Back to Basics Mini-Series: The Three-Pronged Approach to Hitting Your Protein Goals

Today, we’re continuing our Back to Basics series with a deep dive into protein intake. Last week, we discussed hydration and how to make sure you’re getting enough, and now we’re focusing on protein—where to get it from, how to improve your intake, and why it matters.

When it comes to protein, many people get caught up in finding the "best" source. Instead, let’s focus on what you’re already eating and make small adjustments to improve from there. The simpler we keep it, the better it will work for you.

Tune in for insights on how to identify your current protein sources, easy ways to improve your intake, and how consistency—rather than perfection—can help you make lasting changes to your nutrition. This episode will guide you through practical tips that don’t overwhelm, but instead make protein work for you!


References

Get on the waitlist for the next round of Dr. Rentea’s 30/30 Program (starting April 2025)

Mini-Course: The Top 5 Mistakes That People Make When Starting a GLP-1

The Dr. John Delony Show

ReciMe App

Factor meals

Download Dr. Rentea’s FREE Resource: Power Picks for Metabolic Health


Audio Stamps

00:30 - We hear an update about the January 30/30 Program cohort kicking off, highlighting its supportive community and weekly calls.

02:10 - Today’s “back to basics” episode targets protein intake, focusing on keeping things simple, looking at what you're already doing, and making realistic changes.

04:43 - Dr. Rentea outlines her three-pronged approach to protein intake.

18:32 - Start with the protein basics, personalize your meals, and adjust based on how your body feels—without making it hard on day one.


Quotes

“We're going to choose the reality that you're in and then we're going to plan backwards and we're going to say, ‘Okay, given what my life looks like right now,

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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April 30/30 registration.

Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How are you all feeling today? Can you believe how quick this new year is already going? I am thoroughly enjoying the start to this year. We are starting off the 30 30 program right now. This is the January cohort, if you would. This is the second time that I'm running this program and I love it. It's a small group, less than 20 people, small group coaching program, and we have videos every week that go over different things. We have different topics, but ultimately, it's It's really a group where we meet for a weekly group call. If people can't make it, it's not a problem. We get the recordings up and then we have a WhatsApp group for any time people to ask questions, to share different wins. Maybe they're finding different recipes, different ideas, different things that are happening that they want to share. You know, really when you're on this road, it's hard to find people that are doing that are sort of facing in a same direction and that want to work on this stuff. So I absolutely love the 30 30 program if you're someone that really wants to go deep with this work. Maybe you just want to keep refining what you're doing, or you want to start to begin with, but it's really just an opportunity to, to dig deep. The January round is full. But if you're someone that wants to participate in the next round, our next one is going to be in April and then September. I only run this program three times a year. We limit enrollment. There's not always room for everyone, but this is something that it's just a really special experience if you can participate in this. And I absolutely love those weekly calls and the shares that happen in the WhatsApp group. It's, it's just really special because it's, you know, It's not what's happening out on social. It's not these meaningless interactions. It people really care about each other in the group and that's just really special. So today we're going to get back to that back to basic series. So last week we talked about how hydration is important and really looking at well, what, how am I getting hydration? And are there ways in which I can improve or is that already in a good direction for me? So you know, If you have not listened to that, pause here, go back and listen to week one, the first week of January, where we go over that. And then this week we're going to talk about protein intake. Now I want to be super clear here. My podcast is, I'm not coming at it from the perspective of being a registered dietician. I, I'm not claiming to have the how to on everything, but as much as we can, the simpler we keep things, the better it will be. So I'm going to give you an example. When you're setting out for protein, people will often say, well, what's the best protein and what's this and what's that? And the first thing I want to know is what are you eating that has protein in it that you naturally like? And then let's see, is that a good source or do we need to bring in other things? I think too often people want to just recreate a really tough scenario and it's not within reality. I think about John Deloney, I recently, I, I really like his podcast if you, like sort of hearing people call into a show and kind of hearing how you think through things from a mental health perspective, but I heard a talk that he gave this past year, and in this talk, it was all about how leaders can take better care of themselves, and the first two points that he had, he gave a great analogy of sort of driving the train backwards, how you, number one, he was talking about how you reverse engineer your life, right? So, think about with protein intake, a lot of the time, if you're wanting this to increase, you have to think about what you're already doing, what are ways you can improve it. It's not something where the end of the day. You're going to have success if you haven't thought about it a little bit, right? So we're kind of going to reverse engineer things and then you decide, and he said number two, you decide what's enough. And I think quite often when people are working on these habits, you're wanting it to be this version of perfect and what can be good enough for you. And the, the third thing that he talks about a lot, he really talks about choosing reality, you choose the reality of what your life is right now. So, let me give you an example. If you are a busy professional working mom and you also have a significant other and you are volunteering a lot and there's a million things you're doing, maybe you're not making everything from scratch and that's okay. We're going to choose the reality that you're in and then we're going to plan backwards and we're going to say, okay, given what my life looks like right now, what is possible for me? What protein sources work? When we're thinking through protein, here is the kind of three pronged approach that I think is most helpful. Number one, we're going to see, do I have any protein showing up at every meal or snack? Is there a protein? Is there a protein period? Forget about the grams right now. Is there a protein? That is usually step one. If you are new to this journey, you see, is there protein at every meal or snack that I'm having? With time, then we look, step number two, am I spacing out this protein? For most of you, it's like, okay, is it three times a day? Is it twice a day if you're doing intermittent fasting? But we look at, Am I not having everything all at once? And the reason I bring this up is, supposedly, humans only absorb about 45 grams at a time. I don't really know that that's true or not. I really like to use in body data to see the way in which someone's eating, is it working or not? So we will know if you're sitting there losing a bunch of muscle, okay, the way in which you're eating isn't working but step two is this protein spaced out. And along with number two, am I roughly getting to 100 grams? So I always say target 100. So for most people, 30 grams, three times a day is going to be great. If you're doing more of the intermittent fasting thing, 45 grams twice a day. That's for most people. Now, if you want super specifics on this, again, within the 30, 30 program, this is something where we have a protein chart and you can see, okay, based on my height, what would the target be? If I'm. Just working on fat loss, or what would the target be if I'm trying to gain muscle? So we have specific charts for that. Again, this is the kind of stuff, whether it be the mini course that I have, if you want to ask a question in the Q& A monthly call, or whether it be that you're in the 30 30 program, we can get much more specific. But in general, most people, that's a good