Why protein matters at every meal in midlife

Protein used to be something I associated with bodybuilders, enormous tubs of powder and people who take a Tupperware box of chicken to social occasions.

Now I am in my forties, navigating perimenopause, training more regularly and preparing to walk a half marathon, I look at it very differently. I am not trying to become a fitness influencer or develop an emotional attachment to a protein shaker. I simply want to stay strong, recover properly after exercise and eat meals that keep me going for longer than the journey from the kitchen back to my desk.

Between running a marketing agency, a blended family, walking, yoga, gym sessions and the endless list of things I apparently agreed to do while feeling optimistic, I need food to do a little more than look attractive on a plate.

The easiest change has been asking one question when I make a meal: where is the protein?

That is it. No spreadsheet. No weighing every chicken breast. No setting an alarm to drink something beige from a plastic bottle.

Why I started paying more attention to protein

Protein helps the body build and repair tissue. It is used to make enzymes, hormones and antibodies, and it supports muscles, bones, skin, hair and nails. In other words, it is doing quite a lot behind the scenes while carbohydrates get blamed for everything and avocados have a better publicist.

For me, the biggest reasons to pay attention to it are strength, recovery and feeling satisfied after a meal.

I want my legs to recover after a long walk. I want the gym sessions to achieve something. I want to maintain muscle as I get older, because muscle is not only about how your body looks. It supports strength, balance, movement and all the very ordinary things we want to keep doing without having to think about them.

Protein also helps make meals more filling. I notice the difference between a lunch made from a few leaves and cucumber, and one with chicken, fish, tofu, beans or cheese added. The first looks virtuous for approximately four minutes. The second actually feels like lunch.

Why having some at every meal makes life easier

Most people find dinner fairly straightforward. We naturally build it around fish, chicken, meat, tofu, beans or another main ingredient.

Breakfast and lunch are where protein quietly disappears.

Toast, cereal, fruit or a smoothie can all be perfectly good breakfasts, but they may not contain much protein on their own. Lunch can easily become soup with no substance, or a salad that leaves you looking for snacks before the next Zoom call.

Adding some protein throughout the day means dinner does not have to do all the work. It also feels far easier than reaching the evening, realising you have barely eaten any and trying to correct the situation with a mountain of chicken.

This is not about making every meal enormous. Sometimes it is as simple as adding yoghurt and seeds to breakfast, leftover chicken to lunch or beans to a soup.

How much protein do we actually need?

A commonly used UK reference for healthy adults is around 0.75 g of protein per kilogram of body weight each day. That works out at roughly 45 g for a 60 kg woman or 55 g for a 75 kg man.

That is a general reference rather than a perfect number for every person. Age, activity, body size and what you are asking your body to do all make a difference. People who train regularly or want to maintain muscle in midlife may decide they need more.

I am not interested in spending the rest of my life entering yoghurt into an app, so I use the number as context rather than a daily exam. My focus is simply to include a decent source of protein at breakfast, lunch and dinner, then let the meals look like normal food.

If you have a medical condition that affects your protein needs, that is one for your doctor or dietitian. For everybody else, a varied diet and a little common sense will get us much further than panicking over whether lunch contained 26 g or 29 g.

Protein and perimenopause

Perimenopause has made me more aware of what helps me feel strong and what leaves me running on fumes. Hormonal changes can affect muscle mass, body composition, energy, sleep and recovery, although naturally they do not have the decency to affect everybody in exactly the same way.

Protein is not a magic answer to perimenopause, but it is a useful part of the bigger picture alongside strength work, walking, yoga, sleep, HRT in my case and generally looking after myself better than I did when I thought tiredness could be fixed with another coffee.

I take HRT and I am happy with that decision. I also know it cannot do my gym sessions or make my lunch for me. Eating well and moving my body are the practical bits I can work on alongside it.

What counts as protein?

There is plenty of choice, and it does not need to be meat at every meal.

Animal sources include:

• Chicken and turkey

• Fish and seafood

• Eggs

• Yoghurt, milk and cheese

• Lean meat

Plant-based sources include:

• Tofu and tempeh

• Soya milk and soya yoghurt

• Beans, chickpeas and lentils

• Nuts, seeds and nut butter

• Mycoprotein products

They do not all contain exactly the same amount, but this is not a reason to turn lunch into a science experiment. I look for one recognisable main source and then treat nuts, seeds and hummus as useful extras.

A tablespoon of seeds is a lovely addition. It is not, however, the entire protein content of a main meal unless you enjoy being hungry again before you have cleared the plate.

Working around my own food restrictions

I currently avoid several foods while I work out what agrees with my body, including gluten, cow's milk, egg white, lentils and peas. That rules out some of the quick suggestions that appear on every healthy meal plan ever written.

It does not mean everybody else needs to avoid them, and it does not mean my meals have to be joyless. I use fish, chicken, turkey, tofu, mixed beans, nuts, seeds, chickpeas and sheep's or goat's milk products. If you eat eggs, cow's milk, lentils or anything else on my current no-list, use them. The point of this blog is to offer options, not recruit people into my food intolerances.

My no-faff meal formula

When I am planning a meal, I think about four things:

1. What is the main protein?

2. Which vegetables or fruit am I adding?

3. What carbohydrate will make this properly satisfying?

4. What sauce, dressing, seasoning or topping will make me want to eat it?

That might be salmon, crushed new potatoes, green beans and lemon-parsley oil. It could be my roasted chickpea salad with chicken, halloumi or tofu. It could be prawns with rice and stir-fried vegetables.

