The Truth About Protein
Protein is essentially the building blocks for tissues in the body. It is used to build hair, muscle, cells, skin, bone…the list goes on. It can also improve body composition, eliminate hunger and reduce body fat, as well as improve brain function, sleep, help with disease prevention and improve blood pressure.
Put simply every function in your body needs protein therefore your body requires it everyday. Below are the main reasons why it is so critical to your diet:
Reduces Hunger
Protein is filling as your body takes longer to break it down than other macros. This means you are satisfied more quickly and (in theory) eat fewer calories.
Supports Fat Loss
Fat loss is not just about starving yourself! A high protein diet supports eating real foods that fill you up, energize you, and give you the most nutrients per calorie.
Not only will you eat less when consuming more protein, but the thermic affect of food means it also increases the amount of calories your body burns to digest it (yay!). For example protein requires nearly 2 times the calories to breakdown as carbs.
Greater Muscle Mass and Lean Tissue
Your body is constantly in a state of muscle loss and muscle gain. Eating protein simulates the ability to grow muscle and suppresses protein breakdown (losing muscle mass) for several hours after you have trained. This means you are more likely to recover well and improve body comp if you eat the right amount of protein after you workout. This will mean more muscle mass, and greater resting energy expenditure (a faster metabolism).
So how should you incorporate these into your meals? Ideally proteins should be rotated with fish, eggs, beef, poultry and other animal products. The highest quality protein foods are those with the highest BCAA content and include chicken, beef, salmon, eggs and whey protein.
Negatives of Protein
There are of course some negatives to protein:
It can increase inflammatory gut bacteria (ever get an upset stomach after eating meat?) because bad bacteria can feed off the amino acids from the protein. Counteract this by pairing your proteins with foods high in fibre as they will optimise the good bacteria – so lots of green leafy vegetables.
Cooking animal products at very high temperatures can lead to the production of cancer causing compounds so cook on a lower heat for a longer amount of time.
But remember! As with anything there can be too much of a good thing. More is not always better which is why your protein amount should be set and stay the same regardless of your other macros (fat and carbs). Eating too much protein could displace other nutrients which could allow you to be more beneficial and it can still be stored as fat!