How I eat 175 grams of protein every day
In this solo podcast episode, Daniel Clough explains how he consistently consumes 175 g of protein daily, a target based on 1 g per pound of body weight for his 175‑lb frame. He outlines the scientific and expert influences behind this recommendation, then presents three core habit rules: plan the day’s meals, prioritize protein at each eating occasion, and know high‑protein foods. Clough walks through two typical day structures (fasting and non‑fasting) and provides concrete meal examples—breakfast options, lunch with beef or chicken, afternoon whey‑protein or yogurt snack, and flexible dinner scenarios—detailing the protein contribution of each. He discusses how he adjusts meals in real time based on anticipated protein intake, and shares bonus tips on maintaining at least 80 % monthly consistency and the importance of tracking protein with tools like MyFitnessPal. The episode offers a practical framework for anyone looking to meet high protein goals through planning, food knowledge, and systematic tracking.
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Hey, welcome to the Daniel Clough Podcast. I'm Daniel Clough, and on this podcast I cover the power of building foundational health habits in your life. I also share strategies that can help you build your own foundational health habits so that you can become the best version of yourself. Now, protein is one of my 7 foundational health habits, and one of the most common questions I get— and to be fair, only one person has ever asked a question, and it was this, so I think that's an accurate statement— is this: How do you eat so much protein every day? So I'm going to break down how I arrive at my protein target and exactly how I managed to hit it every day. Now, it took me quite a while to figure out how to be able to easily do this, so I'm hoping this will help shortcut your own journey with eating enough protein. Enjoy the episode. In today's episode, I'm going to cover exactly how I eat 175g of protein every day. And this is going to be a super tactical guide. I'm going to share my exact approach, right down to the foods that I rely on to keep my protein intake high. Now, what I'm not going to do in this episode is delve too deep into the importance of protein, or why I consider protein a foundational health habit. And that's because I've done that in previous episodes, and today I want to keep things tactical. If you do want to dig a bit deeper on the importance of protein, it's worth going back and checking out Episode 2, where I cover each of the 7 foundational health habits in depth. But quickly, here's what I will say: Building and maintaining lean muscle should be an important goal for every human being. It helps you be a strong, healthy, capable, and let's not forget, better-looking human being now. But also, the amount of lean muscle you have is a highly predictive metric for the quality of your life as you age, and also how long you're going to live. And simply put, protein plays a critical role in helping you build and maintain lean muscle. Okay, let's jump into things. We'll start with: What is my protein goal? And how might that be relevant for you? I aim for 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Or if you go by kilograms, that would be 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. I weigh 175 pounds, or 80 kilograms. So that means my goal is 175 grams of protein every day. Now, the amount of protein you should consume is a hot topic for sure, and there is a lot of different advice out there. The RDA— that's a Recommended Daily Amount, which is set by a government health body— is only 0.36 grams per pound of body weight. Now, if I were to follow that, that would put me at 63 grams of protein per day. But look, I've never really paid attention to the RDA of anything, and that's because it's a fairly broad recommendation for the average of the entire population. And I'm not looking to be an average person. I'm incredibly active, and I'm looking to push the boundaries on how fit and healthy I can be. And that includes putting on and maintaining as much muscle mass as I can. So I've drifted towards listening to advice from experts who have these goals and are trying to help other people achieve that. People like Peter Attia, Andrew Huberman, Rhonda Patrick, Marcus Phily, Max Lugavere, Sal DiStefano, etc., etc. Now, many of these people have a medical or a science background. They all look the part. They're strong, athletic, fit, and healthy. They back up their advice with scientific studies, and they also often share their own blood work. And this is what has led me to the 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight recommendation for an active person that wants to gain and maintain lean muscle. And therefore, my own personal target of 175 grams of protein per day. I'll put links to the profiles of the experts I mentioned in the show notes, as well as some scientific studies that support this protein recommendation. Okay, I promised you that we'd get tactical, so now let's get tactical. If I look back at my own journey with protein, it took me quite a while to make the leap from struggling to eat 100g of protein a day to now being able to easily eat 175g of protein per day. When I was building the habit, I had to crack 100 grams first. I then built towards 150 grams. And finally, only recently did I increase this target to the gold standard I was always after: 175 grams. And now that I can reflect back on the journey, I think there are 3 things that stand out as super important. And I'll