The fourth question matters. There is no point making a nutritionally impressive dinner that tastes like a punishment.

Carbohydrate stays in the formula too. Protein has not arrived to throw potatoes out of the house. Carbohydrates provide energy and help make meals satisfying, particularly when you are active.

Easy protein ideas for breakfast

Breakfast is the meal most likely to catch me out, especially when I am busy. These are the options I actually use or would genuinely eat:

• A homemade protein bar packed with oats, nuts and seeds

• Soya yoghurt with berries, pumpkin seeds and nut butter

• Overnight oats made with a higher-protein milk or yoghurt

• A smoothie with soya milk, yoghurt, fruit and nut butter

• Smoked salmon with avocado and toast or a potato cake

• Eggs with toast or vegetables

• Tofu scramble with spinach and toast

• Nut butter on toast with fruit on the side

The homemade protein bars are particularly useful because I can make a batch and grab one when the morning disappears. They are also far nicer than many shop-bought bars, which can taste like somebody compressed a gym changing room into a wrapper.

Protein powder can be useful in a smoothie or homemade bar, but it is optional. I would rather eat a breakfast I enjoy consistently than force down a shake simply because the internet has decided that is what healthy people do before 8 am.

Easy protein ideas for lunch

Lunch needs to be quick because I am usually eating between work rather than enjoying a leisurely two-hour break with a white tablecloth.

Useful additions include:

• Leftover roast chicken or a cooked chicken breast

• Tinned tuna, salmon or mackerel

• Prawns

• Tofu or tempeh

• Mixed beans or chickpeas

• Halloumi or feta

• Hummus alongside another protein source

• A soup made with beans, chicken or fish

Tinned fish, frozen chicken portions and cans of beans are not cheating. They are ingredients. Nobody awards extra points because you soaked a bean for twelve hours while answering emails.

One of my easiest lunches is a bowl of leaves and crunchy vegetables with whichever protein is available, a proper dressing and something more substantial such as rice, potatoes or pitta. It takes minutes, uses up what is in the fridge and does not feel as though I have eaten the garnish from somebody else's meal.

Making dinner more interesting

Dinner usually has protein already, so variety is more important than finding it.

Across the week, I try to rotate fish, chicken, turkey, plant-based meals and occasional red meat. Not because the food police are watching, but because eating the same chicken breast every evening would make me lose the will to cook.

You can also mix sources. Add beans to a chicken dish, seeds to tofu, feta to a grain salad or prawns to a vegetable stir-fry. Smaller amounts of two ingredients often make a meal more interesting than one enormous slab of protein sitting beside some apologetic broccoli.

What about snacks?

Not every snack needs to be high in protein. Sometimes you want an apple. Sometimes you want crisps. Neither requires a strategic plan.

When I am properly hungry and need something to keep me going, I might choose:

• A homemade protein bar

• Nuts or roasted seeds

• Yoghurt with berries

• Hummus and vegetable sticks

• Seed crackers with cheese or hummus

• Leftover chicken

• Nut butter with fruit or a rice cake

Shop-bought protein bars can be handy, but I check the ingredients because some contain a surprising amount of sugar or sweeteners. Others are essentially expensive confectionery wearing activewear.

Protein after walking or exercise

After a gym session or a long walk, protein supports muscle repair. You do not need to sprint home and drink a shake before the trainers have come off, but including protein in your next meal is a sensible habit.

After my eight-mile seafront walk, I had salmon with avocado, watercress, spinach, spring onion, carrot and cucumber. It was fresh, filling and exactly what I fancied. Adding potatoes, rice or another carbohydrate makes that sort of meal useful for replacing energy too.

That is how I prefer to think about recovery food – a normal meal that gives my body what it needs, rather than a collection of powders with names that sound like nightclub DJs.

A realistic day of protein

This is not a meal plan. It is simply what spreading protein across an ordinary day might look like:

Breakfast: A homemade oat, nut and seed protein bar with berries

Lunch: Roasted chickpea salad with chicken, tofu, halloumi or feta

Dinner: Baked cod with crushed new potatoes, carrots and tenderstem broccoli

Snack if hungry: Yoghurt, nuts, seed crackers with hummus or another homemade protein bar

There is no powder mountain, no dry chicken eaten from a plastic box and no ban on potatoes. Just recognisable food at sensible points throughout the day.

A few questions people ask

Do I need protein powder?

No. It can be convenient, particularly in smoothies, baking or homemade bars, but it is not compulsory. Most people can get protein from ordinary food.

Is plant protein as useful as animal protein?

Yes, plant foods count. Eating a mixture of beans, tofu, soya products, nuts, seeds and other sources across the day provides variety. You do not need to combine specific foods at every single meal as though you are cracking a nutritional code.

Should every meal contain 30 g of protein?

There is no universal 30 g rule for every person and every plate. I find it more useful to include a clear protein source at each main meal and look at the day as a whole.

Does protein help with weight loss?

Protein can make meals more satisfying and can help preserve muscle when somebody is losing weight. It is not a magic ingredient that cancels out everything else. For me, its most useful benefit is that a proper lunch makes me less likely to start investigating the snack cupboard an hour later.

What I am actually aiming for

I am not trying to win protein. I am trying to stay strong enough for work, family, travel, long walks, yoga and all the things I still want to do.

Including it at each meal is a simple habit that helps. Some days that means salmon, vegetables and potatoes arranged beautifully on a plate. Other days it means eating a homemade protein bar at my desk while answering an email.

Both count. That is real life.

This article shares general information and my personal experience. If a health condition affects your protein needs, ask a GP or registered dietitian for individual advice.