Dinner is perhaps the easiest meal for Attia to hit his protein mark; generally, intake is often skewed toward the evening meal6, whereas breakfast is where most folks fall short. “I’m just going to rotate through different types of meat or fish at dinner,” Attia says, and that should easily get him to his benchmark of 45 grams. 

If you are going the seafood route, know that a 3.5-ounce serving of salmon with skin7 provides a whopping 60 grams of protein. Sardines, another excellent source of protein and healthy fats, contains 22.6 grams of protein8 per can and is loaded with calcium, B12, and the omega-3 fats DHA and EPA. You may think that lean proteins are better for heart health, and that may be true to some extent—but it’s not always the case.

In fact, recent research9 shows that healthy sources of saturated fat10 aren’t strongly linked with increased heart disease risk, and that overall dietary intake is what’s most important. You can read more about that here.