If you train seriously, protein is the one macro you cannot afford to get wrong. It's the difference between recovering and just being sore, between building muscle and merely maintaining it. Yet hitting a real protein target — every day, around a full work and training schedule, in a city as busy as Bangkok — is genuinely hard. This guide cuts through the noise.
How much protein do you actually need?
The research is remarkably consistent. For people training to build or preserve muscle, the sweet spot sits around 1.6 to 2.2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. For an 80kg lifter, that's roughly 130–175g daily. Going far above that range doesn't add much; falling well below it quietly caps your results no matter how hard you train.
Put plainly: if you weigh 80kg and you're eating two eggs for breakfast and a Thai street lunch, you're probably nowhere near your target — and you'll feel it in the gym.
Why hitting that number is harder than it sounds
Knowing your number is easy. Hitting it, meal after meal, is where almost everyone fails. To get 170g of protein across a day you need a substantial, well-portioned source at most meals — not an afterthought. That means planning, shopping, weighing, cooking and tracking, every single day. Miss one meal and you're chasing the deficit by 9pm with a protein shake you don't really want.
Most people don't fail at high-protein eating because they lack discipline. They fail because the logistics are relentless.
What about meal timing and the "anabolic window"?
You've heard you must slam protein within 30 minutes of training or your gains evaporate. For the vast majority of people, this is overblown. Current evidence suggests total daily protein matters far more than precise timing. Spreading your intake reasonably across three to five meals is plenty; you don't need a stopwatch. This is liberating — it means consistency over a day beats panic around a workout.
Protein quality, not just quantity
Not all protein is equal. Complete sources — chicken, fish, beef, eggs, dairy — deliver the full spread of amino acids your muscles use to rebuild. If you eat plant-based, it's very achievable, but it takes more deliberate combining to hit both the total and the amino-acid profile. This is exactly the kind of thing that's easy to get wrong on your own and easy to solve with a chef who plans it for you.
How custom meal prep removes the guesswork
This is where bespoke meal prep earns its place for serious trainees. Instead of you reverse-engineering your macros every evening, the work is done before the food reaches you:
- Your protein target is built into every meal, weighed to the gram.
- Portions scale to your bodyweight and goal, not a generic "regular / large."
- You see the macros, so tracking takes seconds instead of guesswork.
- Variety is built in, so high-protein eating doesn't become five months of plain chicken and broccoli.
The result is simple: you hit your numbers without thinking about them, and your only job is to train and eat.
A realistic high-protein day
For an 80kg lifter targeting ~170g, a custom day might look like four meals of 40–45g protein each — a substantial breakfast, two main meals built around a complete protein source, and a lighter high-protein meal or snack to close the gap. Spread sensibly, fully portioned, no maths required at the table.
Hit your protein target without the logistics
Tell us your bodyweight, training and goals. We'll build a high-protein menu weighed to your macros and delivered ready to eat.
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