How to Eat 180 Grams of Protein a Day for a Full Week

Four anchors. That's the whole trick. Roughly 45 grams of protein at breakfast, 50 at lunch, 55 at dinner, 30 to 35 across snacks. Hit those four and 180 arrives without you thinking about it once after 7 a.m.

The reason most guys miss is breakfast. Two eggs and toast is 16 grams, and you've already put yourself in a hole you spend the rest of the day digging out of with a sad afternoon shaker. Fix breakfast and the day fixes itself.

Mainstream sports nutrition guidance for someone training hard lands somewhere around 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. For a 200-pound man, 180 grams sits right in that band. If you weigh 155, this plan is more than you need, and that's fine — eat the same meals with smaller portions of the meat. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, heart disease or any condition with a prescribed diet, talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian before you change anything. That's not a legal hedge. Protein load is one of the few things a nephrologist genuinely cares about.

The week

Every dinner here makes two servings on purpose. The second one is tomorrow's lunch. Cook once, eat twice, stop thinking about it.

Monday

• Breakfast: Four scrambled eggs with a handful of spinach, plus a cup of cottage cheese with frozen blueberries stirred in. ~49g
• Lunch: Chicken and black bean rice bowl — 6 oz of the sheet-pan chicken from prep day, a cup of rice, half a can of black beans, salsa, a little shredded cheddar. ~58g
• Dinner: Skillet beef and pepper hash. Brown a pound of 93/7 beef with diced onion and two bell peppers, dump in a sliced cooked potato from prep day, hit it with paprika and garlic powder. Eat half. ~48g
• Snacks: Greek yogurt with a banana; one stick of string cheese. ~30g

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Oats cooked in a cup of milk, two tablespoons of peanut butter, sliced banana, and a cup of Greek yogurt on the side. ~43g
• Lunch: Last night's beef hash. ~48g
• Dinner: Lemon-garlic chicken thighs with roasted broccoli and rice. Thighs get salt, garlic, lemon zest and 25 minutes at 425°F. ~52g
• Snacks: Cottage cheese with pineapple; 1 oz beef jerky. ~35g

Wednesday

• Breakfast: Three-egg omelet with cheddar and leftover peppers, two slices of whole-grain toast, glass of milk. ~44g
• Lunch: Chicken thighs over rice with hot sauce and frozen edamame, microwaved and salted. ~55g
• Dinner: Turkey chili. Brown 1¼ lb ground turkey, add a can of diced tomatoes, a can of black beans, onion, chili powder, cumin. Simmer 30 minutes. Makes three servings. ~50g
• Snacks: Greek yogurt with honey; apple with peanut butter. ~28g

Thursday

• Breakfast: Cottage cheese and egg scramble — four eggs, half a cup of cottage cheese folded in at the end so it goes creamy. Toast on the side. ~48g
• Lunch: Turkey chili, serving two, over rice. ~52g
• Dinner: Pork tenderloin with roasted sweet potato and green beans. Rub the loin with mustard, salt and pepper; 400°F until it hits 145°F internal, about 22 minutes. Rest it ten. ~50g
• Snacks: Two hard-boiled eggs; Greek yogurt with berries. ~35g

Friday

• Breakfast: Yogurt bowl — 1½ cups Greek yogurt, oats, frozen berries, peanut butter. ~40g
• Lunch: Tuna smash on rye. Two cans of tuna, a big spoon of Greek yogurt instead of mayo, mustard, diced onion, black pepper, on two slices of bread. Apple on the side. ~62g
• Dinner: Sliced pork tenderloin fried rice with egg, frozen peas and soy sauce. ~52g
• Snacks: String cheese and jerky. ~20g

Saturday

• Breakfast: Big skillet — four eggs over potatoes and onion, glass of milk. ~38g
• Lunch: Turkey chili, serving three, with cheddar. ~54g
• Dinner: Salmon with roasted potatoes and broccoli. 6 oz fillet, olive oil, salt, 400°F for 13 minutes. ~45g
• Snacks: Cottage cheese; yogurt with berries; a handful of edamame. ~45g

