogurt with regular dairy, then you're going to have a lot more than that. So that's one thing I do. Another thing I will do is make an egg sandwich. If you are like me and you grew up going to McDonald's for a special Saturday breakfast with their parents, then, you know, these is egg McMuffins. But I just call them egg sandwiches, cause I'm sure egg McMuffin is trademarked or something. 

And I don't want to get in trouble for that, 

I will use whole wheat, English muffins, two slices of Canadian bacon. And I will put those in the toaster oven. You will probably hear me talking about the toaster oven. Anytime I'm talking about kitchen stuff. It might be my most indispensable kitchen tool outside of like the refrigerator, freezer and stove top. 

I use my toaster oven all the time. I don't have a super fancy one. It just sits on my countertop, but I use it. I love it. When I toast my English muffins, I will also throw two pieces of Canadian bacon in there because Canadian bacon and other pork products. We'll often pop in the microwave. And so I just like the way that it heats up, then I will take a shallow bowl and spray it with some Pam mix up one egg, maybe two, if I'm like really hungry and then microwave it by the way, this is all in the protein playbook. 

So you don't have to write this down. And then I layer, so I cook that and then I layer the bottom of the English muffin, a piece of Canadian bacon, the egg. A piece of cheese, whatever kind you want. Sometimes I do monster. Sometimes I do provolone or Swiss and sometimes I do American. And then the, did I already say the other piece of Canadian bacon? 

I can't remember, but put both pieces of the Canadian bacon on there and then your English muffin as well. That's a great high protein one. That'll stick with you for awhile. Another thing I make is protein pancakes. These sound really weird. And I will tell you these do not taste like I hot pancakes. 

However, do they fuel me? Well, And provide some protein and taste good. When I add. Strawberries on it. Yes. So basically this is about a quarter cap or one scoop of vanilla protein powder. I shared the protein powder that I like in the last episode, you can go listen to that. Two eggs, beat up. one mashed banana. I have a dear dear friend who hates bananas. 

And so I just tell her that I will pray for her because she doesn't like bananas. She won't like she won't eat bananas for nothing. So if you don't like bananas, you can try this with applesauce. I have not yet tried it, but I feel like it would probably work close enough. And then if it gets really thick, depending on how you like your pancakes, you can add some, any whatever kind of milk you like to thin it out. 

And then cook those in your griddle. 

For all for breakfast, you can also have a shake. 

I actually did. Eh, episode on my podcast called lessons to my teenage self on building a shake. So if you want to go listen to that, you can, but here's the very basics. Have a shake. You're going to want some protein. You're gonna want some carbs and you're going to want a fat. If you can add some bonus things in there, like a vegetable base, like spinach beats, believe it or not. 

I do a lot of beats. It makes a really vibrant color, which is kind of fun. You can do some chia seeds, whatever. So I'll let you go listen in there. I do have a couple of recipes in the playbook, so you can check that out. Another thing you can do, which is kind of along the same lines as the egg sandwich or the same type of ingredients is fry up two to three eggs. 

However much you like for me, 

two is plenty after two, it starts to feel heavy for me and I, and it's just too much, but two is the right amount for me. What's the right amount for you. You can get some super Hardy wheat bread toast that put some cheese on it. Put some Canadian bacon you can do. 

I mean, obviously this is more eggs, but you could do some sort of omelet and just load it up with veggies. I like spinach and sauteed mushrooms. That's kind of my favorite with some goat cheese on it. Again, what works for you? So, those are just a few ideas for breakfast. Obviously, overnight oats is a big fan favorite. 

You can do that. You can make oatmeal. And when you make oatmeal, can you add in some of those power-ups? So those power ups are the things like chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds. Those are the types of things that will really increase the protein and healthy fats. Of whatever you are having. 

. I'm going to move into snacks before I get into like lunch and dinner. Items. So again, high protein snacks. 

I have recently become a big fan of meat sticks. I like meat sticks because they don't have a lot of extra sugar. And I. Don't like beef jerky. I think it's the sweetness combined with the beef that I just don't care for. And I don't want to eat it, so I'm not going to, but I do like meat sticks. I really like the chomps brand. 

I know there's a ton of different brands. I found chumps at Costco, which I think is maybe where we first tried it and my kids liked it. So that's just what I've been buying since then. There is also something called, like air-dry beef and it's by a company named Strive 

s T R Y V E. I again, first discovered this at Costco and they had these huge bags of them and I loved it. 

