EAT RIGHT TO FIT RIGHT
Role of Protein in Weight loss
To kickstart your day, many rely on a fast acting simple carbohydrate source, but when push comes to shove, it is a protein rich meal that is a healthful nourishing alternative to lose weight. Seductive foods lurk at every corner. You need to eat right kinds of foods at right times of the day to stave off the blues.
Healthy eating is about eating smart. It also means getting the right number of calories in food, also known as energy balance. Calories still count. To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than your body expends, called negative energy balance. And you gain weight, by consuming more calories than your body uses, called positive energy balance.
According to WHO, the worldwide rampage of obesity nearly tripled between 1975 and 2016. Overweight and obesity are globally linked to more deaths than underweight. Obese people are at risk to devastating of health problems that include in the ascending order, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, osteoarthritis, gallstones, lung disease, sleep apnea, colon cancer, endometrial cancer and depression.
The good news is, losing even 10% of your total body weight, can prevent unleashing of these risks and can have a meaningful positive impact on your health. You can always continue to lose more weight once you have reached your initial goal of 10%.
GET ON THE ROAD TO A HEALTHY WEIGHT
The essential factors to reach fitness are motivation, healthy eating, regular exercise and an appreciation of better health. Nutrient dense diet with controlled calories is the crux to end obesogenic environment. And in a nutrient dense weight loss diet, protein is the main macronutrient to show most promising result.
Each gram of protein gives 4 kcals and its food sources include –
- Poultry like chicken and turkey
- Red meat like beef and lamb
- Fish like salmon and tuna
- Dairy like milk, curds, paneer
- Eggs
- Dals & Legumes like beans and lentils
Choose lean proteins low in saturated fats and limit red meat and processed meats.
PROTEIN MOLECULE DOES IT ALL
Around twenty plus basic building blocks called amino acids, make up protein. Nine amino acids……..are known as essential amino acids as they can’t be synthesized by our body and hence must come from food.
Protein provides the constructional support for every cell in your body. It is found as a constituent of skin, bones, joints, nails, hair, muscles and more.
Functions are –
- It necessitates in growth and maintenance.
- It’s involved in wear and tear of tissues.
- It gears up your immune system.
- It assembles enzymes that power many chemical reactions.
- It’s involved in hormone regulation.
- It acts as a messenger in transmissions of signals from one organ to another.
- It carries and stores nutrients.
THE PERKS OF PROTEIN IN WEIGHT LOSS
Use of protein is a paragon of weight loss and its popularity is reigning high. Here’s few reasons as to why protein is so prized.
- Protein spares muscle loss and fuels fat burning
Weight loss doesn’t always equate fat loss, it includes muscle loss as well. However you should aim to reduce body fat, both subcutaneous fat (under the skin) and visceral fat (around organs), and minimize muscle loss.
Continuous protein intake during weight loss builds lean muscle mass and also offers a fresh supply of amino acids especially after a workout, that often leads to depletion of muscle tissues. This muscle sparing action of protein also fuels fat burning, as, for your body to effectively burn and use fat as energy, it needs protein.
- Protein bolsters metabolism
Basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy your body needs at rest to perform basic bodily functions. It also means, round the clock, you are burning calories, including in your sleep.
A high protein intake has been shown to boost metabolism and increase 80-100 calories burned per day. This metabolic advantage effect, amongst other factors, is pronounced due to high thermic effect of food (TEF), which results in 25%-30% energy consumption in digesting and metabolizing protein. Thus protein makes you burn more calories than carbs & fats, and prevents sluggish metabolism which can happen as a side-effect in weight loss.
- Protein satisfies and conserves calories
Protein tips in favour of satiety inducing hormones (hormones GLP-1, peptide YY and cholecystokinin), against hunger hormone (ghrelin).
These important signals of hormones, of increasing feeling of fullness and lowering hunger to the brain, are instrumental in regulating weight, by leading to an automatic reduction of calories, which can drop down to almost 400-500 Kcals per day as per research. If this happens over a multiple days, your calorie savings can help in weight loss.
- Protein quells cravings and carbs high-lows
Food cravings are the dieter’s defeat. It is the main reason as to why you tend to fail in your diets. These calories then consumed, are added as a top-on to the existing calories of the day. Protein ensures adequate nourishment, especially when taken in breakfast, curbs food cravings, prevents overeating later and reduces hunger throughout the day, according to new research.
