subject: Eat Enough Protein to Improve Your Sports Fitness Training [print this page] Eat Enough Protein to Improve Your Sports Fitness Training
To improve your sports fitness training, you need to concentrate on your protein intake. Protein is a very important nutrient for building and repairing muscles. It also plays an important role in many other functions of your body.
It is important to ensure that your diet contains a certain amount of protein per meal. A typical athlete's diet consists of eating five to six smaller meals throughout the day. Sometimes incorporating enough protein into each meal can be difficult.
You need to know how many grams of protein are necessary for your specific daily intake, in order to ensure optimal strength and size gains.Figuring out this number is the first step in increasing your protein intake and getting on the road to a more efficientworkout.
Just like with your sports fitness training, preparation is important to ensure you are getting enough protein. An important skill for all athletes is learning to prepare and eat protein.
Buy your high protein meats, such as chicken, meat and fish in bulk, and bake them all at the same time. Always have hard boiled eggs and cottage cheese on hand for a quick protein snack. Many athletes also use protein powder to help them get the amount of protein they need.
Use the following tips for preparing eggs, chicken, and tuna:
Baked Fresh, Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
Three ounces of this chicken usually contains around 20 grams of protein.
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.
There are two ways to ensure your clean-up is fast and easy. You can spray your baking sheet with a non-stick spray, or you can cover the baking sheet with tin foil. Covering with tin foil is the easiest way to clean up because after the chicken is cooked, you just have to throw the foil away.
Bake for 30 minutes, and let cool completely. If you cut the chicken up into small pieces and store them in plastic storage containers, it will be a breeze to add them to your next meal.
Making Hard Boiled Eggs
One egg usually contains around six grams of protein, and six grams of fat. One
egg white usually has about four grams of protein.
Fill a large pot with water, and bring to a boil.
Place the desired number of eggs in the pot. The number you can fit depends on the size of your pot. Try to fit 18-30 at a time.
Boil eggs for 10-15 minutes. When you see them begin to crack, you know they are almost done. Turn off the heat but let the eggs sit in the hot water for an additional five minutes.
Drain the hot water and rinse with cold water a few times.
Peel the eggs and place them into plastic storage containers.
Make Use of Canned Tuna Fish
One can of tuna usually contains around 25-30 grams of protein
Tuna usually comes in a small can. Take the tuna out of these smaller cans and place it into a larger container for bulk storage and preparation. Canned tuna fish is usually very inexpensive and can be a great source of protein.
Canned tuna definitely has a smell. As soon as you have emptied the can, wash it out with running water. This will prevent your kitchen from smelling fishy.
By cooking and storing your protein sources in bulk containers, you will be able to make quick and easy meals chock full of protein. When you have finished a container of cottage cheese, don't throw it away. These containers are a great way to store your other protein, and make it easy to transport. Another great way to bring your protein with you is to buy a portable cooler. Most of the big retailers sell these portable coolers.
Protein Economics
If you have an unlimited budget, getting enough protein is easy. However, some athletes that are on a tight budget may need to focus their protein choices on fresh chicken breast, canned tuna, eggs, and protein powder. These are the least expensive ways for an athlete to consume all the grams of protein they need.
Calculate your protein to price per gram. This way, when you have set up your diet and know how many grams of protein you need to eat, you will also know how much it will cost you.
During the process of cooking chicken, a chicken breast usually loses 25% of its weight. So a pound of chicken breasts that should contain 100 grams of protein actually contains about 75 grams after it is cooked. Now, if this pound of chicken breast cost $2 a pound, and yields 75 grams of protein, it only requires simple math to calculate the price per gram. Divide 200 ($2 in pennies) by 75. The answer is 2.66. Remember, you converted the dollars to cents, so this means your protein in your boneless skinless chicken breast costs 2.66 cents per gram.
So, if you require 50 grams of protein per meal, you would take 50 times 2.66. The cost of protein for a meal of boneless, skinless chicken breast will be $1.33.
Canned tuna fish usually contains two and a half servings and each serving contains between 10-13 grams of protein. The most expensive tuna is albacore white, and can cost as much as two dollars per can. The cheapest, darker version of tuna is called chunk light tuna. This can sometimes be found on sale for as cheap as fifty cents per can.
If you buy a can of chunk light tuna for fifty cents, and it contains a total of 30 grams of protein, this can make a very cheap meal. The price per gram equals 1.6 cents. So a meal requiring 50 grams of protein will only cost you a total of eighty cents.
Hopefully you find these tips for preparing and eating protein helpful. There are definitely more ways of incorporating protein into your diet. I have just given you the basics here. Use these tips as a starting point for managing your protein intake to improve your sports fitness training.