target. Again, talk to your medical team. The reason I always say that disclaimer, it's because there's always going to be an exception. This podcast where thousands of you are listening, which thank you, I'm incredibly grateful for that. But keep in mind, of course, this is general stuff. So some of you will need a lot more, some of you will need a lot less. And that again is up to your medical team if you have specific scenarios. But in general, I find that to be adequate for most people. Okay. And then number three, we've got to drop perfection. There's going to be ups and downs, meaning some days you're going to get more. Some days you're going to get less. I always say it's on average. It's on average over a seven day period, what are you doing? So someone just gave me an example the other day, the holidays are here and they had this holiday party and the other thing going on and so this day they didn't get very much but the other day they did and I was like, it's on average. So these little exceptions of the birthday party, the holiday time, things like that, those are not the things I'm worried about. I care all the rest of the other days, every meal majority of the time, what are you doing? Right? So we come back to this atomic habits principle of every day you get to vote for the person that you want to be. Are you voting at that meal that yes, I'm getting in protein. I want to keep my lean muscle mass, right? I want to keep the muscle I have. I want to have satiety. That's part of eating the protein, right? So all of this matters. And am I getting any protein period? Yes. Okay. Am I getting enough protein? That's number two. And then number three, am I not needing it to be perfect and driving myself crazy? I'll get these questions where people, again, where they're asking the specific, this, this type of protein and that type of protein, is it working for you or not? Are you keeping your muscle mass? How are you feeling satiety wise? Are things working out for you? Those are really the rough categories. Now, as far as protein, you can get it from a lot of different sources, and different people are going to do better or worse with different things, whether it be, from a meat source, a dairy source, a plant based source, whether it be supplements, like you're using protein drinks, things like that. What I really need you to look at is how do I feel on these foods? Some people, when they're on a GLP 1, if they have a lot of meat they just get a meat aversion. Like they don't enjoy it in the same way that maybe they always used to like meat and now they don't. I have some people where they always liked meat and it's no problem. Again, you just need to think for yourself on this food, do I feel good? For me, I think I actually have an incredible amount of dairy in my diet. I'm a, I'm a vegetarian and it just works well for me. The cottage cheese, the Greek yogurt. There's just a lot of things in that category that work. There are other people that feel inflammation in their body when they have that, or they will have a lot of mucus production when they have that. So you need to listen to what works for you. There are many categories on this. Again, within my courses, we always have a nutrition section where you can look up the different sources. You can get ideas with different recipes, things like that for both protein and fiber in all of my courses. So if this is something that mini course that I have, the top five mistakes, when people start a GLP one, there's a video that we have on protein. And again, we dive deeper into this and there's ideas and links to click and a PDF and everything like that. And so if you need ideas, that would be a good resource for you. But what I think can be really helpful is. Again, as long as you know, yes, period, I'm getting protein at every single meal or stack. That's the easiest thing to start with. Then number two, you could do an audit and you could see, okay, when I'm going through this, do I think I'm getting enough? Now when we're talking about getting back to basics and again, I'm always like, stay with me here. Cause some of you, I know you, you're like, I'm already doing this. I don't need this. Here's the deal. Everybody needs to at least once a month come back and look at, are you getting enough? And the reason I say this, it's that everything can always be perfected a little bit. So there's doing the basics. Are you even doing the basics? But then if you're already have mastery over that. I would say once a month for a day or two, I would look at, let me just recalibrate and see am I getting enough? It's those bumper rails at the bowling alley that make sure that the ball gets down to the end and hits something, right? So looking at this once a month, it's keeping that accountability. Yes, I'm getting what I think I need. Yes, this is working out for me. I just want to bring that back that again, this is where the coming back to basics. So if you're someone that's already doing it. Are you doing a little bit of an audit every so often? We don't need to drive ourselves crazy. We're not doing this every single day. We're not doing this all the time, but once or twice a month, maybe the first and second of the month is just a quick check in time. You recheck your in body. So you see what your body composition is doing. You redo your measurements. You just have a rough running tally. You get to see trends over time. Okay. It's really mattering what I'm doing. I'm seeing inches go down. I'm seeing muscle be preserved. I'm seeing. things go in the right direction. I'm feeling stronger, when people come into my 30, 30 program, we have these eight questions to start out and I'm just generally inventorying. How's your sleep? How's your GI health? We're looking at all these different areas because a lot of the time if you're getting enough protein, you generally feel a lot better. And so we like to inventory that over time. Come back to once a month. Am I getting enough protein? If it's not something where you're day one and you're really every day worrying about it. Okay. So coming back to this, I always say with this step one, any protein in the meal or snack, this can apply to any scenario. You could be out at a restaurant. Is there a protein? Let me start with that. You could be going to a hotel where there's restaurants you're unfamiliar with. No problem. There's going to be some protein option, whether it be an appetizer edamame, an appetizer of shrimp that you maybe pick, your meal, maybe you pick something that has chicken in it. Maybe you see if you're at a place, I'll give you an example. As a vegetarian, they often don't have options as a vegetarian. So