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The best high-protein snacks can serve a vital role: Meeting your protein goals can be a challenge if you go hard at the gym. Without getting enough protein, you won’t be able to maintain or build muscle. Hopefully, you’re already getting protein at every meal, but it can still be tough to hit your number, and the right snacks are can helps The key is having some of the macronutrient readily accessible, so here are 10 high-protein snack ideas—all recommended by registered dietitians.

What’s Considered a “High Protein” Snack, Anyway?

You already know that protein is important, but maybe things get fuzzy when it comes to how much you should aim to get each day. Registered dietitian and From Burnout to Balance author Patricia Bannan, MS, RDN, says that while individual needs vary based on one’s weight, age, and activity level, a good general rule to follow is consuming .8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight and between 1.2 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of bodyweight if you’re working out regularly or super active.

Take someone who weighs 180 pounds, or 82 kilograms. For the minimum protein requirement (0.8 grams per kg), multiply that by 0.8, which comes out to 65 grams.

While hitting your daily protein goal is important, registered dietitian Andy De Santis, RD, suggests not to get too obsessive. “A protein target is important, but so is having an overall balanced diet,” he says. If you’re eating the same high-protein foods continuously instead of a wider range of nutrient-rich foods just to stay under a certain calorie budget, De Santis says it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate. What’s most important, he says, is eating a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods so you’re getting a broad mix of everything the body needs.

With all of this in mind, what exactly is considered a high-protein snack? Registered dietitian Kristin Kirkpatrick, RD, says this depends on someone’s individual protein goals, but she considers a high-protein snack to be something with between 10 and 25 grams of protein. Any less than that, wouldn’t be considered “high protein” and any more than that is veering into meal territory, not a snack.

When Is a Good Time to Eat a High-Protein Snack?

“What’s most important is hitting your daily protein target. From there, you can consider how you’re meeting that target throughout the day,” De Santis says, emphasizing that this is where high-protein snacks come in handy. “High-protein snacks can help close the gap between the protein people are getting at their meals and their daily goal,” he says.

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Photographs: Getty Images; Collage: Armando Zaragoza

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If you’ve experienced this phenomenon, you’ve had a prospective memory lapse.

Memory usually means remembering things that have already happened. But prospective memory is the ability to remember to do something in the future – such as stopping to get milk on the way home from work, calling your mom on her birthday, or remembering to take your casserole out of the oven. Sometimes, errors lead to heartbreaking results – such as forgetting to take your toddler out of the car on a hot day.

I am a clinical neuropsychologist and a professor of psychology and neuroscience. For the past 30 years, my research has focused on this phenomenon, measuring prospective memory and looking for treatments to help those having problems.

Carrying out future intentions

Prospective memory is the ability to remember to remember, or to remember to carry out a future intention.

A future intention can be retrieved in two different ways. One is in response to something in your environment, such as a sight or a sound, that serves as a cue to do an intended action. Researchers like me call this an “event.” For instance, you see your co-worker and remember you have a message for them; you hear the timer go off and remember to turn off the sprinklers.

The other way is in response to time. Your dental appointment is scheduled for 2 p.m., but you plan to exercise for 30 minutes first.

One possible explanation for how people retrieve a prospective memory is known as the multiprocess theory.

According to this theory, sometimes you have to put forth effort to remember, such as checking the time repeatedly until it gets to be 2 p.m. Other times the memories come to you without effort, such as when you hear an alarm. As the above examples suggest, memories that have time-based cues, like 2 p.m., are usually more difficult to remember than those that have event-based cues, such as an alarm.

Brain regions at play

Older adults tend to lose prospective memory as they age. This may be because of brain changes in the aging prefrontal cortex.

But it’s not all bad news. Older adults actually seem to do better than younger people in some situations when they are asked to remember things in their daily lives. We call this the age-prospective memory paradox.

The part of the brain that seems most responsible for prospective memory is an area of the frontal lobes, referred to as Brodmann’s area 10. This area is involved with holding information in mind while doing a different simultaneous task.

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Ready to put together an arms-and-shoulders workout? I’ve already given you the lowdown on the best bicep exercises, the best tricep exercises, and best shoulder exercises. Today I’ll give you a formula to combine them, and it’s customizable so you can swap in your favorites if you don’t love mine.

