Proteins are the building blocks of our body.  When we eat food with protein in it, our body breaks it down and uses those molecules as building blocks for different tissues in our body. One example of this is that broken down proteins help build or maintain muscle tissue in our body.

At The Trucking Fitness Company, we want to keep things as easy for you as possible.  We can do that by using your hand as an easy gauge to measure an appropriate serving size of protein. Take your hand and look at your palm. This is a good reference point that doesn’t involve counting, measuring or doing math.  Your goal is to try to eat a palm size portion of protein at every meal of the day.  Using your hand as a measurement device is good because how big you are and how much protein you need normally go up together proportionally.  

If you remember the last lesson, we don’t think of foods as good or bad, we think of them as eat more or eat less and when it comes to proteins, the same concept is also true. Take a look at this chart. Under the Eat More category, you have proteins like eggs, chicken, greek yogurt and lean beef. Under the Eat Some category, you have foods like protein powders, meat jerky, and deli meats.  Finally in the Eat Less category, you have fried meats, chicken fingers, protein bars and high fat sausages like roller dogs.

The big thing to remember is that it’s okay to eat any food in any category, but when we take a step back and look at your whole day of eating or the whole week, we want to see a majority of the protein you are eating in that Eat More category!