I'll say, Hey, Can I just get two hard boiled eggs or a fried egg? There is some protein that they have that doesn't have meat in it, right? So you look for opportunities where I can get in what I need. And you can see if you could bring some things to make your life easier. So I'm always a fan of, can you carry a protein drink? Can you carry a protein bar? Can you do something where even if that meal doesn't have a lot, no problem, you could literally. I'm not joking when I say this, because sometimes you're just in a scenario where you know, there's not enough protein here and I'm going to be hungry. So I'm just going to go ahead and get what I need and keep moving on with my life. But you're getting protein in some capacity, and then with time you're seeing, is it really spaced out? Am I roughly hitting a hundred? And maybe you need more, maybe you're working out a lot, maybe you're losing weight at an increased rate, and you need more protein to support that, or your hunger levels are up. All factors to consider. And then you're not looking for perfection. You're okay if some days, yeah, you just didn't hit the goal, that's okay. Tomorrow, I'll try to make sure that I put that higher on the leaderboard for what I wanna do. So this is just a, a 1 0 1. Back to basics. We're looking at protein, what you're gonna notice is you're gonna kind of build out your, your, let's call it your best hits over time. Meaning where you're like, Hey, these things really work for me. The protein repertoire that works. What I really like. Brooke Simonson, she talks a lot about, hey, kind of with meals that you like, kind of write it down on an index card and then. You know when you get sick of a meal and you stop making it, but if I were to suggest it to you again in three, four months, you'd be like, Oh, that's a great idea. You just forgot how much you loved it. If you start to write down these ideas with protein, you can cycle through them a little bit easier because we do get sick of things over time. So when I'm saying come back to basics, First step, you've gotten any protein. Then you've worked on upping it. You're going to get sick of what you increased it to. You're going to get sick of it. You're going to say, I don't want to see edamame one more time. I don't, I don't want lentils. I don't want eggs again. Okay. Let's back off that. Let's see. Could we, instead of eggs for breakfast, could we do a Greek yogurt parfait? Can we change up the type of fruit that we're using? Can we change up the flavoring? Can we change it up a little bit? Changing a sauce, changing the fruit, changing the veggie, changing the seasoning. That is the back to basics part, is that we're not recreating the wheel entirely, we're just rotating through things a little bit. An idea I want to give you here is that I want you to start to write down the things that you like, the things that easily go with anything. So for me, I'm sorry, it's always the same ideas, which is cottage cheese and Greek yogurt. If that's not your jam, I know you probably don't want to hear it one more time, but for me, I can make it really versatile with a lot of different examples and something that you can do. You know, everyone's always talking about AI technology, and, and how incredible it is. I want you to see if, go on chat GPT or whatever AI you're enjoying using right now and put in there. Give me five recipes that use Greek yogurt, one of them that's salty, one of them that's sweet, that sticks to high protein recipes, that doesn't go over 500 calories, that's easy to make. Along with that, give me the recipe list. Really tell it everything that you want it to do and see what it pops out for you. Get some other ideas, right? So what's really nice about why I do think using AI is helpful is that you're not having to go through a bunch of Pinterest recipes or a bunch of things that You might not have the time or necessarily enjoy doing now. I will tell you I've been using recently, gosh, I hope I'm not butchering the name. I think it's like Reezy me, or it's like, it's a recipe app. We'll link it in the show notes and. When I find recipes that I like on social, it's really easy to save it to the app. So they save the ingredients. They save how to do it. The caveat being that the description in the post online needs to have the recipe in it. Otherwise, the technology is not smart enough to take just a video and get it from that. So the person has to have put in the description box. what the recipe is. But this is a nice way that it saved it for me. I, in the future, can create an ingredient list from that. So I'll make sure that we put the link to this. I'm not saying this is the best one. This is actually something in the 3030 group that people told me about. There were two different apps that people mentioned. Again, this is the kind of stuff we talk about in the WhatsApp group. And they said, yeah, you know, I'm really liking these apps. It helps them to store the different ideas. I still think the poor man's version is you use index cards or I don't know. a sheet of paper or the notes section of your phone. But if you are on social a lot and you find inspirational ideas, I know they go viral all the time. You could save that to an app like that. So I've been experimenting more with it. I like it. It's not perfect, but I find it, it is turning out to be a good solution for me. Also, I'm not forgetting about recipes. So again, we'll put that link in the show notes. If you don't ever know how to get to it, it's renteeaclinic. com. R E N T E A clinic. com. And if you click on podcast, that's where each episode, when I say show notes, it means it's a blog post that's written out. And we always link to books. We talk about apps, all that kind of stuff. So you have a lot of ideas here for, if you need ideas for protein, that's fit very specific categories. People are always saying, well, can you make one that's specifically for vegetarian protein? Or what about for celiac? What about for this, for that? First of all, It's too specific, right? It's too specific in the sense that everyone's needs are going to be different. Your taste palette, your medical history, what dietary preferences, religious preferences. There are so many things that go into it. Pop it in a chat GPT, put every single thing that you want and see what, what it pops out and then see if there's one idea that you can take to what you're doing. I'm always a fan of the protein that you're already doing. Can we increase what you're already eating? So let's say you like Greek yogurt, can we increase that amount? You like eggs, okay, can we add some egg whites? What are you already doing that