Want to build muscle and burn fat? How much protein you eat is a huge influence on your gains. In this episode, I discuss the importance of eating a high-protein diet for fat loss and building muscle. I also give guidance for figuring out how much protein you need to eat and some actionable tips for reaching your daily protein goal.

Links:

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• Show Notes
• Livestreams on Twitch
• Learn to eat healthy with my Healthy Diet Makeover Handbook

Protein is incredibly important for fat loss and for muscle gains. Okay, so remember, protein is the building block of your muscles. If you want to burn fat, one of the best things that you can do is eat lots of protein, eat a high protein diet because sources of protein are generally pretty satiating. They keep you feeling full for longer, and they also give your muscles the building blocks that they need to keep their integrity when you are burning fat.

Hey there. Welcome to the Coaching Corner podcast. I'm Jayd Harrison, AKA Jaydigains. In today's episode, I'm going to give you some tips for increasing your protein intake. Now, eating a high protein diet is one of the most helpful strategies that you can employ in your fat loss journey, as well as in your muscle building journey. If you're trying to get strong or burn fat, eating a high protein diet is a must. So in this episode, I'm going to go a little bit more into detail about why it's important to eat a high protein diet, how to eat a high protein diet in terms of exactly how much protein you should be eating every day, and also we'll go over some of my tips for how to actually go about eating more protein. Make sure to check out the blog post that goes with this episode.

It's linked in the show notes below for a list of high protein foods that you can refer to. As with many of my episodes, this was recorded while I was live on my Twitch channel. That's Twitch tv slash JD Gaines, which you can join me anytime when I go live. Make sure to give me a follow there so that you get notified anytime that I start going live and you can ask your fitness questions and also hang out with me while I am gaming. Again, that's Twitch tv slash jd Gaines. I'll see you there. Let's get started with the episode.

Okay, let's talk about protein. Let's talk about protein. Last, no, two episodes ago of the podcast I talked about how to get started eating a healthy diet from scratch, and the healthy plate model is the model that I use for all of my clients, and I always encourage people to follow it no matter where you are in your nutrition and in your fitness journey because it's something that's good to start with. Just a very basic model of what your plate should look like when you sit down for a meal. It's also something that you can fall back on when you are in more flexible periods of your nutrition and in your fitness, or if you're going on vacation or if you're going out to eat at a restaurant or it's the holidays. You can always follow the healthy plate model if you want to stay generally within your goals, and that looks like this.

So as a reminder, with the healthy plate model, which is based roughly on the MyPlate model that was issued with the 2015 dietary guidelines for Americans, on half of your plate, you put vegetables or vegetables and fruit. Then on the other half of the plate you fill a little bit more than a quarter with a clean source of protein. Protein foods being like meat, fish, low-fat, dairy, eggs and tofu, Tempe beans, that kind of thing, vegetarian sources of protein. And then on the remaining a little bit less than a quarter of your plate, you put grains or starches, so potatoes, rice, that kind of thing. This is a general good rule of thumb to follow to keep your diet healthy and to also get you eating roughly within the calories that your body needs to maintain a healthy body weight. Okay, so that's what we covered in that lesson or that podcast episode, and this is a normal sized dinner plate.

Okay, I see you in the chat. I'll just put a 15 inch plate, normal sized dinner plate. Okay, so that's a general good rule of thumb, and I always like to recommend that people start with either their vegetable dish or their protein dish when they're thinking about planning a meal or when they're ordering food in a restaurant. Start with a protein or start with a vegetables. Today we're going to take a little bit closer look at protein and ways that you can increase your protein intake to improve your gains in your diet. So protein is incredibly important for fat loss and for muscle gains. So remember, protein is the building block of your muscles. If you want to burn fat, one of the best things that you can do is eat lots of protein, eat a high protein diet because sources of protein are generally pretty satiating.

They keep you feeling full for longer and they also give your muscles the building blocks that they need to keep their integrity when you are burning fat, because remember, when you're in calorie deficit, when you're focusing on fat loss or weight loss, your body is going to be more likely to break down muscle tissue in addition to your body fat. So one of the things that you can do to help retain your muscle tissue is to eat plenty of protein If you are trying to build muscle. It's also super important for obvious reasons to eat lots of protein because your muscles need those building blocks, right? It's going to be very, very hard for your body to actually add on more muscle and make more gains if you're not fueling yourself with enough protein. So in general, if you follow the healthy plate model, you can kind of get enough protein, but certain people are going to need higher protein intake, especially if you already have a high amount of muscle in your body.

