High protein diet plan for weight loss – All you need to know
October 21, 2019If you’re looking to lose weight, protein is the way to go. Including more protein in your diet increases your metabolic rate and also helps preserve muscle mass, promoting weight loss and enabling you to live a healthier life.
Setting up a high protein diet plan for yourself will also help you feel fuller for longer which will help you feel satiated. This can help curb the habit of mindless snacking as feeling full will keep cravings at bay. Protein also helps the body to build healthy cells and repair damaged cells.
And while there is a perception that following a high protein diet plan will offset the dietary balance that the body requires, it isn’t so. People have been following high protein diet charts for ages. Those who live in icy regions like the Arctic or dry regions like Africa depend mostly on protein-based diets since plants grow scarcely in such climates. And while they depend on fish and animal prey respectively, it doesn’t have to be the case with us. High protein vegetarian diet plans are thankfully common nowadays for those who cannot or do not eat meat.
How it works
To begin with, you need to identify what foods to include in your high protein diet plan. Foods like meat, eggs, fish, poultry and tofu are mostly protein. For those interested in building a high protein vegetarian diet plan, foods like legumes, nuts, and seeds, and their byproducts, like nut butter and seed butter offer a good portion of protein. Dairy products like milk, cheese, and yoghurt are also great options. And whole-grain foods and breads are healthier alternatives to regular grains.
Once you have a list of foods to include more in your diet, it’s as simple as planning a high protein diet chart based on your protein requirements, which include the high protein ingredients in higher quantities. It’s best to plan for a week at a time and see what works and what doesn’t for you. Then you can tweak your high protein diet menu accordingly.
You can even have fun with it, trying different recipes and meals to keep you on your toes. Here is a look at some ways you can diversify your high protein diet menu:
Blend some fruits or veggies together in a mixer with some water for a juice, or add a sufficient amount of milk to whip up a smoothie for yourself. You can use a juicer to make the process quick and convenient. Foods like banana, spinach, coconut, almond, mango, kiwi, strawberry, blueberry, and orange are great to incorporate into your high protein diet menu. Avocado is a superfood that is packed with protein and tastes great on its own or when blended with a cup of milk. Smoothies taste even better with a couple of chopped up almonds in the mix, or you can choose to garnish your drink with the same. A crowd favourite ingredient is peanut butter, which is packed with plenty of proteins. Mixing up some peanut butter, milk, and chocolate powder makes for a great shake.
Using split grams and split legumes to cook into dishes like daals and curries is a great, healthy way to meet your protein needs. There are multiple traditional recipes all across India that use legumes to cook into a soup to be eaten with rice or rotis and chapatis or to cook in a pressure cooker with some rice to make khichdi, bise bele bhaat and more. Consuming daals is a great and easy way to incorporate a high protein vegetarian diet plan into your routine.
Quinoa bowls are delicious, healthier alternatives to rice. Using quinoa as a replacement for rice is beneficial because it replaces the carbs of rice that you were consuming with the high amount of protein quinoa offers. Many like to serve quinoa bowls with chopped up vegetables, like lettuce, beetroot, carrots, sprouts and more.
While we’ve already mentioned that peanut butter is a great source of protein, smoothies and shakes are not the only way you can consume them. You can spread a dollop of peanut butter over some bread or toast for breakfast or before a workout for an instant boost of energy. You can also evenly spread a spoonful of peanut butter over some slices of apple for a delicious evening snack. Other spreads and dips like almond butter and guacamole also make for great protein-packed accompaniments to your snacks and meals.
Apart from these, you can get plenty of protein from items like salads and trail mix. You can also mix crushed nuts in some greek yoghurt to make a snack pack for yourself. And, while all these are healthy and delicious combinations to include more protein in your diet, it’s also important to have a healthy balance of fats and carbs in your life, though they will be of lesser quantity. You can visit Wonderchef for some great appliances that can help you with your kitchen needs, be it a smoothie for your blender, or knives for chopped nuts.