Sunday

• Breakfast: Four eggs, two slices of toast, cottage cheese with berries. ~47g
• Lunch: Chicken quesadillas — leftover chicken, cheddar, two tortillas, salsa. ~48g
• Dinner: Lentil and chicken sausage soup. One cup dry lentils, broth, carrots, onion, garlic, sliced sausage. Simmer 35 minutes. ~46g
• Snacks: Greek yogurt, banana, peanut butter. ~32g

The grocery list

Meat and fish

• Chicken breast, 3 lb
• Boneless chicken thighs, 2 lb
• Ground beef, 93/7, 1 lb
• Ground turkey, 93/7, 1¼ lb
• Pork tenderloin, 1½ lb
• Salmon fillet, 6 oz (frozen is fine)
• Chicken sausage, 12 oz
• Canned tuna in water, 4 cans

Dairy and eggs

• Eggs, 2 dozen
• Plain Greek yogurt, two 32 oz tubs
• Cottage cheese, two 24 oz tubs
• Milk, half gallon
• Shredded cheddar, 8 oz
• String cheese, 6-pack

Produce

• Onions, 3
• Bell peppers, 3
• Garlic, 1 head
• Broccoli, 2 heads
• Baby spinach, 5 oz
• Carrots, 1 lb
• Russet potatoes, 5 lb
• Sweet potatoes, 2
• Bananas, 6
• Apples, 4
• Lemon, 1

Frozen

• Mixed berries, 1 lb
• Shelled edamame, 1 lb
• Green beans, 1 lb
• Peas, 12 oz

Pantry

• White or brown rice, 3 lb
• Rolled oats, 1 canister
• Dry lentils, 1 lb
• Black beans, 3 cans
• Diced tomatoes, 1 can
• Chicken broth, 32 oz
• Peanut butter, 1 jar
• Whole-grain bread, 1 loaf
• Flour tortillas, 1 pack
• Salsa, 1 jar
• Olive oil, soy sauce, mustard, hot sauce, honey, chili powder, cumin, paprika, garlic powder

Rough cost at a mid-priced supermarket: $115 to $150, and the meat and dairy are about two-thirds of it. Buy chicken in the family pack and freeze half. The one line item people skip and shouldn't is the second tub of yogurt. You'll go through it.

Prep day, about 90 minutes

1. Oven to 425°F. Chicken breast on one sheet pan with oil, salt and paprika, 22 minutes. Potatoes cubed on another, 35 minutes. Start both at once.
2. Rice cooker or pot: four cups dry rice. That's your week.
3. Boil six eggs while the oven runs. Ice bath, then leave them in the shell.
4. Chop all the onions and peppers at one time. One cutting board, one knife, one cleanup.
5. Portion the cooked chicken into 6 oz containers on a kitchen scale. Not eyeballed.

That scale is the part guys resist and shouldn't. Six ounces of chicken looks like eight. Two weeks of eyeballing is how a 180-gram plan quietly becomes a 140-gram plan, and then you wonder why the bar isn't moving.

What goes wrong

Boredom, usually by Thursday. The fix isn't a new plan, it's a new spice drawer — a jar of smoked paprika and a bottle of chili crisp will carry the same chicken through three completely different meals. If you want to rotate dinners in and out without rebuilding the protein math, sister site delicious.com has thousands of recipes to swap in; just keep the meat portion at 6 ounces and you're fine.

Second thing: cooked weight versus raw. Chicken loses about a quarter of its weight in the oven. The numbers here assume cooked.

Third: you won't want breakfast on day five. Eat it anyway. That's the meal doing the heaviest lifting in the whole week, and it takes nine minutes.

Discipline at the stove is the same discipline as under the bar. One just happens earlier in the day.