Again, if you're trying to burn fat, you'll want to eat a higher protein diet. And a high protein diet is one that consists of more than 20% of your daily calories coming from protein. So one gram of protein is about four, so you want 20% of the calories you eat every day to come roughly from protein for it to be considered a high protein diet. But when you take a look at MyFitnessPal or whatever food tracking app you're using, or if you look at the nutrition labels of the foods that you're eating, you're not going to see protein listed in terms of how many calories come from protein. You're going to see it listed as how many grams of protein are in a serving of that food. So you need to know roughly how many grams of protein you should eat every day, and from there you can kind of divvy it out among your meals and your snacks.

In general, experts recommend eating between 0.7 and one gram of protein per pound of your body weight. If you are really heavy, if you're really overweight and you have a large amount of body fat, you don't necessarily need to go by your weight. In that case, I would go one gram per centimeter of your height. It's roughly going to give you the amount of protein that you would roughly need to burn fat and to build muscle. Okay? But 0.7 to one gram per pound of your weight is generally a good rule of thumb to go by and in kg, if you are going by kg, that's about 1.5 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of your body weight. So if you're doing the KG side of things, that's how it turns out. So that's what you generally want to shoot for overall by the end of the day, once you have eaten all of your food, and one of the best ways that you can make sure that you're getting your protein intake is to one, follow the healthy plate model.

Of course, plan your meals around a good source of protein and track what you eat, tracking what you eat in a calorie tracking app or a macro tracking app like MyFitnessPal. Some of you guys use the avatar app, some of you use the Fitbit app, you need to, you just want to use a calorie tracking app that includes macronutrient information, so take your weight, multiply it by either 0.7 to one gram, and that gives you the grams of protein or if you're by kg 1.5 to 2.2 grams per kg, and that's your goal. Another thing that you can do to increase your protein intake is to just generally know and have an awareness of what foods are, high protein, what types of foods to put on that side of your plate or that part of your plate that needs to come from lean sources of protein.

And we do want to prioritize what are called lean sources of protein here. Lean meaning that they're good sources of protein that have a high amount of grams of protein per serving, but little to no saturated fat. Saturated fat comes from things like animal fat, dairy, fat, egg yolks. These are all the type of fat that if you eat too much of it, it can raise your LDL or bad cholesterol levels, which puts your heart health at risk. So we want to eat a minimum amount of fat, so you want to prioritize lean sources. Now, good lean sources of protein include things like meat and poultry. For instance, chicken breast, a four ounce chicken breast has 35 grams of protein. So if you have that at one meal, and if your protein goal is what, 95 grams, which is my lowest, that's my minimum amount of protein that I need to eat 95 grams.

If you eat a four ounce chicken breast at lunch, that's over a third, almost a third of your protein requirement for that day. A four ounce ounces of Turkey breast is about 33 grams. Four ounces of pork is about 22 grams beef, 23 grams per four ounces. And I actually have a list, a nice little table that you can reference that will be in the show notes of this episode. If you go to the comments, if you're watching this on YouTube or if you click on the show notes in the podcast app, the blog post that goes with this episode will have a table that you can use as a quick reference that will include different sources of protein. But knowing your sources of protein is so important. Seafood is another really great source of protein. I think that tuna is probably the best. So canned and water, four ounce of tuna is 30 grams of protein, so that's a really nice shot of protein.

Shrimp is also a really good source. Four ounces is 24 grams. Another really great source of not only protein, but also unsaturated fats, which are the healthy fats that we want to eat that are good for our heart health is salmon and other fatty fish like that. Four ounces of salmon is about 25 grams. Cooked eggs and dairy are another good source of protein, especially if you are vegetarian. Vegetarian means that you don't eat meat, but you do eat animal products. Eggs and dairy are really good source of protein that you can use. So one large egg is about six grams of protein. If you go without the egg yolk and you just do the egg whites about a fourth, a cup or two large egg whites is six, or sorry, seven grams is seven grams of protein. Greek yogurt is another of my favorite protein dense foods that I eat for breakfast and for snacks, and I use it in my cooking all the time.

