3 REASONS WHY PROTEIN IS THE MOST  IMPORTANT  FAT LOSS NUTRIENT

One of the most common questions that I am getting from my clients, friends and family members when it comes to fat loss and dieting is what  is the best food to eat if I want to lose excess body weight? And when people ask that question they actually want to hear about some special exotic food or food combination that will somehow magically burn all excess body fat from their waistline.

As we discussed in one of the previous articles, the fat burning food is a myth. There’s no any single food that has the ability to somehow accelerate your metabolism to such a high extent to make you lose weight without you altering your total caloric intake in some way.

Mechanistically, fat loss is a matter of energy balance and if you want to lose excess weight you will need to find the way to make your energy intake become lower than your energy expenditure so your body has a need to dig into its fat reserves to provide that extra energy in order to fuel its daily activities. But just because there are no fat burning foods it doesn’t mean that certain foods cannot provide some unique advantages that make the whole process of creating the caloric deficit much easier to obtain.

The nutrient that provides biggest metabolic advantage and that should be the
first priority for someone who is trying to lose weight is protein.

What is protein:

Together with carbohydrates and fats the protein is one of the 3 macro-nutrients that can be found is food and its primary role is in building and repairing various body tissues. Protein is an important building block for muscles, bones, cartilage and skin. Most commonly it is found in animal based foods like meat, fish, eggs and diary products.

 Plant based sources like lentils, beans and soy derived products are a great sources of protein as well. So let’s see what are the 3 reasons why you should definitely prioritize protein dense foods in your diet if you are trying to lose excess body weight.

1. Protein makes you less hungry

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Today we have a quite solid amount of research pointing in a direction of protein being the most satiating macronutrient and that high protein diets are being superior then low protein diets when it comes to satiety.
So just by having more protein with your meals you will end up eating less food at the end of the day.

2. Eating protein accelerates your metabolic rate

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This benefit refers to something that is being called thermic effect of feeding. That basically means that when you eat any food your body spends certain amount of energy for digesting and metabolizing the nutrients that are contained in that food. And the great news for all protein lovers is that digestion of protein is a very costly process, so body is spending between 20-30% of overall caloric value of protein on its digestion and assimilation during and after the meal.

That value for carbohydrates and fats is much lower, 5% and 3% respectively. This basically means that if you eat 1000 calories from protein, 300 will be spent during digestion process leaving you with only 700 to be used by the body.

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On the other hand, if you eat 1000 calories from fats for example, only 30 calories will be spent during digestion process leaving you with 970 calories to be used by the body. And that can make significant difference when it accumulates over a longer period of time

3. High protein intake helps in building and retaining lean muscle tissue while dieting

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Let’s make this clear. When you say that you want to lose the body weight, what you really want is to lose body fat. That is important to distinguish because during the dieting process there is
a real treat that some of the weight being lost could potentially come from the lean muscle tissue.

 One of the risk factors that can influence the loss of lean muscle tissue is lack of structured strength training and low intake of dietary protein.
 

Having high protein intake paired with resistance training will make sure that all body weight that is being lost is being lost from preferred tissue which is fat and not muscle 

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But i heard that high protein is damaging to my kidneys?

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Actually this is one of the longest standing myths that simply refuses to go
away. What the research show is that high protein intake can be harmful if you already have pre-existing kidney conditions. With people with already healthy kidneys high protein diets are completely
safe. 

How much protein should you have per day?

How much protein you need per day will depend from several factors like age, training goals, activity level, body fat percentage and how big your caloric deficit is. The research show that if your goal is to maximize body fat loss while retaining lean muscle tissue than intake between 1.8-2.4 gr per kg of body
weight would be optimal in that regard. That practically means that if your body weight is for example 80kg, than your daily protein intake can go from 128-190 grams per day distributed in as many meals as you like (2-6, whatever you personal preference is).

It's worth mentioning that for people with more severe caloric deficits and people who are pursuing more extreme levels of leaness (less then  10 % of body fat), intakes from 2.3-3.1 gr/kg are recommended.

Summary:

- Protein is the most important macronutrient when it comes to successful fat loss
- It makes you more full after the meals, makes you burn more calories through digestion and helps with retention of muscle tissue during dieting process
- High protein diets are completely safe for your kidneys as long as you don’t have any preexisting kidney condition

- For optimizing body composition changes daily protein intake should range from 1.8-3.1 grams per kilogram and will depend from several factors like activity level, body fat percentage and how aggressive the caloric deficit is