By: Joel Luedke
'Diet' can become one of those four letter words for most people and it can be extremely frustrating. What to eat, how much of it, and when are all questions you can come across and often it is hard to figure out what is the best bet. When you talk to our resident nutritionist, Dr. Jagim and his course 'Weight Loss 101' he breaks a lot of it down and recommends looking at increasing protein in your diet for a variety of good reasons. In this Study Spotlight we take a look at a research study that compared a high protein diet vs. a standard protein diet and how it affected the body.
What They Did:
Researchers ran a parallel design study which compared either a high protein diet of meat, poultry and air foods (HP diet: 27% protein, 44% CHO, 29% fat) against as standard-protein diet (SP diet: 16% protein, 57% CHO, 27% fat). The study ran over 12 weeks of energy energy restriction and 4 weeks of energy balance. Measurements in this study included weight loss, fat loss, blood pressure, calcium excretion, lean body mass, and serum triacylglycerol concentrations.
What They Found:
Overall weight loss and total fat lost didn't change between the two groups. For women there did see that total lean mass was better preserved with the HP diet. Those that were in the HP group had significantly less glycemic response at 0 and 16 weeks. After the weight loss the glycemic response decreased significantly. There was also a reduction in triacylglycerol concentrations in the HP that was greater than the SP group. There was no change in bone turner over or calcium excretion.
What It All Means:
On the initial look at what they found you might not see much difference or why it would matter what the composition of your diet looks like because the weight loss and fat loss were the same. Then we dive a little deeper into the results and we look at all the metabolic effects that can happen when you up your protein levels in a diet. Things like the reduction of the glycemic response which can help your body in its handling of sugar down the road. Also reducing the amount of fats that are circulating throughout the blood is something that you definitely want to aim for as that can lead to some major problems down the line if it begins to accumulate in your vessels and potential start backing them up.
Another reason to potentially look at higher protein is a lot of people under eat this macronutrient over time and therefore start utilizing their own muscle and break it down to have protein available for their body. When it comes to everyday life and weight loss this is not what you want. We want to maintain a good level of lean body mass in order to keep our bodies strong and we need protein to do so. Also protein can be highly thermogenic which makes our bodies work a little harder to break it down and utilize it so we can burn more calories in the process.
Again, check out your diet, know what you are eating and see if you think it might be time to adjust your macro ratios and see how it makes you feel. If it works great, if not, get back to the drawing board and figure out what works for you.
"If you're going to overeat on anything, let it be protein." -Andrew Jagim PhD
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