cover these things at a super high level first, and then I'll walk you through an actual day of mine, as I think this is the best way to understand them in practice and to see how they actually play out on a daily basis. So the first thing, you have to have a plan for the day. The biggest mistake you can make is to try and wing it. Even with the knowledge that I have on strategies to eat enough protein, as well as the macronutrient makeup of foods, I will quickly get unstuck if I just jump into the day without a plan. I can easily find myself in the late stages of the day without much hope at all of being able to hit my protein goal. So you need to think ahead for the day. Look at the day ahead and start to map out when and what you're likely to eat throughout the day. Ask yourself the question: "Will this add up to me being able to achieve my protein goal for the day?" The second thing is: Think protein first when it comes to every meal. You probably have 3, maybe 4 opportunities in a day where you're going to have a substantial meal or a snack of some type. If even one of these is low in protein, it adds a big risk to not being able to achieve your protein goal for the day. Ideally, every meal was playing its part in helping you build towards your overall protein target for the day. And the third thing is you need to have a good knowledge of the actual foods that are high in protein. It will be really hard to consistently achieve a protein goal if you don't understand the foods that are high in protein. Your days will be full of guesswork and surprises, and you're going to make lots of mistakes. Now, the good news is it's super easy to educate yourself on this. A quick Google search or ChatGPT session will return lots of information on the top foods that are high in protein, and And you can tailor it to any type of dietary restrictions you may have. So in summary, here are the 3 things: Have a plan for the day. Think protein first when it comes to each meal. And understand the foods that are high in protein. If you can nail these things, you will find it much easier to consistently hit your daily protein goal. Okay, let's jump into how I actually approach a typical day. Because I think it will help put these 3 things into context. Now, I tend to have two different types of days. The first would be when I'm fasting, and on a day like that, I would typically eat my first meal around 1 PM, which would be lunch. I'll then have an afternoon snack around 4 PM and an evening meal usually around 7 or 8 PM. The second type of day would be when I'm not fasting, in which case it's exactly the same as the day I just described, but with the addition of breakfast around 10 AM. So I will typically eat 3 or 4 meals depending on whether I'm fasting or not. And assuming I'm not fasting, I have 4 go-to breakfasts: either 4 poached eggs on a slice of sourdough, or porridge with 4 poached eggs on the side, or 250g of high-protein Greek yogurt with berries and some maple syrup, or 4 poached eggs, 2 slices of streaky bacon, and half an avocado. And each of these breakfasts will give me between 25 and 35g of protein. Now, breakfast is usually my lowest protein meal of the day. And that's okay, because as we talked about earlier, I always have a plan for the day, and I know I have 3 other meals which will help get me to my target of 175g of protein. However, if I knew for some reason I was having some protein-light meals later in the day, I would probably offer something higher protein for breakfast. For example, steak and eggs. I know that would give me about 75g of protein. In fact, I have afternoon tea at a restaurant today. So that's basically sandwiches, cakes, chocolate, etc. Which is going to be a protein disaster. So I'm going to have to eat breakfast and really make it count today. So I'll probably lean on steak and eggs for breakfast today, actually. This is the first example of being self-aware of what's ahead for the day, and having a plan that will allow me to hit my protein target for the day. Okay, on to lunch. I like my lunch to usually give me 50 to 75 grams of protein. However, a lot will depend on whether I've already eaten breakfast, i.e., do I already have a bit of a head start to the day? And it will also depend on what my evening meal is. For example, if I have an evening meal which is average in protein, I'll be looking for lunch to give me at least 75 grams, maybe even 100 grams of protein. And for lunch, I usually default to some type of meat, so that's usually lean minced beef made into homemade burgers, or perhaps some chicken. And then I'll put some type of vegetable around it and often a piece of fruit too. I know it might sound boring, but actually mince fried in some real butter and seasoned is delicious. And there's plenty of things you can do to season chicken so it tastes nice too. And if it's not obvious, almost all of my protein here will come from the meat sauce. For example, 250 grams of lean beef mince will give me about 50 grams of protein. If I haven't eaten breakfast, I will usually add in 3 eggs for an additional 18 grams of protein, taking the total protein for that meal to nearly 70 grams. The other type of lunch I might have is 300 grams of chicken. That's basically about 1.5 large chicken breasts, and that will also give me about 70 grams of protein too. So that's breakfast and lunch, and by now I would hope to be around 100 grams of protein heading into the afternoon. And my afternoon snack is simple. It's either a whey protein shake or the yogurt breakfast I mentioned earlier. Now, the whey protein shake will