It’s a sad fact that nowadays there are far too many fad diets advertised everywhere that lack any real nutritional value, and what’s worse, they sell pre-packed food items usually branded as ‘low-fat’ when they’re actually filled with GMOs, MSG and a multitude of artificial flavors and colors (see The 11 Biggest Lies Junk Food Companies Tell You for Profits).
On the other hand, trying to lose weight in a safe and controlled manner, research has shown is achievable by consuming more protein, especially one particular amino acid, which can increase your metabolic rate three times more than eating a high-fat, simple-carbs diet can.
We know that losing weight is as simple as calories in, calories out, which means the more excess food we eat, the harder we have to work to lose the gained weight.
However, weight loss and weight maintenance are a bit more complicated than that, even though the calories in, calories out principle is the most basic one. There have been a number of studies which have shown that consuming more protein really boosts weight loss, and your body does not always count all calories the same, as we have previously thought.
Calorie is a calorie, or is it ?
Although the number calories in protein and carbs are the same gram for gram, the reason why this works is partially because digesting protein takes a lot longer and this can significantly reduce hunger cravings. Protein is also helpful when it comes to balancing blood lipid and glucose levels.
It’s a relatively new discovery in the “eat more protein” philosophy that it is a specific amino acid that does the fat burning for you. The amino acid leucine.
Leucine helps you prevent muscle tissue loss whilst losing fat, and it also helps to retain your hard-earned muscle that is typically lost because of aging. It’s important to note that the more muscle mass you have, the more fat you burn, which makes it very important that you retain as much muscle as possible whilst trying to lose weight.
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There was one study in which subjects lost twice as much weight when consuming a leucine supplement as those who only took a placebo. And then another study found a significant decrease in the adipose tissue (fat cells) of mice when they were given leucine.
As we already said, increasing your protein intake might be one of the simplest and most effective ways to lose weight, but you need to make sure that you’re consuming enough leucine. This amino acid can be found in the following foods:
Organic soy protein isolate 4226 mg
Organic chicken 3220 mg
Egg whites 4233 mg
Wild tuna 3574 mg
Pacific cod 3459 mg
Raw spirulina 3915 mg
Buffalo 3455 mg
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