Studies have shown that in several groups of people who were given a diet that was low in calories, the group that was given the most protein to eat, lost the least amount of muscle mass overall. When trying to lose fat by dieting, you want to make sure that you keep as much of your muscle mass as possible. This keeps your metabolism from slowing down too much. It is for this reason that you shouldn’t take part in any kind of diet that asks you to give up all or most of the protein from your diet.
Muscles burn fat because they need calories for maintenance. You will burn more calories for the more muscle you have on your body. People who frequently use crash diets tend to lose lots of muscle mass. When these people return to normal eating habits, their metabolism will actually work slower from the lost muscle mass. They will tend to put on even more weight than they initially lost from dieting and losing weight becomes even harder and frustrating.
Protein is a word that literally means “of prime importance”. It’s a vital nutrient and is used primarlity to build the body structures, especially muscle. It’s also used to build organs, hair, hormones, nails and many more body parts. The human body cannot operate or survive without adequate protein. Those who have weight issues are found to consume less protein than they actually need. If you exercise or are very active mentally, your protein needs are actually much higher.
Protein is an excellent tool for aiding weight loss, and one way it helps is in it’s thermic value. Of all types of foods, it is protein that possesses the greatest thermic value and is also the hardest of foods to digest which means it burns up more calories. Taking longer to digest, it will leave you feeling satisfied for a longer period of time. It also doesn’t cause your blood sugar level to spike too quickly.
One important fact about protein is that it’s constructed of smaller amino acids. There are actually 12 essential amino acids that the body is unable to produce by itself and has to acquire them from external food sources. The majority of people are deficient in certain amino acids. This is either because they simply don’t consume enough, or that they don’t eat foods that have high quality protein within them that the body can easily assimilate. Eggs and yogurt contain protein of high biological value. This means that our body can utilize this protein much easier than other sources. Isolated whey powder is another excellent source.
If the food you regularly like to eat is not nutrient dense, you will need to eat more food and you will be hungrier more often. This is because it needs to eat a lot to get those nutrients that it needs. If on the other hand, you started to eat nutrient-dense foods, the body will need less food and only need food when it needs calories for energy. This is one of the main reasons why so many people fail on fad or starvation type diets. They feel intense hunger when depriving their body from what it really needs.
I should mention at this point that cooking protein destoys some of the amino acids which can leave you with only partial and incomplete protein. As protein is sensitive to cooking and heat, it would be a great idea to eat some raw source of protein daily. These can include nuts, seeds, whey, yogurt, cheese, and fruit and vegetables that haven’t been cooked. This will provide you with all 12 of those essential amino acids that the body craves. It can then produce the other acids from the initial 12.
Other great ways to preserve your lean muscle tissue is to perform regular training with weights or exercise. If your body needs it’s muscle for frequent motion, it will tend not to use them as fuel. It will use it’s fat stores instead to feed the cells and muscles of the body.