The structure

We’re going to start with a heavy(ish) compound exercise that works your arms and shoulders together. Then we’ll move on to moderately heavy exercises, starting with the ones that didn’t get hit very hard on the compound. We’ll superset exercises where we can, to save time. It will look something like this: 

1. Shoulder press of your choice – 5 sets, heavy, anywhere between 3-8 reps, with 2 minutes of rest between sets.
2. (optional) Rear delt work – 3 sets of 8-12 reps
3. Bicep/tricep superset – 3 sets of 8-12 reps each 
4. Shoulder superset – 3 sets of 10+ reps each
5. (optional) Light bicep/tricep superset – 3 sets of 12-15 reps each

For a 30 minute workout, skip the optional sections and just do a shoulder press, bicep/tricep superset, and a shoulder superset. The first 15 minutes will be spent on the shoulder press and the rests between sets; the other components you can speed through with basically no rest. 

To get more work in, take some extra time and do the optional sections. If you try that and find you’re recovering well, it’s fine to add more bi/tri supersets or double up on any of the components of the workout that you’d like to spend more time on.

How this fits into your week: Once a week is okay, but this workout should ideally be done twice per week. It’s also fine to do this workout once, and a different upper-body workout another time. 

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Wonderful idea… in the election of 2024 perhaps!

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In politics, opprobrious language and conduct, plus outright lying should be condemned, against the law, and severely punished!

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Hmmmmm… could this be Donald Trump?

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Have you ever had the feeling that someone you’re talking to is not telling the truth? Or that what they’re saying doesn’t match up with the facts? Over time, have you caught this person in multiple lies, some small, and others big? If so, you may wonder if the person could be a pathological liar. 

With insights from a psychologist, this article will go over what pathological lying is, how it compares to other kinds of lying, and what to do if you’re dealing with a pathological liar.

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CLIMATEWIRE | The world still isn’t sucking enough carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to meet the Paris climate targets, scientists said Tuesday. And the gap grows wider every year that humanity delays meaningful cuts to global greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s the punchline of a new report on the state of global carbon dioxide removal, the practice of drawing CO2 out of the air to help tackle climate change. It’s an update to the report’s first edition, which was published in January 2023.

Nations worldwide are scrubbing about 2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, mainly by planting trees, the report says. But experts estimate they’ll need to remove at least 7 billion tons annually by midcentury.

Meanwhile, global emissions must fall rapidly to stay on the Paris track. Humanity spews nearly 40 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year through the burning of fossil fuels.

Scientists agree the primary strategy for tackling climate change is through a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, mainly by phasing out fossil fuels and halting deforestation. But they also agree at least some carbon removal is necessary to keep global warming below 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, the major goals of the Paris Agreement.

That’s because global emissions must reach net zero within a few decades to meet the Paris timeline, meaning any remaining carbon going into the atmosphere must be counterbalanced by an equal amount coming out.

Carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, is the “only way really to provide a balance of net zero if we still have residual emissions in the system,” said Steve Smith, a climate science and policy expert at the University of Oxford and a lead author of the new report, at a press conference Tuesday.

The simplest way to hit net zero is to stop pouring carbon dioxide into the air. But some sectors of the economy likely cannot be fully decarbonized within the next few decades, either because the technology doesn’t exist yet or it can’t be scaled up quickly enough.

That means some residual emissions will be leftover by midcentury, and world leaders will need to offset them with carbon removal.

There are a variety of ways that can be done. Planting forests is the most popular strategy today, accounting for nearly all the carbon removal happening around the world. But researchers are working on a range of novel techniques on the side, from giant carbon-guzzling machines to special minerals that help the land or the ocean absorb more CO2.

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If you’ll permit me a rant—I promise to make it fact-filled and interesting—I am sick of the articles that seem to pop up every few months claiming that we are all eating “too much” protein. They convey an inaccurate picture of how the body uses protein, and they demonize perfectly healthy meals that happen to be high in protein. It’s time to set the record straight.

