High protein meal plan for the week (7 days + list)

How much protein should a weekly plan aim for?

Start from a target, not from a menu. The 2025 to 2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines point to 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for adults, as summarized by the American Academy of Family Physicians:

Protein should be prioritized at every meal, aiming for 1.2 to 1.6 g per kg of body weight daily.

For a 70 kg (154 lb) adult, that range is an estimated 84 to 112 grams a day, our arithmetic. The plan below averages an estimated 159 grams, which is above that range on purpose: it is a high protein week, built for people who already know they want more. Our guide to how much protein you need per day shows how to set your own number, and a later section shows how to turn this week down, with the same dishes in smaller protein portions.

These are general figures, not advice for you. If you have a kidney condition or any other medical condition, are pregnant, take medication that affects how you eat, or are unsure what suits you, ask a doctor or a registered dietitian before you change how much protein you eat.

What one popular recipe site's weekly plan leaves out

One popular recipe site's weekly plan gives you meals and a shopping list. The Skinnytaste plan we opened for this guide, for the week of December 9 to 15, shows calories and protein per day (about 1,200 to 1,300 estimated calories and 96 to 108 grams of protein on a full day), gives no carbohydrate or fat figures in those totals (the page says its recipes include macros), and mixes servings for one person with dinners for four; the page does not say how the totals handle the mixed servings. Its shopping quantities are partly loose, such as "1 small bunch".

That is fine for a recipe site, and it is the gap this guide fills. Every meal below is weighed in grams, every figure is calculated from a named USDA database entry, and every day shows calories, protein, carbohydrate and fat for one person. You can check any line yourself, or swap a food and recompute.

The week at a glance

Seven days, each close to 2,000 estimated calories and between 156 and 167 grams of estimated protein, with no dinner repeated except baked cod on Monday and Sunday. Over the week the plan comes to an estimated 14,110 calories, 1,116 grams of protein, 1,596 grams of carbohydrate and 390 grams of fat: an average of about 2,016 calories, 159 g protein, 228 g carbs and 56 g fat a day. Protein supplies roughly a third of the calories (4 calories per gram, estimated), which is what makes this a high protein week rather than a balanced default.

Each day has four eating occasions: breakfast, lunch, a protein snack and dinner. The snack carries 20 to 30 grams of protein by itself, which is the habit that makes 150 grams or more realistic. Our guide to protein per meal explains why spreading it out works better than one huge dinner.

Monday to Wednesday, weighed

Weights are as served: cooked meat, fish, rice, pasta and legumes, boiled vegetables, with oats and tofu weighed dry and raw as noted. Oil is counted, 9 grams being about two teaspoons. Day totals are the sum of the rounded meal lines, column by column.

Thursday to Sunday, weighed

The second half of the week swaps the proteins around: salmon, beef and black bean chili, shrimp and a turkey and lentil salad each take a dinner or lunch, so the same protein never anchors two dinners running.

The same week at 1,800 and 2,500 calories: what moves

Most plans say "adjust the portions" and leave you to guess. We tested it. For each day we kept the protein anchors fixed (the yogurt, eggs, meat, fish, tofu, cottage cheese and milk) and scaled only the sides (rice, oats, bread, potatoes, fruit, vegetables and oil) until the day landed on the target. The factor is what you multiply the sides by.

At 1,800 estimated calories the sides shrink to about 0.80 to 0.85 of their weight and protein stays between an estimated 148 and 158 grams. At 2,500 they grow to about 1.3 to 1.5 times and protein rises only to an estimated 169 to 185 grams, because the extra calories come from carbohydrate and fat, not from the anchors.

Compare that with the shortcut of scaling every portion by the same factor. Multiplying everything by 0.9 gives days of an estimated 1,783 to 1,840 calories but only 141 to 150 grams of protein; multiplying by 1.25 gives 2,477 to 2,555 calories and 195 to 208 grams. Uniform scaling moves protein as much as energy. If protein is the number you care about, change the sides first and the anchors second.

The reverse also works. To bring the week down toward the guideline range, we cut the protein anchors to 0.7 of their weight and raised the sides until each day returned to an estimated 2,000 calories:

That setting gives an estimated 124 to 140 grams of protein a day, about 131 on average. We pushed it further: at 0.5 of the anchors the days land at an estimated 103 to 123 grams, and at 0.4 an estimated 92 to 114 grams, so even a 70 kg adult's 84 to 112 gram range needs the anchors cut to well under half. For personal targets, our macro calculator guide is the place to start.

Where the protein comes from

Here is how the estimated 1,116 grams split across the week:

• Meat and fish: 516 g, or 46% (chicken, turkey, pork, beef, cod, salmon, shrimp and canned tuna).
• Dairy and eggs: 249 g, or 22% (yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, skim milk and mozzarella).
• Grains and bread: 159 g, or 14% (oats, bread, rice, pasta and quinoa).
• Plant proteins: 128 g, or 11% (tofu, edamame, lentils, beans, chickpeas and peanut butter).
• Vegetables, fruit and oil: 63 g, or 6%.
• Group figures are rounded and come from unrounded values, so they can differ from the day tables by a gram or two.

