What Are High-Protein, Low-Calorie Foods?

High-protein, low-calorie foods are a bodybuilder's dream. It comes with the best of both worlds and is absolutely what one needs to add lean muscle mass while ensuring they’re not overconsuming calories.

Keeping that in mind, it’s important for you to know what high-protein, low-calorie foods are, and what types of meals you can create with them.

However, before jumping into learning more about high-protein, low-calorie foods, let’s find out what calories and proteins are.

---

What is a Calorie?

High calories (Photo via Towfiqu barbhuiya/Unsplash)

Calories are a unit of energy found in food content. It helps us measure what we’re consuming and the amount of energy we are burning through physical activity.

When it comes to high-protein, low-calorie foods, calories give the amount of energy that our body can gain from a particular amount of food, and it’s mostly measured via every 100g portion.

More often than not, the calories in a food item are calculated by the macronutrients in it, and protein is one of the three macronutrients along with fats and carbohydrates. Proteins and carbohydrates have four calories per gram, while fats have nine calories per gram.

There’s a strong connection between adding muscle mass, cutting fat, and calorie consumption. It so happens that if you want to lose weight, you have to follow a calorie deficit diet (eating fewer calories than maintenance), and if you want to add mass, you have to follow a calorie surplus diet (consuming more calories than maintenance).

---

What are Proteins?

High protein (Photo via Enrico Mantegazza/Unsplash)

As mentioned, proteins are an essential macronutrient and absolutely indispensable for a healthy lifestyle.

It helps with building and repairing muscle tissues, regulating hormones, helping with energy production, and other things. However, it’s primarily connected to helping muscle fibers recover from wear and tear suffered during physical activities such as resistance training.

---

What Are High-Protein, Low-Calorie Foods Foods?

When it comes to high-protein, low-calorie foods, here are some of the most popular ones:

Chicken Breast

A 3-ounce chicken breast has approximately 26g of protein and 140 calories.

Green Yoghurt

6-ounce of non-fat Greek yogurt has approximately 17g of protein and 100 calories.

Egg Whites

One large egg contains approximately 3.6g of protein and only 85 calories.

Tuna

The 3-ounce serving of tuna contains approximately 20g of protein and 100 calories.

Cottage Cheese

½ cup serving of low-fat cottage cheese has 14g of protein and only 80 calories.

Lentils

One cup of cooked lentils has 18g of protein and 230 calories.

Turkey Breast

A 3-ounce turkey breast protein has approximately 26g of protein and 140 calories.

Shrimp

A 3-ounce serving of cooked shrimp has 18g of protein and 95 calories only.

---

Low-Calorie, High-Protein Meals

Cottage cheese (Photo via Ola Mishchenko/Unsplash)

Now that you know more about high-protein, low-calorie foods, it’s time to understand the low-calorie, high-protein meals that you can create using the same.

Here are some of the meals that are healthy and yummy:

1. Grilled chicken breast with roasted vegetables
2. Egg white omelets
3. Tuna salad
4. Lentil soup
5. Turkey chilli
6. Grilled shrimp with zucchini noodles
7. Cottage cheese with fruit
8. Greek yogurt with berries

---

What To Know About a High-Protein, Low-Calorie Diet?

If you’re adding high-protein, low-calorie foods to your diet, you’re automatically modifying the diet to be protein-heavy. Keeping that in mind, here are some other tips that you should take into consideration for the same.

• Choose lean sources of protein
• Add non-starchy vegetables
• Limit high calorie foods
• Add protein to every meal
• Moderate the portion sizes

High-protein, low-calorie foods do not need to be your only choice of consumables if you want to have a lean physique. While some prefer high protein foods, you can opt for the type of diet that suits you.

It’s important to remember that everyone’s body reacts differently to the same routine, and you need to find the routine and diet that suits you the best!