How can these articles be so wrong? I think the authors are usually well-meaning, but their facts don’t support the conclusion. They tend to bolster their argument with statements that are true, like the fact that the RDA of protein is set at 0.36 grams per pound of body weight, that protein-boosted foods are trendy, and that it is possible to get plenty of protein while eating a vegan diet. But the framing and the conclusions don’t follow, because eating more than the minimum doesn’t mean that you’re getting “too much” protein. 

What foods contain protein? 

As a refresher, protein is one of the three calorie-containing macronutrients (fats, carbs, protein) that make up our diets. Proteins are made of amino acids, and they are required for the growth, repair, and functioning of our body. 

We can get protein from a variety of sources. Meats are particularly protein-dense; a chicken breast contains about 35 grams of protein. Other animal products, like milk and eggs, are also rich in protein. Plant-based foods tend to have less protein, but it’s not hard to meet or exceed protein requirements even on a vegan diet. Beans, grains, and soy products like tofu contain significant amounts of protein, for example. 

If you’d like a cheat sheet on how much protein you’re supposed to eat based on your activity level, you can find one here. And that’s a good place to start dissecting this “too much protein” myth, because before we can declare an amount of protein to be “too much,” we need to understand how much is “enough.”

The RDA is meant to be considered a minimum 

The government communicates targets for different nutrients to encourage us all to eat a healthy, balanced diet. These targets are the basis for the “% daily value” labels on the back of packaged foods, and for the nutrient makeup of school lunches. The RDA, or recommended daily allowance, is defined as “the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all (97 to 98 percent) healthy individuals in a group.”

So how is that “nutrient requirement” determined? For protein, it is based on nitrogen balance. Humans break down proteins, excreting nitrogen, as part of the body’s daily function. If you eat enough protein (which contains nitrogen), the amount of nitrogen you excrete will be the same as, or more than, the amount you eat. In other words, if you aren’t breaking your own body proteins down (in excess of what you eat), then whatever you’re eating must be, in some sense, enough. 

In this way of thinking, the RDA is the minimum to stay healthy. More is fine; less would mean that you may not be getting enough. For some nutrients, there is also an UL, or upper limit, telling you that more than a certain amount is too much. Upper limits are calculated for vitamins and minerals; there is no upper limit defined for protein.

Therefore, there is no official definition for “too much” protein. If somebody eats more than the RDA, they’re not eating too much; they’re just eating more than the minimum. You’re supposed to eat more than the minimum. 

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CLIMATEWIRE | The world is careening toward a major planetary milestone, leading meteorological organizations said Wednesday. Nations are striving to halt global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius — yet global temperatures already are nudging temporarily above that threshold.

A new report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service warns that the last 11 months in a row have all seen global average temperatures above the 1.5 C threshold. And the last 12 have all been characterized by record-breaking monthly heat; temperatures last month hovered about 1.52 degrees above Earth’s preindustrial average.

Meanwhile, the World Meteorological Organization said Wednesday that there’s an 80 percent chance at least one of the next five calendar years will exceed a 1.5 C average. Nearly a decade ago — in 2015 — that chance was nearly zero.

It wouldn’t be the first time a 12-month span has crossed 1.5 C. Copernicus reported earlier this year that the yearlong period between February 2023 and January 2024 averaged 1.52 C above preindustrial levels, marking it the hottest 12 months on record at the time.

Temperatures have continued to inch higher since then. The yearlong period that just ended in May saw global temperatures average about 1.63 C above preindustrial levels, making it the new hottest 12-month span.

Still, temporary fluctuations into 1.5 C territory don’t suggest the threshold has yet been permanently crossed.

The Paris climate agreement doesn’t explicitly outline the definition of when a temperature threshold has passed. But most scientists agree that the 1.5 C target refers to a long-term average. The exact amount of time that defines “long term” is also debatable, but it generally refers to years or even decades.

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At the start of training camp, early last October, the Boston Celtics’ social-media team posted a video of Jaylen Brown, the team’s All-Star guard, practicing his dribble. In it, Brown, his back to the camera, pounds a few hard dribbles with his right hand, then shifts the ball to his left. The ball begins to stray. Brown hitches it back. Then the ball swings farther to the left, and Brown pulls it back too sharply; he has to step forward to corral it. He regains control for a few dribbles, but, when the clip cuts off, the ball is about to bounce out of the frame.