It is not beef jerky. It doesn't have the sugary. There's not sugar on it, which again, there's not a, I don't have a problem with sugar. I just don't want sugar on my beef. Like I don't put, I don't put brown sugar. I don't put sugar on my steak. Like I don't, I just don't want sugar with my beef. 

So, so there, but anyway, so the stri I loved. I still love. I found it at Costco and then they broke my heart because now they don't sell it at Costco and I have to get it at my regular grocery store. Which is not as cost effective. This is not super cheap. I don't buy it a lot. I like to have it, but it is not the most inexpensive. High protein snack. 

I've been known to have that same yogurt parfait for a snack. That's also a great, a great one to have a great snack to have. If you like tuna tuna kinda makes my stomach not feel great, so I don't have it a lot, but gosh, I mean, grab a packet of tuna or a can of tuna and have some crackers with it. 

Bam. Easy, high quality protein. If you have some extra chicken breast, which is going to be a nice segue into my lunch and dinner items. Then slice up a chicken breast and then you can dip it in honey mustard or ranch dressing, or my people really like Chick-fil-A sauce side note. I went to our local Chick-fil-A and they had a backup and I had gotten the, the. The four count chicken strips. Because that has like close to 40 grams of protein. 

And so it's a really great way of getting protein in for your lunch. They had all of these people, like delivering, like coming out and handing the, the bags to the drive-through because. They was just backed up. And so the owner happened to be the one who was carrying my bag. And he handed it to me. 

He said, Amy. And I said yes. And he handed it to me and, and he said, do you not want any Chick-fil-A sauce? And I felt so bad. I said, believe it or not, I don't, I don't love it. And he was like, okay, that's fine. So 

I had to admit that. Like the fan favorite of Chick-fil-A. Of what this Chick-fil-A sauce was not for me, but if you like it, then you can have some, I mean, be aware. It is nutrient dense, calorically dense. So, depending on how your day has looked, just keep that in mind, but you know, just slice up some chicken breast. 

Now, if you're like Emmy, I don't really have chicken breasts hanging around. But wait, there here's an idea. Okay. So let's move into. Lunch and dinner. 

This is the key to ensuring that I have enough protein on hand. Where I'm not just at a loss and trying to figure out. In general, I will take a particular protein. I will make a recipe or cook said protein, and then I freeze them individually or freeze them into individual portions. And then they are ready for me. 

It does take a bit of forethought. It doesn't have to take much, but just a little bit of forethought. If say you want to have a piece of chicken breast for a snack to cut up and have with your Chick-fil-A sauce. You will want to pull that out of the refrigerator a little bit early, so it can thought, I mean, obviously you can thought in the microwave as well. But. I personally like to let a thought on the counter. 

I mean, ideally it's in the refrigerator, but who has time for that? So I don't do it. I let us all on the counter because I don't like the way that the microwave defrost, like it's like hot in some places and cold and others. So just a little bit of thinking ahead will make things a lot easier for you. 

Here are some of the recipes that are included in the protein playbook that. I have made my life a million times easier as it relates to getting enough protein. 

I do something called.

Zesty chicken and zucchini meatballs. Those sound really weird. I promise, but they're actually really good. I have to give credit where credit is due. They are called chickens, zucchini poppers on the website. One lovely life. This is a website that I go to a lot for recipe inspiration. I just like her ingredients. 

I like her approach. 

Her first name is Emily. I don't know what her last name is, but this is definitely a recipe that I have borrowed from her. And I have renamed it because I don't want to get in trouble with copyright, but Emily from one lovely life you created. The most amazing recipe with these chicken and zucchini and turning them into meatballs. That recipe is on the protein playbook. I have changed it a little bit for copyright, but again, all credit where credit is due. Go check out her website. If you want more. Another one that I kind of, this one I actually made up. 

I don't have a great name for it.

I just call them bison meatballs.

I will use bison instead of ground beef often because it has.

A higher concentration of omega threes and it has more iron. I know a lot of you in your perimenopause phase of life have really heavy periods. And if that is the case, you may be losing a lot of iron. It may be that you need to pay attention to your iron. So I made these as just a high iron. Option for having some good protein. I also made them for my son when he was running cross country, because you just, you just burn through a lot and 

And he just was having some symptoms of low iron. 