give me either 25 grams or 50 grams of protein, depending on whether I have 1 or 2 scoops. And as a reminder, the yogurt meal gives me about 25 grams of protein. And what I end up deciding for my afternoon snack depends on quite a bit. If I'm sitting at 100 grams of protein and I know I have a very high protein dinner ahead of me, well, I will probably skip the whey protein shake altogether and just have some yogurt. However, if I'm sitting at around 75g of protein, and I know my dinner won't get me to my goal, I will use the shake to fill in the 25g or 50g hole. Maybe even have some yoghurt as well if that's needed. And actually, in some cases, if I'm well over 100g of protein, and I know my evening meal is going to be very high in protein, and it will easily get me to my 7— sorry, easily get me to my 175g, I might even skip the afternoon snack entirely to save the calories. Again, like I said earlier, here I'm being very mindful about where I am in the day and what's left to come in the day. And I will tailor my afternoon snack accordingly. And that's where rule 1 and 3 come in. You have to have a plan and you have to know the protein content of the actual foods you're eating. Otherwise, you won't be able to do any of this thinking. Right, let's get on to dinner. For me, dinner is pretty random. It's really the one time where I have to fit into other people's plans. Mostly my family's. And for the most part, it's a meat-based meal that will give me between 50 to 75 grams of protein. Now, when I get my way, it's got some type of steak or chicken at the heart of it, which usually gives me a solid 50 to 100 grams of protein. And even when it's not that, I can usually find a way to sneak some type of chicken or steak into it. But sometimes it might be, I don't know, sausages, or perhaps a jacket potato with some tuna,— and this is usually only going to give me about 30 grams of protein. And in some cases, it might actually be a meat-free pasta type of meal, which admittedly is going to be tasty, but it's absolutely shocking for protein. And in this scenario, I could be looking at less than 20 grams of protein. Now, the evening meal isn't one which I can completely control. Yeah, I do have a reasonable amount of influence over our meal planning, and in some cases, I will even opt out of a certain type of meal and eat something different. But it's important to be flexible and to fit in with what other people like too. So my dinner can be low, medium, or high protein depending on what's on the menu. And again, here's the important thing: I always know what's coming. So I will always adjust the meals that lead up to it, take into account what it is. And one more thing about dinner: if my dinner is low protein or I just need a top-up in the evening, I will default to that yogurt meal. So yogurt, berries, and maple syrup. And it's a quick way to get a 30-gram protein hit, and it's also a good healthy option for dessert. And that's what my days look like to eat 175 grams of protein. Now, you'll notice a few things. I always have a plan for the day, and in some cases, I'm constantly adjusting the plan to make sure that I hit my goal. I understand foods that are high in protein and always think protein first when it comes to each meal. And my standard day tends to look like: breakfast, about 30 grams of protein; lunch, somewhere between 50 to 70 grams of protein; an afternoon snack, which gives me 25 to 50 grams of protein; and then dinner, somewhere between 50 and 75 grams of protein. And this will consistently net me about 180, 190-ish grams of protein that I eat on average every day. Now, I'll leave you with 2 bonus tips before we wrap the episode. The first is I do try and hit my goal of 175 grams of protein per day, and because it's a foundational health habit that I track, I want to be at least 80% consistent with that over the course of the month. That said, the average over the week is probably what's more important. So sometimes I will come in at about 150 grams for the day, or actually worse, there might be some days where because of some travel or commitment, I end up at 100 grams for the day. Now, I don't tend to sweat that too much because I know there will be other days where I'll naturally come in over the 200g mark, and it will usually even out over the week. The second tip is this: it's really important to track your protein throughout the day and the week. Without this, it's really hard to know if you're achieving your target or not. I have a very good knowledge of what's in each food, and I think I would even have a margin of error of between 20% and 30% if I was to guess at the end of the day. And almost on a weekly basis, I get surprised by a meal being either higher or lower in protein than I would expect it to be. Now, I track everything I eat with the MyFitnessPal app, so I always have a very good grasp of what I'm eating every day, including my protein, and what my average protein is for the week at any point. Now, you don't have to track it as meticulously as I do. It could just be that you jot down the rough amount of protein per meal on a piece of paper throughout the day. You've got to find a system which works for you. The other benefit to tracking it daily is it's a great way to educate yourself on the macronutrient breakdown of foods, and therefore which ones will give you the best bang for buck when it comes to protein. Okay, that's it. I hope this episode has been helpful, and hopefully it's given you both a framework but also some tactical steps to be able to consistently eat more protein. All right, happy eating.
