I Make These 3 High Protein Lunches When I Have No Time (Day 5 of our 7-Day Protein Challenge)

So I like to break my fast with a loaded smoothie. And I call it loaded because I'm loading it not only with protein, but with lots of good stuff. So I'm going to walk you through how I do this because this is how you can easily start your day or have lunch or dinner with making sure you're getting at least 30 grams of protein. So it all starts with the nut milk or seed milk. Now I'm using a flax milk and this one I really dig because it's got extra protein in it. So I do 10 ounces of flax milk. And so what happens when I do 10, 10 ounces of flax milk is I get 8 grams of protein. So that's awesome. Next thing I throw in is my shake mix. Now I've got plant based and I've got Paleo inspired. The Paleo inspired does have collagen in it because I'm going to show you my hack. But I do two scoops here. I, I heap them up. All right? I'm not one of those level gals, so I'm heaping up the scoops. So I'm getting 20 grams. Their reality is I'm getting a 20 a little bit more than 20 grams. Now I add in extra of my whole body collagen. Now here's the deal. If you are vegan, then you are not going to be able to do this. But I would highly recommend that even if you're trying to be more plant based, that you add in the collagen. Because I'm getting 11 more grams of protein right there. Now it's not complete, but when you put it with the others, it's going to be fine. So I do that. I'm adding in some flax seed. Now I use freshly ground flaxseed in here because I don't. Again, if you are doing this, ideally you either got ground flaxseed you store in the fridge or you freshly grind it. If you're using a nutribullet, it will grind fine in the NutriBullet. I got two more grams of protein right there. I also throw in a little bit of my extra fiber because I'm always trying to up my fiber for my gut microbiome, right? So I add in some of that as well because I'm getting a load of fiber in here as well. Now one of the other ways I'm getting fiber is I'm adding in half of a green banana. Here's what I do. I take a banana and right when it's like green starting to turn yellow. I peel them and freeze them and I put a half of it in my shakes that I get the resistant starch that helps make butyric acid. So that's the other thing that I'm doing. Then I add in some ice. Reality is I like really thick shakes. So you'll see this a little thicker than usual, but again, 10 ounces of fluid. And blend. All right, so this shake has 40 grams of protein in it. What a great way to start the day. What a great thing to do after you work out too. Is fantastic. In fact, what I'll do then is I also this is a great way to get your creatine in. If you're adding creatine to help with support. Good muscle protein synthesis. But I love about this is I've got my protein in here with fiber to slow down stomach emptying. I've got the protein that is really going to help with satiety, right? I've got the fiber here to help with blood sugar balance. And I got in some healthy fats from the flax as well. So I've got my trifecta of protein, fat and fiber. But I really went protein first with the 40 grams of fiber. Protein. Remember, 30 grams of protein is your minimum for that bumper meal, that breaking of the fast or the last meal three to four hours before bed. One of my favorite things to do for lunch is to make a leftover salad. So I'm kind of a lazy chef. Most of my cooking is done by my husband. I'm admitting it. But what I like to do is make a salad a couple times a week because then I'll cut all the stuff up. So first thing I like to do is start with a lot of different greens because you're getting. Remember, we want diversity of our vegetables and fruit to really feed our gut microbiome. So I start with a lot of different greens. I'm heavy on arugula. I really love that. Plus I cut up some cucumbers. I've got some red onion. I've got some different colored tomatoes and I even went for it and put some radishes in here. So a lot of different colors. That's super key important. And if you're a lazy person like me, cut them up a couple times a week. So I might make salad on Sunday and then I'll have it Monday, Tuesday, do it again on Wednesday. Right? So that's the first part. Now next thing is I want to make sure that I'm getting my protein so I Got a lot of non starchy vegetables. In fact, right here I probably got three servings of non starchy vegetables and a rainbow of colors. Yellow, red, green. So awesome there. Next thing I'm going to do is I'm going to add in some protein. So this is 4 ounces of leftover wild salmon. 