He wasn't, but I still made these for him. And these include, so obviously it has the ground bison. I also chop up some portabella mushrooms like the baby Bella mushrooms. I'll chop up some kale, or if you really want an extra boost, you can do spinach because, or an extra iron boost. You can do spinach because spinach is higher in iron and then just salt and Italian seasoning and red pepper. And then I make these also into meatballs And just so you know, The very best investment I have made for making meatballs is getting a cookie scooper. And using that because then they come out, even which for all of you, perfectionist, it's nice to have a meatballs that are the same size for the rest of us who don't care, but want things simple. 

It helps them cook. Evenly. So that way you're not dealing with one huge meatball that's not cooked. And then one that smaller one that's overcooked. So I do use a cookie scooper. Two tablespoon one, because that way it is big enough. Another idea for again, freezing. So making a big batch of these. 

And I don't know if I said that earlier, but I just make a huge batch of all of these. So I'll use like three pounds of whatever the protein is and then I freeze them individually. This one is Turkey burgers. And so I just use like 93% ground Turkey. Again, I put the mushrooms in there. I love mushrooms. 

So anytime I can get mushrooms in, I will do that. I'll do some Parmesan cheese in there as well, an egg to kind of hold everything together, Italian seasoning. And then I make the the Turkey burger. And then what I will do is I'll get wax paper and cut them into like four by four squares and put them in between the patties. 

So the, so they can come out. Easily, if you stack them up in the re in the freezer. So I also give instructions in this free download that I have for you, and you can see what I do with that. Another thing I will do is especially when these are on sale. I will get any normous pack of chicken breasts. At my grocery store every now and then they will have a five pound pack of chicken breasts. And they're on sale. 

I don't remember how much they are off the top of my head, but it's a really good deal. So I'll get at least one, sometimes two of those. And then I get those enormous chicken breasts, because it's way too much for me to have in one setting. I pound the mud down a bit and then I cut them in half. 

So then they turn into.

A more manageable size of breast and that's more of one serving. We talked in the last episode about how one serving of high quality protein is generally like the size of the Palm of your hand, like the size and thickness of it. So when I do that with the chicken, that's about what it gets too. So I'm, I know that that's about four ounces of protein. 

Give or take a little bit. Then. I will take those and individually wrapped them. I will do that either with something like saran wrap or plastic wrap, or I will get the sandwich bags that I had in elementary school that didn't Ziploc. Like those were the really fancy ones. These are the ones that you just stick in there and then they kind of fold over. Now having said that. I would love another idea that is more earth friendly. 

If you have one. I know of one friend who listens to this podcast periodically. And I'm sure they are cringing at the amount of plastic that I'm talking about there. I recognize it as this is way too much plastic. I try to make up for this in other ways.. But that's what I do is I wrapped them in individually and then I put them in either a gallon or court size freezer, bag, freezer, Ziploc bag. 

And then of course don't forget to date all everything and say what's in it because things start to look the same in your freezer.

Another thing I will do is get steelhead trout. My husband is allergic to salmon, so we don't really have salmon in this house. 

But still had trout. He's fine with, even though it looks like salmon, it tastes like salmon. It cooks like salmon. Like everything it's like, it walks like a duck. It talks like a duck. 

It looks like a duck. It's, it's not a duck. It doesn't bother him. So we have still had trout. I'll get a huge filet of that, which that is typically around two pounds. And then I will cut that into probably five different servings from there. So I get a nice, decent portion of the meat. Then I also will wrap that up individually and then stick it into a freezer Ziploc bag. Again, with the plastic. 

I know if you have an idea, I would love an idea. 

And then the final thing I'll do with protein is I will cook maybe some like top sirloin and grill it with some fajita seasoning. When that comes off, I let it sit for a bit and then I will cut it into, or I will slice it. And then freeze those into individual bags. I know the plastic I'm telling you. 

I use more plastic than I wish I did. 

Now, obviously we're going to want to have something alongside the protein. So what I have found helpful is also taking some of higher protein or moderate protein sides. And.

Freezing them in a way that is adequate for the size of meal that I will be making. What do I mean by that? Maybe you make a big batch of keenwah, which as we've talked about is a complete protein. 

Instead of making a big batch and putting three cups of keenwah in a Ziploc bag. Maybe, what we do is we parcel that out to either a single serving or maybe it's enough for you and your spouse, or maybe it's enough for you and your family. But make it into a serving size for however that is for your family. 

