Infinite Life Fitness

How A High Protein Diet Can Help You Lose Weight

These days, most people who are looking to lose weight (both men and women) tend to follow a strict diet regime that see’s them significantly cutting down their daily calorie intake and often, cutting out a lot of their favorite foods. Most of these diets also recommend that you reduce your consumption of protein and carbohydrates and because of this, protein-rich foods are perceived by most as being “fattening”.

While it’s true that high protein foods are relatively calorie-rich (at least when compared with veggies), I think it’s important to point out that eating a substantial amount of protein could actually help you to lose weight.

The Weight Loss Effects of Protein

The human body actually uses more energy to break down and digest protein than it does with both carbohydrates and fat. This means that essentially, you’ll burn more calories digesting a steak than you will a healthy, low-calorie salad.

Protein is also a natural appetite suppressant. Foods that are high in protein take longer to leave your stomach than foods high in fat or carbs, meaning that basically, you’ll feel fuller for longer which will help you to eat less throughout the day (as you’ll feel less hungry) which strangely, can lead to a decrease in calorie consumption for some people.

In fact, there have been numerous studies that have proven the hunger quelling effects of protein, such as the one published in Nutrition & Metabolism. In the study, subjects increased their daily protein intake to approximately 30% of their diets and it was found that on average, the subjects consumed 450 calories a day less than usual and also lost an average of 11 pounds over a 12 week period.

It Helps You Lose Fat…Not Muscle

Not only does protein keep you feeling full for longer as mentioned above, but it also helps to ensure that you lose fat rather than muscle. Protein is packed with essential amino acids which are used by the body to maintain and build mean muscle mass.

Even if you aren’t particularly looking to gain muscle, it’s important to take note of this as the leaner you become, the higher your metabolism will be which will help you to burn more calories, 24 hours a day. By sticking to a protein rich diet, you can ensure that your body has a sufficient supply of amino acids which will help to maintain muscle mass and also, that your body breaks down fat to use as energy rather than muscle.

Ultimately, this will ultimately lead to a slimmer, more toned look.

Adding Protein To Your Diet

If you’re not really into eating a huge amount of meat, you might think that adding protein to your diet is a difficult task, but it actually isn’t. There are a huge amount of protein rich foods out there so you can be sure that there’s something to suit all taste buds.

If you’re thinking about adding more protein to your diet but aren’t sure what to eat, here’s a great list of 81 high protein foods to get you started.

As well as foods, you could also explore the possibility of incorporating a protein shake into your diet. Most people still view protein shakes as being solely for bodybuilders, but this isn’t the case at all and these days, they come in a huge range of flavors.

The great thing about protein shakes is that they allow you to add a huge amount of protein to your diet without much effort so if you’re considering doing this, click here to check out a list of the best protein shakes available.

Conclusion

The US RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for protein consumption is around 0.8 grams per kilogram of lean body mass. However, there are a lot of nutrition experts that believe this is simply not enough and that to lose weight, a high protein diet will significantly help.

There are also a lot of diets out there that recommend significantly increasing your daily protein intake but the thing is, most of these diets are aimed at men looking to build muscle. For example, both the Truth About Abs program and the Six Pack Shortcuts program (here’s a totally unbiased Six Pack Shortcuts review) recommend increasing daily protein consumption to around 40% of your diet.

Sure, both of these are aimed at building muscle but they’re also aimed at helping people to lose weight and shed body fat. They might be a bit extreme for those that are just looking to lose a bit of extra weight but there’s a lot we can learn from them such as the huge benefits of a high protein diet.

 

This guest post was written by Joshua Hardwick writer of  iWantASixPack.com

Please feel free to stop by his site for other health and fitness related topics!  He has a lot of great information for those who are wanting more in-depth information about health and fitness related topics.  Thanks Joshua for the wonderful post you shared with us today!