Building muscle comes down to two habits: training with progressive overload and eating enough protein. The second one is where most people quietly fall apart. Not because they don't know chicken contains protein, but because Tuesday at 7 p.m. arrives and nothing is cooked. A couple of hours of prep once a week removes that decision entirely.

What follows is a checklist you can shop from and repeat: a daily protein target, a grocery list, a portion guide that doesn't require a food scale, and seven days of meals simple enough that you'll actually eat them.

Step One: Set Your Daily Protein Number

For muscle gain, a widely used general benchmark is roughly 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, which works out to about 0.7 to 1 gram per pound. A 175-pound lifter lands somewhere between 125 and 175 grams daily. Someone lighter needs less; someone training hard and eating in a surplus can aim toward the top of the range.

The total matters, but so does distribution. Spreading protein across three to five meals, with roughly 30 to 45 grams at each, tends to be easier on digestion and easier to hit than cramming 120 grams into dinner. Your weekly checklist looks like this:

• Daily total: body weight in pounds × 0.8 as a starting point
• Per meal: 30–45 g, three to five times a day
• Post-workout: one of those meals, within a couple of hours of training
• Before bed: optional 20–40 g of slow-digesting protein if you struggle to hit your total

Protein needs vary with body size, training load, age, and health history. If you have kidney or liver conditions, or you're managing a medical issue, get your target from a doctor or registered dietitian rather than a formula.

The Grocery List That Covers Seven Days

Buy from four categories and you'll never stare into an empty fridge. Quantities below suit one person eating roughly 150 g of protein a day — scale up for a household.

Proteins

• 2 kg chicken thighs or breasts (thighs reheat better)
• 1 kg lean ground beef or turkey
• 18–24 eggs
• 1 large tub Greek yogurt
• 500 g cottage cheese
• 4–6 tins tuna or salmon
• 1 block firm tofu or a pack of tempeh
• Optional: whey or plant protein powder for shakes and oatmeal

Carbohydrates

• Rice, potatoes, or sweet potatoes
• Rolled oats
• Pasta and tortillas
• Bread you actually enjoy
• Canned beans or lentils for fibre and backup protein

Produce and Fats

• Frozen broccoli, green beans, or stir-fry mix — faster than fresh and just as useful
• Onions, peppers, spinach, carrots
• Bananas, apples, berries
• Olive oil, nuts, peanut butter, cheese
• Sauces and seasoning: salsa, soy sauce, hot sauce, garlic, lemon, curry powder, smoked paprika

Portion Guide: Build the Plate Without a Scale

Tracking every gram gets old fast. Use your hand instead, and adjust based on the scale and the mirror every couple of weeks.

• Protein: one to one-and-a-half palm-sized portions
• Carbohydrates: one cupped-hand portion, two on hard training days
• Vegetables: two fists, and don't be precious about it
• Fats: one thumb of oil, butter, or nut butter per meal

If you're gaining weight too fast and feeling soft, trim the carb portion first. If you're stuck at the same weight for three weeks, add half a cupped hand of rice to two meals.

The 7-Day High-Protein Plan

Breakfasts repeat because mornings don't need variety. Lunches and dinners rotate from the same three or four builds, which is what makes the shopping list short.

• Monday: Greek yogurt with oats, berries, and a scoop of protein; chicken, rice, and broccoli bowls; beef and pepper stir-fry over rice.
• Tuesday: Four-egg scramble with spinach and toast; leftover stir-fry; baked salmon or tuna cakes with potatoes and green beans.
• Wednesday: Overnight oats with cottage cheese; chicken burrito bowl with beans, salsa, and cheese; tofu or chicken curry with rice.
• Thursday: Greek yogurt bowl; leftover curry; turkey burgers with roasted potatoes and a big salad.
• Friday: Egg and cheese tortillas; chicken pasta with tomato sauce and spinach; ground beef tacos on tortillas.
• Saturday: Oats with peanut butter and banana; leftovers or a tuna sandwich with cottage cheese on the side; homemade burger with rice or potatoes.
• Sunday: Eggs and toast; whatever's left in the containers; sheet-pan chicken thighs with peppers and potatoes.

Snacks fill the gaps: a shake, a tub of yogurt, a handful of nuts plus a boiled egg, or fruit with peanut butter. Two snacks at roughly 20 g of protein each often makes the difference between 120 g and 160 g.

The 90-Minute Sunday Batch

1. Start the oven and the rice cooker at the same time. Sheet-pan chicken and a pot of rice cover half the week's lunches before you've done anything else.
2. Brown the ground meat in a large pan with onions, garlic, and spices. Split it in two: one half for taco bowls, one for a tomato pasta sauce.
3. Roast two trays of vegetables — one fresh, one straight from the freezer bag. Frozen broccoli roasted with olive oil and salt is genuinely good.
4. Hard-boil six to eight eggs for fast snacks.
5. Portion into containers while everything is still warm. Label with the day if you're the type who forgets.
6. Keep sauces separate. Dressing added on Sunday makes Thursday's lunch soggy.

Swaps, Sauces, and Staying Flexible

Boredom, not hunger, kills most meal prep plans. Rotate three or four sauces instead of three or four recipes: salsa and lime, soy and ginger, garlic yogurt, harissa and olive oil. The same chicken and rice becomes a different meal each night for almost no extra work.

Swaps keep it practical when the shop is out of something. Chicken thighs for breasts, rice for potatoes, tofu for beef, cottage cheese for yogurt. The structure — palm of protein, cupped hand of carbs, two fists of vegetables — stays the same.

Make It Repeatable

The best meal prep is the one you'll do again next Sunday. Start with one protein, one carb, and one vegetable. Get that routine running for two weeks before adding a second recipe. Keep a running note of what you actually ate versus what you threw away — that list is more useful than any template.

Weigh yourself once or twice a week under the same conditions, and check your lifting numbers monthly. If the scale is climbing slowly and your main lifts are going up, the plan is working. If nothing changes for three weeks, add a portion of carbs and a snack. Muscle gain is slow, unglamorous, and mostly a matter of showing up fed.

Photo: manbob86 / Pixabay