we can add to? If you need a new idea, we can get ideas from, again, either within a course like mine, the mini course or the 30 30 program, or using something like an AI technology, putting in all the requirements, seeing what pops out. And of course, there are always so many other good resources as well, but that's just a starting place and making it easy. We went deep at the end of this episode. But remember, I'm six years into doing this before I'm using a recipe app. I'm just putting it out there. I was way overwhelmed before this. I would just save it in a little inspiration folder on Instagram and TikTok, things like that. I would just save it in a little folder. I never came back to it. Now I'm using that app to bring it more front of mind. I actually have a reminder once a month, look in that app, pick one recipe. That's one of my sort of things this year, part of working on my gut microbiome, I want to keep trying different veggies and rotating things. So I'm putting a little bit more effort toward it. That's just something I'm personally working on, but you don't need to take it that far when you're working on things. I will say as you're working your way through this protein ladder, right? Like you're getting it in the meal. Okay. Then you're looking at the amount. All right. Then you're seeing. Am I getting the results that I want, right? You're seeing like you're looking at InBody. You're seeing if that's congruent. As you're working through this ladder, you can keep expanding on things, but don't make it hard day one. So the basics here are just start, just begin. Remember with action comes clarity. So as you are implementing this stuff, you're going to realize I feel horrible with this and I feel great with that. That's what I learned real quick. When I was getting into this world, I was thinking, I need to change everything. And I remember I submitted, this is the first coaching program that I ever did that had a nutrition aspect. And I submitted, I don't know, a five day food log. And they gave me these ideas and I thought, oh, that's great. And then you know what I realized? I hated everything they were talking about. This was just random ideas. They were trying to find problems with things that didn't exist and I remember thinking, wow, this is so unhelpful. Because I don't like the taste of these things. It's not easy for me to make them. I don't like the taste. And that's when I realized that in the future, if I ever ran something, there needed to not be pre set meal plans. They don't work. They literally don't work. If you can't customize it in some capacity, it usually doesn't end up working out. I'll give you an example. The, the factor meals, and I actually recommend these. They're pre made meals. They come to you already made, you know, you can stick in the freezer if you're not going to eat it right away. I will say as a vegetarian, they don't have enough protein. I add protein to them. So one of them I'll usually turn into two meals, but they have a great amount of veggies and other complex carbs and great. things, but I will usually add cottage cheese or hard boiled eggs or do other things to make that meal what I need it to be. I can't expect one thing to do everything for me and knowing that I have that flexibility that I can change things how I want to change it. That is a basic concept that keeps me going so we don't get frustrated. Oh my gosh, I like this product, but it's missing X, Y, Z at it. it. Figure out how you can modify it. Work with your tastes and preferences. For me, I love one protein drink a day. It's like a 30 grams easily knocked out, but if you don't like the taste of protein drinks, this or that, I feel like the trend recently has been the, the, the clear whey isolates that are flavored water and it's look, you can get in 20 grams, 20 30 grams of protein with that. Amazing. I've tried them before. Some of them actually give me heartburn, so I just haven't become the biggest fan of them. I also, I don't know. I like the more sort of creamy, like Fairlife, Premier type of drinks. I just enjoy that with my coffee, quote unquote, proffy. It's just, it's what I personally like, but there are other people that didn't like that where the clear flavored isolates are working for them. So work with your taste preferences. Some people like to get it all from Food No Problem. Work with your reality, what you like, what you prefer, what you think is best. Remember, at the end of the day, we're all learning all the time anyways. So I can tell you what all the research says and this and that, but it's always changing. The only constant here is how you feel in your body and being a scientist with it. That's why I'm such a fan of looking at how you feel. How do you feel two hours after a meal? Does it last for at least three, four hours? Are you constantly bloated and belching and feeling horrible? Or are you actually feeling pretty darn good? If not, we keep kind of dialing in with nutrition. What feels good for you? All right. We went left field, but bring it back this week. I want you to think about your protein. Your basics here are, am I getting the protein? Do I like how I'm getting the protein? Do I need to brush up on it? Is it great? Awesome. I keep moving on to the next basic that we do next week, but think about it a little bit. If you find that you want some help with this, because there is some finesse involved, I would recommend if you're a complete beginner, starting with my mini course, the five mistakes that people make when starting a GLP 1. We talk a lot in there about protein, and you can always ask questions in the monthly live Q& A call. You can give me some specifics. give you some suggestions, or if you are much more advanced than maybe considering doing a future 30 30 round, because that's something that you could dig more into. Because everyone, by the way, is at actually a different level within that 30 30 program, which is actually really beautiful, because what I learned early on is that there's these three different pillars of what we're working on in there. But you everyone's not working on the same thing. And that's beautiful because you can really kind of, what I say, like pick your own adventure and you can work on what is needed. All right, I'm going to leave it here. I hope you have an amazing rest of the week. That your protein is really working for you, helping you with satiety, helping you keep your muscle and that you find some fun ways to make it, shine and sparkle as well. And you can maybe. Infuse a new recipe this month. Something that you find that's interesting. All right, have a great rest of the week and we'll talk soon.