How do you guys and gals hit your macros in Taiwan?

For me, it’s Costco.

They have really lean ready to eat protein like chicken, tuna, and salmon - but you’ll have to spruce it up since they’re canned. Actually, that may help you out at work - bring a can and mix it in with the rice if you can’t stand to take it straight, though it’s not that bad on its own.

Their chilled foods section is home to a surprising number of slightly-less-lean-but-still-beats-almost-anything-you-can-find-on-the-street-or-in-most-supermarkets options, and their frozen foods section has a few good protein sources (amongst many many high fat/carb/calorie but delicious ones) and very clean plants (frozen fruits and veggies) - all of which can either be microwaved or just left out to defrost (respectively)

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Please note that the poor little OP has no means of cooking.

Yams or anything else.

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In your haste to nitpick, you missed the parts where I addressed that.

Tinned fish and boiled eggs is cheap and easy, with some brown rice and spinach. I like to eat raw veg as well especially carrots, white cabbage, cauliflower and chopped spring onion with a little vinegar and chopped chili.
Oh and lots of bananas.

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Where do you get these?

Here’s what I currently do to get protein in Yilan, TW.

  • Buy roast chicken from Sunwell grocery store and eat half of it for a meal (the small chicken ver.)
  • ON protein shakes - 2 a day min. Use whole milk if you need more protein per shake.
  • Canned fish
  • Eggs
  • 悟饕 bento box w/ the purple rice (They list out nutrition facts on all their bento boxes on their website)
  • Buy raw meat and cook it at home (chicken breast w/o skin is like $80ntd)
  • Banana with Oatmeal

Would love other suggestions. Especially if you are in Yilan.

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I eat 200+g of protein a day with no issues, however I prep almost all of my food and avoid eating out.

If you have access to Costco, chicken and ground beef are your best choices of meat in terms of value (NTD per g of protein ratio).

Oatmeal with 2 scoops protein powder and skim milk/sugar free yogurt is a great breakfast or snack with 60g of protein, cheap too.

Soy products are very good sources of protein too, stinky tofu, sugar free soy milk, all other types of tofu. One thing to note is soy tofu is only around 80% effective so give this a 0.8 modifier when calculating.

One last note is you only need 0.8g of protein per lb of bodyweight aka 1.76g of protein per kg of bodyweight. Any more than that you see diminishing returns.

Edit:
If you do not have any way to cook, get a blender.

Blend the following:
-3 large scoops oatmeal
-2 large scoops protein
-100-200ml of skim milk or sugar free yogury
-1 banana
-100ml of water

When buying frozen food look for the following, there are actually some solid choices in costco too especially the beef roll things.
蛋白質 - protein
脂肪 - fat
碳水化合物 - carbs

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First, it’s a real challenge to stick to macros here, not having a kitchen being one of the first hinderances to this. Getting back on track is really a work in progress, and personally I’m not currently counting exact macros, but these are some ways which may directly help up the protein:

Eating out:

Poke restaurants are great.
You can double protein or just replace one or two of the veg with egg, tofu or edame beans. Most have a brown rice/salad option and they always ask how much rice you want so you can really scale down the carbs or do a mix.

Low GI places can be good with the purple rice option but sometimes the protein quality or the veg are just not up to par. Just find the ones which work for you and skip the others.

Chicken rice is always a good option (I just find regular lunchboxes way too greasy even if with purple rice) and usually you can ask for less rice or just not eat it all. Sometimes I just order the chicken and get a box of veg from a vegetarian place or with some sweet potatoes from 7-11.

Tea eggs, sweet potatoes and the extra thick soy or blackbean milk from Family Mart (they don’t do the thick variety at 7) are a good fall back.

’Cooking’ when you don’t really have a ‘kitchen’:

This is the biggest challenge here!
As soon as I could I invested in an electric pressure cooker and a stick blender set. They are game changers. I don’t have a kitchen but do have access to a fridge/freezer and a tiny one burner stove when necessary.

I do more intermittent fasting so two meals (one small one big) are fine for me. I’m also trying to reduce my reliance on meat as a protein source and testing how far I can go without having to resort to protein powders. And I don’t have a limitless budget :stuck_out_tongue:

Protein shake is usually super simple: banana, nut butter, cocoa powder, high protein bean milk, OR lately experimenting with replacing the milk element with coconut milk and flan tofu.

Supplies are never consistent here (see egg shortage issue over CNY lol).
Good standby stock to have includes:

Frozen veg in the freezer including peas and edame to bulk up the veg content in quick meals.
High protein yogurt
Buying a ready cooked chicken, shredding it ready for quick meals over a few days.
Eggs (when they happen to be in supply :P)

Dry lentils/variety of dry beans/chickpeas/purple rice/pearl barley
Cans of beans/lentils/tomatoes/chickpeas

When I have time and depending on supplies (there has been a major shortage of canned beans and fresh peppers the past month) I’ll cook a batch of daal I can eat over several days, other times black beans and ginger with some purple rice and barley, or if I want something more Mediterranean, a medley of beans with cooked peppers and zucchini, chili, tomato, olives and some homemade confit lemons.

Every few months I also make a batch or two of hummus, almond butter, and/or sesame paste.

But other ideas are welcome as not having a kitchen and sourcing supplies within a reasonable budget is a constant challenge.

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I eat a bunch of those Japanese osen eggs from 711

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They are really good but gets old if you eat more than 4 of them.

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Costco have some really nice duck breast

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Sorry for the late reply, I was in Tainan and I could find these in 2 different shops, but they are not chain shops I believe, or maybe they are? You can check if there is one around your place Google Maps

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Update:

Getting frozen fruits (Blackcurrant/Blueberry, Raspberry and etc) from CareFourr in Yilan. Found vanilla unsweetened almond milk here as well. Making some bomb ass smoothies to get my macros. $209NTD per 400g of frozen fruit of choice. $179NTD for half a gallon of vanilla unsweetened almond milk which is much better than milk. Also getting pineapple from local markets for these smoothie as well. They are cheap and great source of nutrient.

By the way blackcurrant > blueberry and you can’t get them in the USA as they were banned since 1911. Great fruit!

I found some canned beans at CareFourr but man, I am not paying $80NTD for a can of beans…can just eat a can of Eel for $35NTD.

You can now get them in some of the Eastern states. Also available nationwide in form of Creme de Cassis, a truly divine concoction!

Bros! Green (mung) bean is a great and relatively affordable way to get great source of protein. It is high in fiber, vitamin B, low fat and assorted healthy minerals.

One cup of mung bean boiled contains (7 oz or 202g):

  • 212 calories
  • 0.8g fat
  • 14.2g protein
  • 38.7g carb (23.3g net carb)
  • 4g sugar
  • 15.4g fiber

Great source in Asia for muscle building!

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