Two things stand out. The animal aisles carry about two thirds of the protein, so this is not a plant-based week, although Wednesday dinner (tofu and edamame) shows what a plant-led plate looks like. And the grain and bread staples supply 159 grams, about 14%, which is more than the plant proteins (128 g). They are easy to forget on a protein list. Our high protein grocery list ranks 27 foods by protein per 100 calories if you want to swap an anchor.

Batch cook on Sunday, top up on Wednesday

The plan is built so that a few batches cover most lunches and dinners, using the same cooked weights as the estimated tables above. Cook 410 grams of chicken breast once (Monday, Thursday and Saturday lunches), 600 grams of brown rice (Monday, Wednesday and Sunday), 450 grams of lentils (Thursday and Sunday) and 10 hard-boiled eggs (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday). Fish and shrimp are best cooked the day you eat them, since they take about ten minutes.

A simple rhythm: batch cook on Sunday, a short top-up on Wednesday for fish, rice and vegetables, and nothing on the other days but assembly. Our guide to meal prepping for the week covers storage times and containers. For a single-day version of this plan with the 150 and 180 gram variants, see the 2,000 calorie high protein meal plan.

Reading the grocery list

The list below adds up every line of the week. It is in the same cooked weights as the tables above, so you can check one against the other. Raw meat and fish weigh more than cooked, and dry rice, oats and lentils weigh far less, so a shop-ready list needs a conversion step. Our guide on whether to count macros raw or cooked explains the conversion, and the one on a weekly grocery list from a meal plan shows how to build it. Prices are left out on purpose: they vary by store, region and week, and we only quote one we can source and date.

How we calculated

• Values. Energy (as published, not 4/4/9), protein, carbohydrate and total fat per 100 g, all estimated, come from USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy, April 2018 release, read from the downloadable CSV on 2026-11-05. FDC ids: plain nonfat Greek yogurt 170894, dry rolled oats 173904, raw blueberries 171711, roasted chicken breast 171477, cooked brown rice 169704, boiled broccoli 169967, olive oil 171413, 2% cottage cheese 172182, raw apple 171688, cooked cod 171956, baked potato 170093, boiled green beans 169141, hard-boiled egg 173424, toasted whole-wheat bread 172689, raw banana 173944, light tuna in water drained 173709, cooked quinoa 168917, raw tomato 170457, raw cucumber 168409, roasted pork tenderloin 168250, baked sweet potato 168483, boiled spinach 168463, skim milk 171269, smooth peanut butter 174266, roasted turkey breast 171496, cooked whole-wheat pasta 168910, part-skim mozzarella 170847, raw firm tofu 172475, prepared frozen edamame 168411, raw red pepper 170108, cooked farmed salmon 175168, pan-broiled 95% lean ground beef 171792, canned low-sodium black beans 175238, cooked shrimp 175180, boiled lentils 172421, cooked white rice 168878, raw carrot 170393, raw white mushrooms 169251, raw orange 169097, raw avocado 171705, raw romaine 169247, raw onion 170000 and drained canned chickpeas 173800.
• Formula. Meal value = sum of (grams x value per 100 g / 100) per line. A meal is shown rounded half up. Calories, protein, carbohydrate and fat in a day total are each the sum of the rounded meal lines; week figures and group shares come from unrounded values (week: 14,109.8 calories, 1,115.8 g protein, 1,595.7 g carbohydrate, 390.1 g fat).
• Scaling. Anchors are the lines tagged as protein sources above; sides are everything else. For each day the side factor was solved until the unrounded day reached 1,800, 2,500 or 2,000 calories. The factor is shown to two decimals, the results rounded.
• Limits. These are generic USDA averages for single foods, not branded products or restaurant dishes. A tablespoon of olive oil, a different cut of meat or a brand of yogurt can move a day by tens of calories. Read the label of what you buy.

Let an app plan the week

Building a week like this by hand takes a food database, a calculator and an afternoon, and you redo it whenever a dish changes. MacroRecipe plans your week of menus around your macros and the goal you choose, with the grocery list. It works from the dishes you pick, with ingredient data from USDA and CIQUAL (ANSES), sizing portions so each day lands near your estimated calorie and protein targets. Swap a dish and the portions and the list follow.

MacroRecipe runs on iPhone only, and you can preview your first menu for free, before the paid subscription. It is not a full food journal: you plan menus rather than log every bite, although you can scan a photo of a meal you ate elsewhere.

Grocery list for the week

Quantities for seven days, one person, in the cooked weights of the tables above (estimated plan, USDA FoodData Central). No prices: they vary by store and week.

Frequently asked questions