4 ounces of leftover wild salmon is going to give me 24 grams of protein. Also some healthy fat. So I first have the carbohydrates and fiber from the non starchy vegetables. Little protein there, but that's again, those are not protein rich. Those. Then I got my wild salmon. That's 24 grams. Not enough. Right. So next thing I'm going to do is add in some slow, low carbs that are also high in protein. And that is chickpeas or garbanzo beans. I also like these because they've got some good phytoestrogens in them. But garbanzo beans are going to give me a lot of fiber, but also I'm getting 15 grams of protein in this half cup. So there you go. I just got myself up to 40 grams of protein for my salad. And then what I like to do, one of the places that things really go nuts and is when you use crappy salad dressings. They've got bad oils and usually sugars in them. So one of the things that I like to do is make my own. And again, lazy chef. Okay, so I'll use either red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar or lemon juice. I'm going to do lemon juice here because lemon juice with salmon's yummy. And then I just keep some organic lemon juice in the house. And then my buddies over at Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club have been sending me olive oil every month for years. Love them. And so I'm really keen on doing lots of good fresh pressed olive oil. So I try to do olive oil every single day for all the polyphenols. Really good for you. So I'm getting some healthy fat in the wild salmon. I'm also going to get some healthy fat in my salad dressing. See how easy that salad dressing was? And then I might put a little sea salt on top. But let's recap what we've got here. I've got my protein first because I did my wild salmon, my garbanzo beans, I got four 40 grams of protein there. And again, we're looking at 30 kind of for our meals, depending on how much you're eating during the day. I know for me, I try to get between 120 and 150 grams of protein. And then I got in lots of non starchy vegetables. I got in some slow, low carbs from their garbanzo beans. I got in healthy fat from the salmon and the extra virgin olive oil. So I got my trifecta of clean protein, non starchy vegetables, slow, low carbs, and fiber. So fiber and fat, right? So easy. And it was leftovers. And look how fast I put it together. Minutes. So I'm going to show you how I put together a soup with leftovers that's super easy. It always starts with having some really high quality bone broth. You can do chicken, you can do beef, but that's the starting point. So keep this in your freezer because this allows you to kind of like create a meal in minutes of leftovers. Again, I'll use whatever leftovers, leftover vegetables I have. If I don't happen to have anything great. I always do rice cauliflower for the win because this is just a great thing to have. So rice cauliflower is another thing I always keep in my freezer. Now I have a leftover chicken. So here's one of the ways I'm going to pump up the protein in my leftover soup. Like this is what I'm calling my leftover soup. So first thing I do is grab part of my leftover chicken. I'm going to see how much that is because I'm going to make two servings of soup here that bone broth has. I got 30 grams of protein in the bone broth. So if I'm doing two servings, I want to make sure that I'm getting my, my protein servings up to at least 60 grams. But. But more. I'd love to see it more even 80 to 100. So right now, right here, okay, so I have 30 on the bone broth. Now I have right now 30 grams of chicken protein. I'm going to add in more, but not a whole lot more because I've got one more secret ingredient to make this easy. Leftovers. So there is another 15. So see how easy. Just some leftover. Keep leftover chicken in your fridge. I'm also going to throw in again. I love it when I have a bunch of leftover veggies because I'm just going to toss in as many leftover veggies as possible. But I'm trying to eat way more mushrooms. Been talking to my girlfriend, Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, and I am convinced that mushrooms are one of the things we need to eat a lot more of. So These are some baby Bellas. They're also rich in vitamin D. But mushrooms are something we want to incorporate into our diets a couple times a week. So this is something I like to keep in my fridge. Easy enough to throw in. So again, this is made from leftovers and then just stuff in my fridge, freezer and pantry. One of the things I keep in my pantry because right now we've got 60 grams of protein in here. The other thing I'm going to add in are some lentils. And I just had some. You could use just some dried lentils that you would then simmer in the broth. I'm kind of cheating using some organic canned lentils. But I'm going to put in a cup of lentils here and that is going to give me another 15 grams of protein. So between that and the vegetables and everything else, I'm up at about 80 grams of protein for this soup. And again, all I did was use leftover chicken. I took some bone broth I had in the freezer, some, some cauliflower I had in the freezer. If I'd had any leftover vegetables from dinner, I ate them all, I would have thrown those in too. And then I had some mushrooms hanging out in the fridge too. So this was an easy leftover soup. I'm just going to let this simmer and then this is a great thing to have for lunch or to have for. I, I say lazy dinner, but kind of all my dinners are slightly lazy because you'll see how easy these are, how few ingredients they are. But here's the bottom line. I've got my clean protein from the bone broth, from the chicken and from the lentils. I've got some great vegetables from the cauliflower rice and from the mushrooms. And I've got loads of fiber. Now what's missing here? Well, what's missing here is a little bit of healthy fats. I could add some extra virgin olive oil into this as well. Or I could have a serve aside salad with some olive oil, maybe throw some nuts in there. But the thing you want to make sure you also get in here is make sure you're getting the healthy fats as well. So you have that trifecta of protein, fat and fiber.