Six ounces of Greek yogurt is 17 grams of protein. Cottage cheese is another favorite of bodybuilders. A half a cup of that is 14 grams. We cottage cheese, especially if you do low fat is another good little dairy source of protein. A half a cup of that is 14 grams as well. Now if you are vegan, which means that you don't eat any animal products, no meat, no eggs, no dairy, you can still get protein in. It's a common misconception that vegans can't get enough protein. You absolutely can. The thing about vegetarian sources of protein, however, is that they are not as protein dense as animal products. So when you are eating a vegetarian diet, you're going to have to eat more volume of food, right? So a good source of protein for someone who's like an omnivore, like a chicken breast, there is a lot of protein packed in that small amount of food when it comes to meat for vegetable proteins, you have to eat more food in order to get the same amount of protein.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to eat more calories though, because vegetarian foods like vegetables, beans, these are often pretty low calorie compared to processed food and even some types of animal products as well. So you just have to balance it, right, and again, this is why I say it's such an important thing to track what you eat to make sure that you are a, staying within your calories, but also getting enough of that protein. But just be prepared that if you are eating a vegan diet or even a vegetarian diet, it's likely that your meals will have to be bigger. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to have more calories, but just the volume of food that you eat is going to have to be more. So often my vegetarian and my vegan clients often need to eat very frequently throughout the day because just the amount of food that they need to eat to reach their requirements is much higher.

But good sources of vegetarian proteins are things like tofu. Six ounces of tofu is 15 grams of protein. Edamame, which is soybeans. Same thing that tofu is made out of. One cup of edamame is 17 grams of protein. Black beans are another good source. That's my favorite bean. I love black beans. One cup of black beans is 15 grams of protein. Lentils are another good source of protein. One cup of those guys cooked is 18 grams. And then you also have quinoa, which is not a bean, it's a grain, and that is eight grams of protein per one cup. Cooked. Chickpeas is another good one. It's not as good as the others, but it still has some protein in it. One cup of that is 14.5 grams. So this isn't a complete list of good sources of protein foods, but it gives you an idea of the types of foods that you can choose from to fill your plate with to beef up your protein.

So getting familiar with what foods have protein and how much protein they have is number one in my list of ways to increase your protein intake and reach your protein goals. And number two, I keep mentioning, but of course is to track what you eat, knowing what you're putting on your plate and what the protein density of that food is, as well as the calorie density. That food is crucial for reaching your calorie goals and your protein goals. Following the healthy plate model is of course important. Now, meal prep is going to help you a lot, and that's what a lot of people end up having to do in order to reach their daily protein goals. A lot of my clients tell me that when I ask them to eat more protein, what they find is they're like, you really have to plan for it if you want to reach your daily protein goals, because most people are not eating enough protein.

It's just a fact. Most people are not reaching their daily protein needs. A lot of people are eating a lot more carbohydrates and a lot more fat. That's where the majority of their daily calories come from by far. And the majority of people are not eating enough protein. Now, there are the people who are outliers who eat maybe too much protein, but in general, especially in America, most people are not eating enough. And so if you want to actually reach your daily protein needs, you have to be mindful of it, you have to stay mindful of it, and you kind of have to plan for it. So meal planning and meal prep is a great way that you can ensure that you are going to reach your daily protein goals. So planning and preparing your meals ahead of time, you can go ahead and plug what you're going to eat into your calorie tracking app or your food journal to make sure that it's going to meet your goals.

And if it doesn't, you can make an adjustment. You can adjust the amount of this and the amount of that to make sure that it's going to reach your goals. Now, other things that you can do, here's a couple more tips that you can do to increase your protein intake beyond these kind of basic things. So one thing that you can do, start the day with high protein. Start with high protein in the morning. When you do that, you're setting yourself up ahead of the game. A lot of breakfast foods like cereal muffins, pancakes, even a lot of these foods cooked in the traditional way are just a lot of carbohydrates and a lot of fat as well. And these may give your body energy, but they're not necessarily going to kickstart the process of muscle protein synthesis, which is what we want to happen if we're trying to build muscle or retain muscle when you're in a fat loss phase.

So start the day strong with something that's protein rich. So instead of maybe doing cereal with milk, maybe do Greek yogurt or do eggs, and you can beef up your eggs. If you do scrambled eggs, you can beef up the protein density of your eggs by mixing in egg whites, right? This is something that my sister-in-law does when she makes eggs for her family. She does three eggs and then she pours in a carton, or not a whole carton, but she pours in from a carton of egg whites. That'll increase the protein density, right? Other good protein dense breakfast foods are, you can add protein powder to things. You can make certain things with protein powder to turn them into protein rich foods. One of my favorite breakfast foods is pancakes. Protein pancakes is one of my favorites, and there's lots of different recipes for protein pancakes.

The one that I typically make is pretty simple. It uses bananas as a base. You mush it up, you add in a serving of protein powder, and then I think it's two eggs or maybe one egg, and that makes a pancake batter and it cooks so well. So you can also add protein powder to your smoothies, to your oatmeal, and that's going to kickstart your protein for the day. And then also, when you think about building your plate, being aware of what foods are protein dense, you can choose to add a little bit of protein in on different parts of the plate that aren't just strictly the protein side of the plate. So you have your protein part of the plate, which is a little bit over a fourth of the plate, but you can also add more grams of protein by choosing things like brown rice as your grain or potatoes.