Also, when protein is paired with a carbohydrate rich food, it slows down the absorption of sugar from your stomach into the bloodstream. This helps in keeping you full for a longer time, thus warding off future cravings. This also prevents blood sugar from skyrocketing high to a crashing low, which can then result in a second helping of food, thus increasing your caloric intake.
BCAA – A STARRY ROLE IN WEIGHTLOSS (coupled with exercise)
Branch chain amino acids (BCAA’s) are linked to an essential group of amino acids containing leucine, isoleucine and valine. They are called branced – chain as each one has a forked outcropping that bears a resemblance to a branch.
A large share of BCAAs are found in our skeletal muscles. It’s no wonder that they are most widely used supplements amongst natural body builders and weight control enthusiast for athletic endeavors.
Experts say that leucine is more important than its counterparts. The favourable and go-to ratio is 2:1:1 of leucine to isoleucine and valine. Reasoning of this ratio explains that leucine turns on the process of muscle protein synthesis (MPS), which builds up the muscle tissue, that leads to more mucle growth. More points in this reasoning are explained further in the benefits of BCAA.
In history, for wound healing and blood clotting, keratin, the source of BCAAs, was first used as a medical treatment. Now there are other methods for the same, but the benfits of BCAA have been relevant for a while.
BENEFITS –
- BCAA aids muscle growth and prevents muscle wasting
One of the popular uses of BCAAs is to multiply muscle growth. Muscle wasting, a sign of malnutrition, occurs when speed of protein breakdown exceeds muscle protein synthesis. Replacement with BCAAs halts this process or slows its progression. During muscle protein synthesis, proteins are sent by your body to build and repair your muscles.
By itself, BCAAs activates muscle building, but when taken with a complete profile of amino acids like found in whey protein supplements, muscle synthesis can increase multiple folds.
- BCAA fires up your fat loss to get lean
Isoleucine in BCAA, has the ability to activate special receptors, known as PPAR that work to increase the activity of genes, that, elevate fat burning, and that demote fat storage.
BCAAs also increase testosterone and growth hormone, both which lead to reduction in fat growth.
- BCAA diminishes tiredness during exercise
Your muscles use BCAA during exercise, causing its levels to decline. When BCAAs decrease, levels of another essential amino acid, tryptophan – Yes! That tryptophan, which is converted to serotonin chemical, which makes you sleepy – to increase!
As valine competes with tryptophan and valine wins, by supplementing valine in BCAA, less tryptophan gets into the brain, to get converted to serotonin. This facilitates the muscle to contract with more force, and for longer time, before getting tired. With this, during exercise, you can keep your mind sharp, focused, and your body fully awake.
- BCAA brings down muscle soreness during exercise
It is not uncommon to feel sore after exercise, due to tiny tears in your muscles, from exertion. This is called as Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), and this develops 12-24 hours after exercise, and can last upto 72 hours.
BCAAs has been shown to decrease DOMS by reducing protein breakdown and also reducing levels of creatine kinase, both of which, are an indicator of muscle damage. This speeds up the mucle injury recovery time.
OPTIMAL PROTEIN FOR YOUR BODY
Inadequate protein intake, in a calorie controlled diet, jeopardizes sound body, and promotes muscle wasting, rather than growth. It can lead to decreased increased illness, athletic performance and training injuries. And preserving muscle mass and decreasing fat mass at the same time, requires ingesting sufficient amount of high quality proteins, as unlike carbs and fats, body DOES NOT STORE amino acids.
Also note that, adding proteins to a diet should replace carbs and fats. Adding protein to an existing number of high carbs and high fat diet will not reduce but gain weight. As anything in excess is not good, same goes for excess protein, which gets converted to fats.
Harvard health blog and studies confirm that 0.8 g of protein / kg / body weight, just sustains normal body functions. To shed weight and tone up, you need extra dose of protein. Set protein to 25%-30% of your total calories, for seeing optimal weight loss, which should come to minimum of 50-60 g per day. This is almost 1.5-2 g of protein / kg/ body weight for athletes, sportsmen and stern gym addicts.
MAKE PROTEIN YOUR PAL
Standard Indian diets are primarily carbohydrate packed, and lack sufficient proteins.
On your weight loss journey, you can make protein coupled with BCAA a pal, by eating enough of it in your daily diet, coming from various food sources and supplements like whey powders, to get that wishful curve in the right part of your body, and to lose those dreary love handles!
