Check out these tips on why and how you can increase protein!
Top 5 Reasons To Increase Protein
#5 – SPEED UP YOUR METABOLISM
Foods have what you call a “Thermic Effect” or more commonly referred to as TEF. This is the amount of calories used just to process what you consume. Out of the three macronutrients (fats, carbs, and protein), protein has the highest thermic effect. That means you are burning more calories just trying to digest what you have eaten. Even simpler, if you ate 100 calories from fat and 100 calories from protein, more of those calories you ate will be burned off if you went with the latter. Paired with resistance training, after time of slowly adding muscle mass, will increase the amount of calories you are burning at rest.
#4 – YOU NEED NITROGEN
2 words you should familiarize yourself with:
Anabolic – state of repair and muscle building
Catabolic – state of muscle breakdown
To be in an anabolic state, you need to have a positive nitrogen balance. That means you are keeping more nitrogen than you are releasing. Where can you get nitrogen and lots of it? Protein! When you are eating less calories trying to lean out and tone up, ultimately you are trying to get rid of fat right? Well getting in an adequate amount of protein ensures that any weight loss that occurs isn’t muscle. Nobody wants to lose 3lbs of muscle! Yeah you’ll weigh less but your body fat percentage has now increased and technically you are now fatter than before!
#3 – ARE YOU VEGAN/VEGETARIAN?
Every protein has a “score” referred to as its BV(biological value). Plant based sources are very low due to their lack of leucine and other essential amino acids found in complete proteins. Research has shown that only by super compensating your protein amount or by matching leucine content of wheat protein to the leucine content in the whey protein, it can be just as effective. Unless you are effectively protein combining your sources or gifted with great genetics to get away with a decent intake, it would do your body good for composition if you raised your intake!
#2 – CONTROL YOUR CRAVINGS
Protein is very satiating at the amount that you should actually be consuming as a physically active person. That means you get full! Eating protein when you are thinking about having that extra cupcake or bag of chips will allow you to be full and keep your cravings in check!
#1 – UNDEREATING
Many of you out there that are physically active probably get enough protein to scrape passed the daily recommended allowance. The problem with that is that the amount that you actually need to repair and continue to make progress rises with the exercising that you are doing. Of course there is also an upper limit but I find most have a hard time meeting their minimum protein requirement for being physically active.
When you are eating less calories trying to lean out and tone up, ultimately you are trying to get rid of fat right? Well getting in an adequate amount of protein ensures that any weight loss that occurs isn’t muscle. Nobody wants to lose 3lbs of muscle! Yeah you’ll weigh less but your body fat percentage has now increased and technically you are now fatter than before!
This also helps to get more of the “helpful” calories in so that way you can start taking your body out of “starvation” mode and let it know it’s getting a decent amount of food on a consistent basis for it to balance out some hormones want to let go of fat!