The video disappeared from the Celtics’ channels, but not before it was widely shared, often with unflattering commentary. Just weeks earlier, Brown had signed a contract for about three hundred million dollars, the largest in N.B.A. history. This was not a surprise; he was the first player to be eligible for so much money, partly on the basis of being named to a list of the league’s best players in the season prior. And he is an aggressive, dynamic scorer, plus a tenacious defender capable of guarding anyone. Still, there was the matter of that dribble. The last time Brown had played in an N.B.A. game, in the deciding contest of the Eastern Conference Finals, against the Miami Heat, he’d had eight turnovers, many of them mishaps while dribbling with his left hand.

The favored Celtics lost that game, and, with it, the series, to the underdog Heat, in a blowout. Never mind that the team’s best player, Jayson Tatum, had got injured just after the game began—the reasonable consensus was that the Celtics, who were playing in their fifth Eastern Conference Finals in the past seven years, should have beaten the Heat easily. The loss was an embarrassment; the inconsistent performances of Tatum in clutch situations were picked apart, over and over. The team’s rookie head coach, Joe Mazzulla, who had led the team to the second-best record in the conference, was criticized as not being ready for prime time. People questioned the fit between Brown and Tatum, who did not always complement each other’s strengths in quite the way that some of the league’s most famous duos did. Brown’s name popped up in trade rumors. In the end, Brad Stevens, who had coached Brown and Tatum when they arrived in the league before moving to the front office, signed Brown to the big contract—then traded half of the rest of the team’s rotation.

When the new season began, the Celtics played like one of the best teams in N.B.A. history. They had the highest-rated offense of all time and a defense that was nearly as good. Their net rating, a statistical calculation of a team’s overall performance, put this year’s Celtics alongside the league’s most legendary teams, including Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors at their peaks. Boston won multiple games by more than fifty points, something only two teams had done before. And yet many commentators, and even some of the team’s fans, seemed reluctant to accept this evidence. “The Celtics record (76-20) & point differential (+10.4) say they’re an all-time team,” a popular sports talk-radio host tweeted recently, after the Celtics swept this year’s Eastern Conference Finals, against the Indiana Pacers. “The eye test says they are not close to that.” Why, when it comes to this team, do people see something different from what the results suggest? What do we think greatness should look like?

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Boeing’s Starliner’s first-ever astronaut mission is underway.

Starliner, Boeing’s new astronaut taxi for NASA, soared into space today (June 5) from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, notching a huge milestone after nearly two decades of commercial crew planning.

Veteran NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, both

former U.S. Navy test pilots, with 11,000 flight hours between them, are riding aboard the Boeing Starliner capsule, which launched today at 10:52 a.m. EDT (1452 GMT) atop a United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) workhorse Atlas V rocket. As it was for Starliner, this was also the first time astronauts have launched atop an Atlas V in its 22-year flight history.

“We all know that when the going gets tough, as it often does, the tough get going, and you all have,” Wilmore said while waiting on the pad for liftoff. “Let’s get going, let’s put some fire in this rocket. “

“Let’s go Calypso, take us to space and back,” pilot Sunita Williams said just minutes before launch, referring to the name of the Starliner capsule.

Starliner is headed toward the International Space Station (ISS), where Wilmore and Williams will spend about eight days putting the spacecraft through a series of tests toward operational crew certification. Rendezvous is scheduled for Thursday (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. EDT (1615 GMT). You can follow the mission with our Starliner live updates page.

The fiery launch brings NASA within reach of a goal the agency set more than a decade ago: getting two American commercial vehicles up and running for astronaut missions to the ISS. It’s been a long road to get here, as the roots of this goal go back to at least 2006.

The newly launched Starliner mission, a roughly 10-day jaunt known as Crew Flight Test (CFT), was originally scheduled to lift off on May 6. But that attempt was scrubbed about two hours before launch, when team members noticed a “buzzing” valve on the Atlas V’s upper stage.

ULA decided to replace the valve, which required rolling the rocket off the pad and back to the company’s vertical integration facility. That work delayed the planned liftoff until May 17, but then another issue arose: a slight helium leak in one of the reaction-control thrusters in Starliner’s service module.

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