One of the keys to any diet is a well defined structure. Many of us find ourselves wanting to lose weight at some point in our lives. A high protein diet is an incredibly effective way to manage calorie intake, while maintaining a sufficient level of essential nutrients to stay full, fuel the metabolism, and maintain muscle mass. Today we’ll aim to explain why a focus on protein intake while maintaining a calorie defecit may be exactly what you need to burn stubborn body fat.
Preserving Precious Muscle Mass
As one of the essential macronutrients required for a balanced, healthy diet, protein rich foods serve as the anchor to any weight loss strategy I prescribe. Protein is absolutely essential to building and maintaining muscle. Protein contains amino acids, which are essential to the synthesis and repair of muscle tissue. While we are in a caloric defecit, are body is not in an ideal situation to build or maintain lean muscle mass. Keeping protein intake high helps reduce the amount of lean muscle we stand to lose while dropping pounds. It’s important to eat enough protein within your dietary constraints if you want to lose fat, but hold on to your hard earned muscle mass.
Metabolism Boosting, Calorie Burning Thermogenesis
Protein has another important side effect. Protein rich food has a higher thermogenic effect on the body. This effect, also known as diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT), refers to the energy expenditure that occurs during the digestion, absorption, and utilization of nutrients from the food we eat. Protein caused the body to expend more energy through the following processes:
- Digestion: The body breaks down protein sources into the amino acids contained within during the process of digestion. This is a more difficult process than burning sources of the other macronutrient sources (fat and carbohydrates).
- Amino Acid Conversion: After the amino acids are extracted from the food we eat, the must be converted and absorbed into the bloodstream to be transported to cells throughout the body.
- Energy Expenditure: As a result of the extra effort the body must put forth in order to process high protein foods, the body draws upon other energy sources for the fuel needed to increase the metabolic rate in order to provide the energy to do all of this hard work.
Studies have shown that this effect can equate to roughly 20-35% of the calories consumed. In comparison, the thermic efects of fat and carbohydrates reportedly range from 5-15%. In theory, what this means is that for 100 calories of protein consumed, 20-35 calores are burned just processing that food, compared to only 5-15 of other macro sources
Feeling Full and Satiated
Protein plays a significant role in promoting a feeling of fullness, and this can be one of the most important factors in keeping to a diet. Nothing destroys hard earned progress like cravings. It’s important to keep ourselves feeling full in order to avoid the temptation to grab a late night snack. The reasons behind this can be attributed to multiple physiological mechanisms.
- Hormone Regulation: Protein is a survival nutrient, our bodies crave it, and when we consume it a nubmer of satiety hormones are released. Some of these hormones are cholecystokinin (CCK) and peptide YY (PYY). Protein can also suppress Ghrelin, which is a hormone that signals feelings of hunger. We’re hard wired to feel full and satisfied when we consume high levels of protein.
- Slow Digestion and Absorption: For the same reasons as we explained above on why protein takes more effort, and therefore expends more energy during digestion, protein takes much longer to digest. This means our food sits in our stomach longer, nutrients are released more gradually, and therefore leaves us feeling full longer.
- Blood Sugar Regulation: Protein consumption helps regulate blood sugar levels by slowing down the absorption of glucose from the digestive tract. This results in a more stable blood sugar profile, reducing the likelihood of rapid spikes and crashes that can lead to increased hunger.
Protein Supplements: Do you need one?
Protein supplements are one of the most popular nutritional supplements on the market. However, unlike many supplements out there, a solid protein supplemeny may be the one that we would argue is incredibly beneficial. The recommended daily protein intake is between 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of body weight. In other words, for a 200 pound man, it is recommended he aim for somewhere between 160g – 200g of protein per day. A good protein powder can be a great addition to help add 30-60g of protein to our daily total at a relatively low calorie cost. Additionally, whey protein can absorb into the bloodstream much quicker, making it extremely worthwhile to consume a shake shortly after a workout to help build and repair our muscles.
Many protein powders will do the job, but we particularly enjoy . It’s economical, tastes good, and contains
Planning a high protein diet
In order to ensure you are getting the proper amount of protein in your diet, it’s important to plan ahead. Meal prepping is an essential tool whether you’re trying to lose or gain weight. When planning for the week, break out your calculator. Make sure you know how much protein you need per day and how many meals you will eat. When you go to the grocery store, make sure to buy enough of your protein sources to give you enough in each meal. Here’s a quick tip, in general, cooked weight for lean proteins such as chicken can usually be fairly accurately estimated as 75% of uncooked weight. In other words, 10 ounces of uncooked chicken will generally weigh about 7.5 when fully cooked. Once you’ve done your shopping, cook as much as you can in advance. Having meals ready to grab from the fridge is a valueable resource, allowing you to eat something quickly when mealtime comes around, and get those hunger reducing hormones flowing.
Unable to meal prep?
I know some of you may struggle to prep ahead for any number of reasons. Some of you may not be too handy in the kitchen. Others may just not have the room in your schedule to dedicate the time. For those like you out there, I highly recommend a health concious meal prepping service in order to ensure you have the food that you need