Full day of eating – High protein vegan diet

It is recommended that the average adult woman eat about 46 grams of protein a day as part of a complete diet.

I personally double that and aim for 90 grams of protein a day.

The reason for that is not because I am a larger woman. I am actually much smaller than the average adult woman, coming in at around 103 pounds and 4′ 11.5″.

The reason for my high protein diet is to grow and maintain muscle mass. I work out regularly and either run or do bodyweight exercises at home. So eating a high-protein diet ensures that whatever muscle mass I develop is maintained and not eaten up by the high cardiovascular exercises that I do throughout the week.

With that said, I have tailored and adjusted my diet to ensure that I not only get a good amount of protein a day, but that I also get a variety of protein in my diet, especially since not all vegan-sources of proteins contain all of the 9 essential amino acids that our body needs.

Each day’s meals may vary throughout the week. But here’s an example of what my breakfasts, lunches, and dinners have been looking like recently.

Breakfast

I always start my day with a bowl of oatmeal–specifically a protein oatmeal bowl.

A protein oatmeal bowl is basically just a bowl of oatmeal with protein powder.

But I typically add some more stuff to my protein oatmeal bowls, such as hemp seeds and kale.

Yes, kale.

You can read more about this kale and protein oatmeal bowl here.

I pair this oatmeal bowl with Silk’s unsweetened soy milk and altogether, I get about 37 grams of protein.

Here is a breakdown of the serving sizes that I use for each:

and the breakdown in calories, protein, carbs, and fat. The numbers to the left of the hyphens (/) are the amount of calories or macros for this meal. The numbers to the right of the hyphens are my targets for the day.

Where are these pictures from? I use Cronometer to track my macronutrient, vitamin, and mineral intake. You can sign up for Cronometer's free basic plan here: https://cronometer.com

Lunch

My primary protein for lunch is tofu. Lately, I’ve been eating tofu sandwiches, although they are more like pieces of tofu on top of slices of bread, as I don’t really need any condiments or other fixings to enjoy anything with bread.

I typically have some cooked sliced tofu in the fridge, which were either air fried or steamed to cook. I just place these slices of tofu on cut 1/2 slices of sourdough bread and pair it with some high vitamin C vegetable (like broccoli) to help my body absorb the plant-based iron, and all of this come out to about 28 grams of protein.

Here is a breakdown of the portions that I use.

and the macronutrient breakdown. Again, the numbers to the left of the hyphen are the macros and calories for this meal. The numbers to the right are my daily targets.

Snack

As a quick snack (and to give me a little sugar boost to stay awake during my day job), I’ll usually have some fruit, either a banana or apple. These kinds of fruits provide a negligible amount of protein, anywhere between 0.5 to 1 gram of protein.

Dinner

Dinner has been a pure protein bowl. It’s a simple mixture of lentil pasta, black beans, and nutritional yeast.

I have the pasta and beans already cooked in the fridge. A full box of pasta has 5 servings, so I measure out 5 servings of uncooked beans, boil that, and store that in a container alongside a tub of the cooked pasta. Come dinner time, all I need to do is portion out a serving of each into a bowl, pop it in the microwave, sprinkle it with some nutritional yeast and dinner is served.

Altogether, this comes out to 27 grams of protein.

Here are the serving sizes that I use for each

and the calories and macros.

At the end of the day, we’re at over 90 grams of vegan protein across all 3 meals.

Here are my end-of-day calories and macronutrient stats.

The takeaway

Anybody who says that vegans don’t or can’t get enough protein on a vegan diet is simply wrong, and I’ve been able to prove that by doubling my recommended daily intake of protein.

For me, this means aiming for about 30 grams of protein per meal, 3 meals a day.

It does take some meal planning and measuring of foods to ensure that I am hitting my protein targets. But in the end, I am able to do so while also eating different sources of protein to ensure that my diet has a variety of macronutrients throughout the day.