Did You Know…that simply eating high quality protein with your meals will rev up your metabolism…enable you to burn significantly more calories…and get you to your target weight faster?
According to the findings of a Swedish research team, eating a high quality protein diet can double the amount of fat your body burns. The team, whose findings were published in The American Journal of Physiology—compared 2 diets, as follows:
One of the diets consisted of 8% protein and the other 21% protein. Both had equal amounts of calories. At the end of the 6-day study, the subjects in the high quality protein group had burned 2 times as much fat as the subjects in the control group.
Furthermore, the team noted that exercise resulted in 18% more fat burning for the high quality protein group.
Why does eating protein ramp up your caloric output? Because 1 gram of protein contains 4 calories, but your body must expend 6 calories to digest it! This means that through digestion alone, protein burns 50% more calories.
Eating protein…
- Speeds up your metabolic process
- Enables your body to increase lean muscle mass
- Allows you to decrease body fat faster
Melt Pounds and Build Muscle with Protein
Experts say that in order to increase muscle mass, you need to consume 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram, or 2.2 lbs, of bodyweight. So, you should eat 0.36 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day. This amount, which was used for the U.S. government’s dietary guidelines, supplies twice the amount of protein your body uses in an average day.
Unless you are a serious athlete, a bodybuilder or an otherwise extraordinarily active individual, 0.36 grams of protein per pound per day will be more than sufficient to boost your metabolism and cause your body to become a fat-burning furnace.
Pick Your High Quality Protein Wisely
Before you reach for that prepackaged protein bar or shake, consider instead the following list of foods that provide just as much protein—without all the added sugar and dangerous chemicals:
• Lean beef: top round cut, eye of round, shank, top sirloin, flank or chuck steaks, or ground beef with low fat content
• Fish: halibut, mahi-mahi, shark, red snapper, albacore, flounder, cod, haddock, orange roughy, scallops, sardines, tuna steak, low-sodium canned tuna, trout, carp, sea bass, salmon, swordfish
• Poultry: skinless chicken breast, turkey breast, ground turkey breast
• Pork: lean pork chop, lean tenderloin
• Vegetarian foods: tofu, soymilk, soybeans, edamame
• Dairy: whey protein, low-fat cottage cheese
The Most Powerful Protein of All?
Whey (a milk-based protein) may be the best option overall, especially for building lean muscles. Whey has the highest biological value of any protein. It also has the highest amount of amino acids. Plus, it’s the most easily absorbed by the body.
Professionals say that between 20-80 grams of protein is ideal for most individuals.
Tip:
Despite vehement marketing claims to the contrary, it makes little difference whether the whey you choose is processed by cross-flow microfiltration or ion exchange. However, you should make sure the whey is non-denatured, since denaturing breaks down natural protein structures and minimizes their biological activity.
