Strong And Satisfied: High Protein Dinner Tips From A Nutrition Coach

Do you struggle to eat enough protein to get the fitness results you want? You’re not alone. I’m breaking the exact strategies I use to plan and eat a high protein dinner every night of the week.

Most people undereat protein. They get hung up on calories, overwhelmed by the idea of their new (bigger) protein target, choose low-quality protein sources and end up overly stuffed but under-fueled.

When it comes to hitting your protein goals, you can’t keep using the same old dinner recipes and hope for a better outcome. If you want to hit your protein goal, you need a strategy.

This post breaks it down: what actually works, where you can take shortcuts, and how to keep a high protein dinner and diet interesting long-term.

High protein dinner: why so important?

Ask any expert in the fitness and nutrition industry and they’ll tell you: eating a high protein diet can be the difference between achieving the fitness/physique you want and spinning your wheels in frustration. And dinner lends itself incredibly well to this goal for many reasons.

Muscle growth and repair

Protein provides the building blocks of muscle in the form of amino acids. Eating enough protein is crucial to ensuring that your body has the fuel it needs to repair, rebuild and strengthen muscle tissue. This is especially true post-workout.

Most people I know workout before dinner. Usually after work, but before the head home for the day. Making dinner the perfect time to replenish amino acids and optimize muscle protein synthesis.

Weight management

Protein is filling. Imagine eating a chicken breast compared to a similar portion of popcorn. What’s going to make you feel fuller and keep you feeling full longer?

When trying to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight, satiety plays a crucial role in overall caloric intake, adherence and sustainability of results.

Thermic Effect

All food has a thermic effect (TEF). TEF is the increase in metabolic rate due to the energy required for digestion, absorption, and processing of nutrients. At a TEF of 20-30%, protein has the highest TEF of all macronutrients, followed by carbohydrates and then fats.

Hormone balance

Those amino acids that your body uses to build muscle are also used to produce hormones that among other things, affect stress and sleep.

• Stress hormones: adequate protein intake can help maintain balanced levels of stress hormones like cortisol. Balanced cortisol levels are important for reducing stress and promoting recovery.

• Sleep hormones: protein consumption can influence the production of serotonin, a precursor to melatonin, which is vital for regulating sleep cycles.

• Growth hormones: protein supports the production of growth hormone, which peaks during sleep and aids in tissue repair and muscle growth.

Metabolic boost

Between its lean muscle building properties and its TEF, protein boosts overall metabolic rate making it easier to achieve your fitness and physique goal.

Strategies that work for me: high protein dinner tips from my kitchen to yours

These are the daily and weekly strategies that I put on repeat to ensure that eating a high protein dinner is not a lucky chance, but the norm:

1: Plan Meals Specifically Around Protein

Skip fancy meal-prep style meals. Instead, follow the Fit Plate Rule: 1/2 the plate = non-starchy vegetables, 1/4 of the plate = protein, 1/4 of the plate = starches.

That’s your blueprint.

Simple. Effective. REPEATABLE.

For example:

• Sunday: whole roasted chicken

• Monday: chicken salad with the leftovers

• Tuesday: shrimp

• Wednesday: pork tenderloin

• Thursday: chicken, again

• Friday: burgers

• Saturday: salmon

2: Beat Boring

There’s nothing wrong with a little food boredom. In fact, there are coaches who recommend food boredom because it has shown to cut back on cravings. But my clients don’t come to me for boiled chicken and broccoli. Plus eating the same foods over and over again can lead to nutrient deficiencies which we want to avoid.

I use this super simple strategy to keep my high protein dinners anything but boring: explore the flavors of the world.

For example your Monday night chicken salad could be Mediterranean themed with olives, feta, fresh fill and oven-baked potatoes wedges. Or make it a buffalo chicken salad with cucumber and a Greek-yogurt Ranch-style dressing.

Shrimp on Tuesday can become shrimp tacos, shrimp primavera over zucchini noodles, or BBQ shrimp and corn on the cob.

3: Plan Dinner for the Whole Week

Start your week with a clear, solid plan.

Hitting high protein targets does not happen by chance. It comes from planning ahead, prepping what you can and being flexible enough to pivot as needed.

Sit down on Saturday or Sunday and sketch out an entire week’s-worth of high protein dinners. Open up cookbooks. Explore Pinterest. Find recipes – old and new – that motivate you to eat more protein. Then head to the grocery store.

Your menu doesn’t have to be set in stone. If Tuesday’s dinner becomes Monday’s dinner, oh well. You have the ingredients for both. And since you planned ahead, you know they’ll both end up being high protein dinners.

4: Use the Grocery Store

A high protein dinner plan does not have to be complicated or take up a ton of your time. In fact for my clients, it’s really important that it doesn’t!

Don’t take on the weight of slicing, dicing and cooking every last morsel.

Instead, take advantage of your grocery store when and where you can:

• But pre-cooked proteins: rotisserie chicken, smoked salmon, frozen cooked shrimp

• Buy pre diced, sliced and “noodled” vegetables and fruit. Those party platters of crudite and fruit chunks? You don’t need to be hosting a pool party to take advantage of that prep…

I wrote an entire article on how to use the grocery store to help you plan and prep. You can read it here.

5: Make More Than You Need for Dinner

Do you know what’ make’s an incredibly easy, high protein dinner?

One that’s already done.

Every time you make dinner, plan on just a bit more than you need.

Grilling chicken? Buy a family pack.

Roasting veggies? Fill two pans instead of one.

Making soup? Double or even triple your recipe.

More output for the exact same amount of cook time.

What to Avoid When Making a High Protein Dinner Meal Plan:

The simple, actionable strategies listed above should give you a clear blueprint for success. But just in case you can feel a familiar sense of overwhelm descending on you now that it’s time to take action, let’s quickly go through the common missteps I see that end up overwhelming and stalling success:

1. Thinking it has to be perfect. Your dinner doesn’t It doesn’t have to look like a Pinterest ad. It just have to help you hit your goals and taste good.

2. Being too rigid. Thursdays dinner can become Mondays dinner. You can go out to eat on Saturday and still get back on track. Life happens. Move on.

3. Doing it all on Sunday. I encourage my clients to use one weekend day to do the bulk of the planning and prepping, and then plan a “mini-prep” day on Wednesday or Thursday. It’s less overwhelming and food stays fresher.

4. Trying to do it all yourself. If your family is used to you doing all of the planning, shopping and cooking, there’s no incentive for them to ask to lend a hand. ASK them. Give them a task and do it together.

Conclusion

Even the highest protein targets can be met if you have a plan. Failure to reach your goal only happens what you try to wing it and hope for the best.

Don’t wing it. Relying on hope isn’t going to build the fitness and physique you want.

If you want to achieve fitness success, build a system that guarantees that:

• Plan ahead

• Keep it simple

• Make it repeatable

• Use shortcuts as needed

• Ask for help

Don’t settle for “I hope I get there…”. Build a plan that leads you there.

That’s how you build the body of your dreams.