The Protein Pro-Team

Are you struggling to increase or maintain your daily protein intake? In addition to the meals that you are eating daily, focusing on supplementing with high protein snacks between meals can help you crush your goals. Below are some snack and meal prep ideas that can help you stay on track:

HIGH PROTEIN BREAKFAST PREP IDEA:

Starting the day with a high protein breakfast truly sets the day up for success. Of course, breakfast includes coffee! We boost the protein content in our coffee with a scoop of collagen from The Vitamin Shoppe. One scoop has 6G of protein and it mixes very well in hot coffee - no clumps of collagen powder detected once it's mixed in!

For breakfast, we meal prep on Sunday and portion out 10 breakfasts for the week. If you are cooking for one, we recommend cutting the portions we eat in half. We brown up some chicken sausage links (0.8-1 link per breakfast), usually 2 packages of chicken sausage (anywhere between 8-10 links). Below are some great quality brands to check out:

• Simple Truth - 14G per serving

• Al Fresco - 13G per serving

• Aidells - 13G per serving

• Trader Joes - 11G per serving

• Amylu - 11G per serving

• Applegate - 9G per serving

In addition to chicken sausage, we will hard boil 2 eggs per breakfast (10 eggs total) for the week ahead. 2 eggs = 12G of protein, which is an excellent source of easy protein. If you do not like eggs, consider buying avocados to have in addition to your breakfast as 1 medium avocado = 3G of protein.

Included in this prep is typically baked diced red potatoes coated in EVOO & mixed with our own seasoning blend and portioned out into 10 breakfast containers along with the chicken sausage. This is not really a high protein content food, but it pairs exceptionally well with our standard chicken sausage and eggs and helps keep you full for several hours after eating. This breakfast equals out to anywhere between 25-35G in 1 meal!

HIGH PROTEIN SNACK IDEAS:

Greek Yogurt:

Plain Fage Greek yogurt is an excellent source of protein (& it doesn’t taste like straight up sour cream!). With the addition of 2 tbsp wheat germ, this snack adds up to 20G total! We love to add berries, such as strawberries and blueberries, along with the wheat germ to give this snack some flavor without the artificial sweetener/sugar that is used in flavored greek yogurt 🫐🍓. Some other brands of plain greek yogurt that we have tried and enjoyed include:

• Trader Joes - 15G per serving

• Chobani - 14G per serving

Jumping on the greek yogurt train led us to discover Yasso bars to have for dessert! The chocolate fudge flavor is our favorite and has 5G protein per serving. It is just about as close to ice cream as you can get, but certainly tastes a little healthier!

Meat Sticks:

Meat sticks are an awesome high protein snack on the go. They are also very easy to pack in a lunchbox, purse, gym bag, etc. There are many brands that exist now that make meat sticks with much healthier ingredients. Some of our favorites include:

• The New Primal - 6-9G protein per serving; be sure to use code KCOOKZ at checkout for 15% off entire order!

• Chomps - 10-12G per serving

• Epic Bars - 7-12G per serving

Tuna:

BumbleBee tuna pouches have a whopping 16G of protein - and you can eat it right out of the pouch with no draining required. If you like tuna, this is an excellent snack option to help hit your protein goals. We prefer the pouches because the cans can be a little messy with the extra liquid inside. These pouches also come in a variety of flavors and they are very affordable, though our favorite is the unflavored pouch so as to limit added sugars and flavorings. 🐟

Nuts:

Raw nuts from Sams Club, Costco, or any bulk food store are another great option to have on hand. 1 serving of nuts is ~4-6G and pair well with fruit to balance out a mid morning or mid afternoon snack between meals. Serving sizes are important with nuts as they tend to be highly caloric 🧠 Here are some of our pantry staples:

• Raw Walnuts - 4G per serving

• Raw Almonds - 6G per serving

• Raw Pecans - 3G per serving

RXBAR:

RXBARs tend to have high protein content - the vanilla almond flavor is our favorite and has 12G protein in just 1 bar. We often use this snack sparingly because of its high sugar content that comes from the dates (16G sugar per bar). We would not recommend this snack every day, but everything is okay in moderation!

Protein Powder:

Protein shakes/protein powder are both an excellent way to boost your protein intake throughout the day, however we do not recommend replacing meals with protein shakes. Protein shakes and powders are meant to supplement your protein intake, but do not have the appropriate nutritional value that comes from food. If you are really struggling to hit your protein goal on a hard workout day, or you are nowhere close to your goal by dinner, think about incorporating a shake to help you out. Our favorite protein powder is Jocko Protein Powder (chocolate flavor); there are 22G protein per serving. Other protein shakes that we have heard great things about include:

• Orgain Clean Protein Shake - 20G per serving

• Fairlife Core Power High Protein Shake - 26G per serving

We hope this helps you crush your protein goals! Feel free to write any of these foods down on your "Protein Cheat Sheet" in your habit tracking book/digital download for easy reference. Drop a comment below if you have been hitting your goals and what you have been eating to help reach these goals!

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