Then when you pull it out, you've got just the right amount. Keene was a great thing for that. Brown rice is a great thing to do that. 

I only say this because I had it on hand and I was out of beans, but I made a big batch of black beans recently and a big batch of chickpeas. And so I did that with those. I will not use an entire bag of black beans and my regular, you know, whatever consumption. Like when I've, whatever we do. But I will use. About a cup and a half of black beans for my husband and myself. So I put them in there individually.

Again, I only mentioned that because that's something I did. 

Like I was out of all the cans of beans and I needed something and I happened to have some bags. So I made that let's be honest. Most of us are just grabbing cans perfectly fine. That's all good. That just doesn't go within the scope of what we are talking about here, which is like, Batch prepping stuff and getting it ready in your freezer.

If you are plant-based and you're feeling left out, I'm sorry, I haven't given you a lot of options. However, I'm going to throw out some things that could be.

Possibilities. And I'm going to let you do a little research on your own for that. 

So you can go to Pinterest with that. I will say AI whatever your preferred AI provider is, whether it's chat GPT, I like claude.ai. Jasper I think is another one, but you can just go say, Hey, here's my ingredients. Can you help me make a plant-based meal from that? So explore, you know, get creative. But here are some things that you could do from a plant-based perspective that you could batch make and freeze them as well. 

You could try like a lentil and vegetable soup. You could do some black bean patties, like instead of burgers or black bean burgers. You could make some chili like a vegetarian chili for many of you, it's starting to get cooler. It's not going to be cool here and cool enough for soups and chilies in the next, at least a month, but that's definitely something that you can do. 

You can make some sort of plant-based casserole with brown rice or keenwah and just a whole bunch of vegetables. One thing to note about vegetables is when fresh vegetables are frozen, the cells kind of change the cellular structure breaks down. 

That's why if you take like, Red bell peppers and cut them up and put in the freezer when they come out. They're not crispy. Like they are, if they're just in the refrigerator. So just be aware of that. I have made like chick pea cakes. Those have been pretty good. 

But explore some recipes there. 

I'm sorry, those aren't in my playbook. But. My goal was to provide you with things that I do on a regular basis. And I don't typically do that. So I hope that's not too disappointing for you. Remember, you can get this protein playbook at grace health.com/protein-playbook. 

I will also have listed some of the higher protein plants in there. To help give you a little bit of guidance. 

And finally, I just want to thank you once again for tuning in. As I gave the analogy at the beginning of this little four part series. It is a noisy cacophonous world out there with all things wellness, but definitely with protein. 

The analogy I gave was if you were to walk into a room where there were a lot of people, there are a lot of voices out there. 

You've got to pick and choose the voices that makes sense to you who. Care about you in the way that you want to be cared about, who maybe have values and I'm not talking about even like, I'm a Christian, you're a Christian. I'm talking about like, okay, what are my priorities in life? 

My priorities are my faith, my family. Like, I don't want to be spending a bunch of time in the kitchen at the expense of hanging out with my kids. You know, that kind of thing. And so I encourage you to consider the voices that you're listening to. And if my voice is one of them, It is beyond humbling that you are listening to it. 

I truly, and literally have prayed that this is a beneficial. And helpful series for you that does not get into diet culture, but instead.

Helps equip you. With some knowledge of protein. And why we need it and why we need it as we're getting older. And gives you a little bit of the back part. I know I got into the weeds some, but that way you can make decisions that are right for you. And you can tune out all of the other voices at the party. 

You can tune out all of the things in the Instagram feed or your tick talk feed that just maybe seem a little. Let's just say off or confusing or rigid or strict. And instead make decisions that are best for you and your uniquely created body. 

That God gave you. Again, if you have questions, go to the show notes in this episode or any episode and hit the link. That's the very first thing that shows up that says, got a question, text it by clicking here, I will at a minimum answer those questions over on the grace who health community, Facebook group. That's a private group. 

So if you're not a member there, go over there and join it. Or if I get enough of these, then I will create a followup episode with Q and A's. I really want to hear. From you? No question is a bad question..

And finally. 

If you have found this four-part series on protein, helpful, would you do me a huge favor that costs you no money. And about 30 seconds of time, would you share one or all of the episodes with a friend? Or on your social media? Or leave a rating and review if you haven't. 

That is always very helpful as well. 

Okay. That is all for today. 

Go out there and have a graced day.