Potatoes also have protein in them or quinoa because quinoa is a grain that's higher in protein. And then for your vegetables, choose a higher protein vegetable for that vegetable side of your plate so you can have beans, lentils, and chicken or whatever other protein food that you want to put on that side of the plate. So basically trying to make sure that everything that you put on the plate has a little bit of protein, is a great way to make sure that it's going as far as it needs to. This is what I recommend for vegans, by the way, is for a vegan to make sure that everything that they put on their plate has a little bit of protein so that it all adds up to the amount that you need. Higher protein vegetables are things like green peas, which are, there's about nine grams per cup of green peas, nine grams of protein roughly.

Brussels sprouts also have a little bit of protein. It's about six grams per cup. Potatoes, like I mentioned, potatoes, four grams ish, a little over four grams per one. Medium potato asparagus has about five grams per cup. Broccoli, about a little over four grams per one stock. Sweet corn has about five grams per one large ear, so if you're eating corn on the cob, avocado has a little bit of protein in it as well. There's about four grams per one avocado, so it's not a lot, but a little bit here and there will add up on your plate. So if you want to beef up your protein intake, make sure that you're choosing protein dense veggies. And same thing with your grains, like the quinoa is about eight grams per cup, like we talked about. Wild rice is about seven grams per cup, so make sure that everything on your plate has a little bit of protein, and that can make it go a long way.

Also, if you tend to find that you need snacks throughout the day, you get a little snack ish between meals, why not choose a high protein snack, right? Instead of getting a bag of chips or some kind of candy bar or whatever it is that you typically would snack on, grab something that's higher protein, grab something that has protein. You can drink a protein shake as a snack. I do that all the time. Beef jerky and other types of jerky is also a really good high protein snack. There's this one little recipe that I like to make, like Turkey roll-ups, or you can take any kind of deli meat and roll it up with some cheese, and it's like a nice little snack, a little nice little snacky snack. Again, Greek yogurt is another one that I snack on all the time. Veggies and yogurt dip, specifically yogurt dip that's made with Greek yogurt snack on tuna. Plenty of bodybuilders do that, just have tuna. Sometimes they'll eat it right out of the can. That's not my jam. I like to have it flavored in some way, so I'll have mine as a tuna salad, but a lot of people snack with tuna right out of the can. Hard boiled eggs is also a really good high protein snack, cottage cheese, any kind of cheese, but try to get low fat so that we can reduce our intake of saturated fat. There.

You can make cheesy popcorn using nutritious yeast flakes. This is something that a lot of vegans use to add a cheesy type flavor to their dishes because they don't use actual cheese. If you sprinkle that over your vegetables or you sprinkle it over popcorn, that makes a nice cheesy flavored veggie dish or snack. Nuts and seeds are also good protein dense snacks. This is especially good if you are in a muscle building face, if you're trying to bulk, if you have high calorie needs, just be careful if you are in a fat loss phase, eating nuts and seeds because they are pretty calorie dense. They're full of healthy fats, but they are high fat, and that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to make you get fats by eating them, but it is higher calorie. So just again, make sure that you're tracking and measuring how much you're eating there.

And then finally, another way that you can add protein in to reach your high protein needs is to choose protein rich toppings. So when you are making a snack or making a meal, think about topping the meal or the snack with things that have protein in them, like nuts and seeds. You can also add sprinkle in some shredded chicken, some tofu, some beans, nuts and seeds already mentioned by adding this kind of stuff, these little toppings, you can just beef up a little bit of the protein density of the foods that you're eating. So those are my tips for increasing the amount of protein that you're eating every day. And again, make sure to refer to the blog post that goes with this podcast episode, which is linked in the show notes, because I'm going to have a nice little list there, a quick reference list that you can look at to learn what the good sources of protein are generally, and let me know how it is that you reach your daily protein goals. What are the little tips and tricks that you have learned along the way to reach your protein intake? I want to hear about your tips.

So that's it. That's it for today. That's the podcast. Thank you so much again for watching or listening to this episode. Make sure that you subscribe or follow wherever it is that you are. And if you are interested in hanging out with me while I'm live on Twitch, just go to twitch.tv/jaydigains and give me a follow to get notified anytime I go live. I will see you in the next episode. In the meantime, make sure that you eat your protein, eat your veggies, drink some water, and prioritize your self-care, and I will see you soon.