Lean Protein

I used to have very haphazard eating habits. Rarely ate breakfast, went until lunch sustained by a little coffee with my cream and sugar, ate lunch on the run, snacked to ward off the late afternoon crash, then was starving by dinner and ate a big meal for the day. I rarely thought about protein and daydreamed of starchy carbs. Looking back I'm not sure how I even functioned that way, but it's pretty obvious how I wrecked my body composition.

Cleaning the junk out of my diet and bringing order to the chaos helped push me in the right direction, but it wasn't until I realized how critical balanced nutrition is to the bigger picture (or maybe smaller, more muscular picture) that I really got serious about the protein in my diet. Now I actually wake up hungry, never skip breakfast and can feel a big difference in my hunger and energy levels if I don't keep the protein up. For instance, I'm attending a conference this week and all they had for breakfast this morning was muffins or bagels with butter/jelly and fruit. Not a real gram of protein in sight. Ugh.

Here are some of my favorite sources of lean protein:

• grilled, baked or boiled chicken breast (skinless)
• egg whites
• 99% fat free ground turkey (burger without the bun)
• 97% fat free turkey cutlets
• extra lean turkey bacon (Jennie-O)
• tilapia (cooked in a pan with olive oil)
• albacore tuna
• salmon (packaged like tuna or grilled)
• 95% lean ground beef
• bison (ground or steaks)
• shrimp (hot with a little parmesan cheese)

My other favorite protein sources are:

• Fage Zero fat-free Greek yogurt
• 1% cottage cheese
• non-fat milk
• black beans
• chocolate whey
• edamame
• quinoa
• nuts (almonds and walnuts)
• peanut butter

EDIT: string cheese! How could I forget that? Thanks Fred!

I will use protein bars in a crunch (such as this morning) and on the run. Now if I could just wean myself to fresh ground peanut butter instead of the stuff off the shelf I've eaten since I was a kid!

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