Introduction to Protein Diet

Diet with high protein requires to eat more protein and fewer carbohydrates or fat to increase weight loss, advance energy, and augment athletic performance. Protein is considered as one of the essential nutrients for the health of the body. It is accountable for the variety of important functions in the body including enzymes, hormones, maintenance and cell repair. According to some nutritionists, a high protein diet can help overweight and obese females lose more fat and at the same time retaining less muscle mass. High protein diets assist in reducing the level of hunger, surge satiety, increase metabolic rate, and reserve muscle mass. Unfortunately, in case of diet, it varies sometimes from person to person as one diet plan cannot entertain each and every person. Generally, a diet with high protein recommends taking more than 20% of your entire calories from protein. It means to intake fewer calories from carbohydrates or fats to maintain the balance of calories in the body.

The History of High-Protein Diets

High-protein diets have been around for eras. People native to the Arctic region where green life such as plants and herbs are rare can survive only on marine life and rein deers. African warrior tribes used to survive on only milk and meat. Similarly, some Native Americans know to continue their lives while eating mostly buffalo with a few plants. The high-protein diets came into trend during the late 1970swith the Scarsdale diet, which proportionates the diet of 43% protein, 22.5% fat, and 34.5% carbohydrates. Current diets that highly emphasizes on high-proteins intake comprises of Atkins, South Beach, and Dukan diets.

How High-Protein Diets Work?

It is important for any healthy diet for weight loss to incorporate a balance of three macronutrients such as fat, carbohydrate, and protein. A high-protein diet comprises at least 20% of calories from protein. The amount of protein you should intake relies on some essential factors that incorporate your age, body size, activity level, and gender.

Guidelines for Proteins

There are general plans that guide the individuals to eat between 10% and 35% of total calories as protein. Active adults may need 1.2 to 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight each day. This connects to 82 to 116 grams for a person weighing 150 pounds. Whereas the official recommendations daily allowance for a healthy adult is a minimum of 0.8 g/kg/day. It is easy to have a check on a daily protein intake with the help of calorie tracking applications. The application is used by many people on a high-protein diet to track their macronutrient intake to ensure that they are getting the correct ratio of protein to carbohydrate and fat.
To initiate the high protein diet, it is suggested to intake 30% of calories from protein, 30% of calories from fat, and 40% of calories from carbohydrates. Later after some days, an individual can either add or reduce the level of macronutrient according to o his needs.

Recommended Meal Timing

There is no recommended meal timing for a high-protein diet, however, some individuals on a high-protein plan also practice fasting with irregular intervals, which include confining the level of calories to certain days of the week and then fasting on others days. Similarly, the practice is continued for a longer period of time without eating, sometimes even 16 hours a day.

Resources and Tips

It is important not to make the high-protein diet difficult. It needs to be easy and flexible to get continued for a longer period. Here are a few tips that can help a person to initiate:

• Contain protein in each meal. Meals should be planned around a protein, where lean beef, a chicken must be the part of your dish together with the plate of vegetables.
• Eliminate processed carbs. Instead of eating refined grains, that includes white rice, pasta, and bread, it is best to include small servings of whole grains that are rich in protein, such as amaranth or quinoa. Similarlypasta can be replaced with spiralized zucchini or carrots and replaced riced cauliflower for white rice.
• Snack on protein. Try to keep high-protein snacks aside for between-meal hunger strikes. Almonds, Greek yoghurt, hummus, ricotta, and string cheese can help o person during between-meal hunger.
• Start your day with protein. Eggs are rich in proteins and help in filling the breakfast. If someone is running short of time or is not keen of eating eggs, a smoothie prepared with protein powder, such as whey, pea protein, or collagen, leafy greens, and berries can help allot in the quick and healthy breakfast.

High-Protein Pros and Cons

Excessiveness of any food has its own pros and cons on the health of a person. Similar to every weight-loss plan, a high-protein diet has its own share of advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

The high protein diet can help a person on building strong muscles, burning more calories, help in more filling, and eventually helps a person in improving the diet.

Cons:

The excessive use of high protein diet can lead the person to suffer from nutrient deficiency. In addition to that, a high intake of protein diet can be harmful to the kidneys, heart disease.

When the meal on the table has a lean source of protein, there is less space on your plate for those foods that are unhealthy. It is therefore suggested by nutritionists to learn to eat various types of proteins that may help a person to improve the diet and physique as well. For example, if a person eats tuna, he will not only benefit himself from the protein in that fish but can also benefit the body from the healthy fat it is included in tuna.
It is also important to note here that protein helps you burn a few extra calories because your body has to put the effort to chew and digest the food. According to scientists, this phenomenon is known as the “thermic effect of food.” The number of extra calories is small so a person should avoid creating an entire weight loss program that is purely relied on this benefit.