I'm going to make a confident claim and then back it up: a great many women are not eating nearly enough protein, and it's quietly costing them — in strength, in metabolism, in how full and satisfied they feel, in how well they age. Arian has written about protein needs broadly, but I want to talk specifically to and about women here, because there are particular reasons this matters so much for us, and particular reasons we tend to fall short.
Let's start with why women specifically often under-eat protein, because the reasons are real and worth naming honestly. Years of diet culture trained many women to focus relentlessly on eating less, period — cutting calories, shrinking portions, treating restriction itself as the goal — rather than on eating enough of the right things. Protein, in particular, frequently gets shortchanged in that mindset. Many women also gravitate toward foods marketed as "light" or low-calorie that happen to be low in protein — the salad with barely any protein on it, the cereal, the snack bar, the "girl dinner" that's mostly crackers. And there's a lingering, outdated cultural notion that protein and strength-building are somehow "for men," which has steered women away from prioritizing protein and the muscle it supports. Add it all up and you get a population systematically nudged toward too little protein for years.
Why does this genuinely matter for women's health and goals? Because protein is essential for building and maintaining muscle, and muscle matters enormously for women — for strength and function, for metabolism (since muscle is metabolically active tissue), and crucially for healthy aging. Here's the part that should grab your attention: women naturally tend to have less muscle mass than men to begin with, and we're also at real risk of losing muscle and bone as we age, particularly around and after menopause. That makes protecting muscle through adequate protein and strength training especially important for women over the long run — it's not a "nice to have," it's a genuine investment in your future strength, mobility, and independence. The protein you eat now is partly about the woman you'll be at seventy and eighty.
Protein also helps you feel full and satisfied, which matters for anyone managing their weight or simply trying to eat in a way that doesn't leave them constantly hungry and grazing. A protein-light diet can leave you hungrier and less satisfied, quietly making everything else harder. And for women losing weight — whether through lifestyle changes or with the support of a medication — adequate protein becomes even more important, because it helps protect precious muscle while you lose fat. That's the difference between losing weight and losing the right kind of weight, which Arian and I both harp on for good reason.
So how do you fix it, practically? The core move is genuinely simple, though it requires a shift in mindset: anchor each meal around a solid source of protein, instead of treating protein as an afterthought or a small garnish beside the "real" food. Build the plate around it. Make sure breakfast and lunch include real protein, not just dinner — spreading it across the day helps your body use it well, and breakfast is where women most often skimp. Lean meats, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and for plant-based eaters, beans, lentils, tofu, and other soy foods all do the job. A protein-forward breakfast alone can be a genuine game-changer for women used to starting the day on coffee and a pastry.
I want to be clear that these are general principles, not a personalized prescription — your specific needs depend on your size, activity, health, and goals, and things like kidney health are worth confirming with your provider. But the broad direction is unmistakable: most women I talk to are under-eating protein, not over-eating it, and gently correcting that tends to pay off across the board.
The mindset shift I most want women to make is this: from "how little can I eat?" — the question diet culture drilled into us — to "am I eating enough protein to be strong, satisfied, and healthy for the long haul?" That reframe alone, away from restriction and toward adequacy and strength, can change not just how you eat but how you feel about eating. You're not trying to shrink yourself into the smallest possible version. You're trying to build and maintain a strong, capable body that serves you for decades. Protein is foundational to that, and it's time women stopped being quietly steered away from it.
Chantal Rubio, FNP-BC. Educational only, not medical advice. General principles, not a personalized plan.