Are you ready to instantly lose weight, gain muscle, and live longer? Well, no matter what anyone says, there is no miracle diet that can do these things for you. Staying healthy is a balance between eating the right foods and being active.
However, a high protein diet may be a good place to start. There are a lot of positive things that eating protein can do for your body. But too much protein can cause some nasty side effects.
How much is too much? And does it matter where your protein comes from? Let’s find out.
Proteins are arguably the most important molecules in your body. They make up your cells, allow your body to carry out essential functions, and without protein, you’d die. There are over 80,000 different proteins in the human body, and each one has a function.
In fact, proteins make up around 20% of your entire body. So, it should come as no surprise that consuming enough protein is vital to your survival. Proteins are made up of smaller molecules called amino acids that are joined together and aligned in unique ways to create different shapes.
The crazy thing is out of the 21 amino acids used by the human body to make proteins; there are 9 that can’t be synthesized by your cells. This means the only way to get them is by eating foods that have these amino acids stored in them. Which foods contain the amino acids and proteins I need to stay alive, you may be wondering.
Don’t worry; The Infographics Show has got you covered. We will tell you exactly where to find the protein your body so desperately craves later on in the video. Let’s start with the basics.
When you eat something, your body tears it apart, breaks it down, and then circulates the molecules and nutrients contained within the food around your body so that your cells can get what they need. For example, if you eat a slice of pork belly, the fats, proteins, and other molecules that are contained within the piece of meat don’t go straight to your belly. Instead, the meat is broken down in the stomach and intestines, and the individual nutrients get circulated to every part of your body via your circulatory system.
Therefore, we eat to provide our bodies with the molecules necessary to function and keep us alive. And proteins are one of the most important molecules of all. So, how much protein should you actually be eating?
And what does it do to your body? Everyone’s body is different, which means that everyone's daily intake of protein will need to be different to provide the optimum effect. Researchers suggest that the average male should consume around 56 grams of protein per day while females should have approximately 46 grams of protein each day.
However, since everyone is a different size and weight, there may be a better way to calculate how much protein you should be eating. You should be consuming around . 365 grams of protein a day for every pound you weigh.
An easier way to think about this is for every 10 pounds of body weight; you should eat 3. 65 grams of protein. This means if you weigh 150 pounds, you should eat around 55 grams of protein throughout your day.
However, this is just a baseline. People who are more active will need to consume more protein to maintain or build their muscle mass. But these calculations are a good baseline to start with.
Surprisingly, there is still a decent amount of debate within the scientific and medical community on how much protein someone should actually consume in a 24 hour period. Some experts put the number twice as high as previously mentioned, but more research still needs to be done to justify these numbers. Regardless of what the exact amount of protein a person should consume is, there is an even more important question.
What does the protein you eat physically do to your body? Since proteins play a vital role in many life functions and literally make up the cells in your body, a better question might be: what don’t proteins do? There are definitely a number of noticeable effects that a high-protein diet can have on your overall health and physiology.
Scientists have found that high-protein diets end up reducing your appetite. A number of studies revealed that out of all the nutrients you consume on a daily basis, protein is the one that makes you feel full the fastest. The reason for this is that protein reduces the amount of a hormone called ghrelin in your body.
Ghrelin is one of the molecules that tells your brain that you’re hungry. Therefore, the less ghrelin in your system, the less hungry you feel. Protein also boosts the levels of peptide YY, which signals the body that it’s full.
With the reduction of ghrelin and the increase of peptide YY, the body feels nutritionally satisfied much sooner than you would with a low-protein meal. This reduces the urge to overeat, which in turn can help you lose weight and stay healthier. In a study conducted at the University of Washington School of Medicine, people who increased the number of calories they consumed from a protein source from 15% to 30% ate around 441 fewer calories per day than someone on a lower-protein diet.
The craziest part was that the people in the study were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. The group that increased their protein intake just felt fuller quicker, so they ate less. What this implies is that subbing out foods that are higher in fats, sugars, and carbohydrates for meat or high protein veggies might make you feel more satisfied with fewer calories.
Along with suppressing appetite, high protein diets can help you lose weight in another way. High protein intake has been shown to increase metabolism, at least for a short period of time. Even as you eat, your body is using energy to break down the food and circulate the nutrients to your vital organs and muscles.
The energy expended and the increase in metabolic rate to aid in digestion is called the thermic effect of food or TEF. The interesting thing is that protein has a much higher thermic effect than most other types of molecules like carbohydrates or fats. Studies have shown that by eating high protein foods, your thermic effect can increase by 5 to 15 percent more than consuming food with little or no protein.
What this means is that your body has to work harder to break down protein than other molecules. This causes you to use more energy during digestion while simultaneously increasing your metabolism. All of these factors combined can cause your body to burn 80 to 100 more calories a day just from eating.
And this might be a conservative number. One study showed that a group of people eating a high protein diet burned on average 260 calories more per day than a group of people on a low protein diet. This is the equivalent of the amount of energy expended from a moderate workout session.
Who knew that eating could be such a good exercise? And speaking of working out, protein is literally the building block for all your muscles. So, does eating more protein correlate to increased muscle size?
Not exactly. However, increasing the amount of protein in your diet will impact your muscles in a number of different ways. Eating more protein does not necessarily build more muscle, but it does help maintain muscle mass and promote growth.
If all you did was eat protein, your muscles would not magically become bigger. However, if you engaged in a weightlifting regiment on a regular basis while also increasing protein intake, your muscles would likely get larger more quickly than if you stuck to your typical diet. Someone who is active and trying to bulk up their muscle mass should definitely increase the amount of protein they put into their bodies.
There is also another important factor to consider when trying to build, or more importantly, maintain muscle mass. If for some reason you need to stop lifting weights or reduce your time working out due to an injury or life just getting in the way, you should still maintain a high protein diet. The rationale for this is that if you go from being highly active to less active, you will begin to lose weight as your muscles shrink.
However, a high protein diet can slow the rate of and even prevent muscle loss if the right types of food are consumed. Perhaps the biggest selling point for high-protein diets is that not only will they help you lose weight, but they will help you keep the pounds off as well. Over the course of a year, high-protein diets seem to be much more effective at helping people maintain weight loss.
Now, it is important to remember that just eating a lot of protein will not cause you to lose weight instantly. However, there may be some huge benefits if you stay active, eat the right types of protein, and keep track of your calories. For example, a study that tracked 130 people on high-protein diets over the course of a year found that they lost 53% more body fat compared to a control group of people on a regular-protein diet.
In a clinical trial conducted by the Department of Human Biology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, researchers found that high-protein diets reduced weight regain by around 50%. This is huge for people who want to lose weight and keep the weight off. As many dieters know, losing the weight is only half the battle; it’s keeping the weight off that can be hard.
But it seems from a number of studies that a high-protein diet and healthy lifestyle may be one of the best ways to do just that. You probably have heard that one side effect of a high protein diet is that it can be damaging to your bones. But is there any truth to this?
This myth probably originated from the idea that protein can increase the acidity level of the body slightly, which in theory could cause calcium to leach from your bones. To be fair, if your blood’s acidity was high enough, it most certainly could cause the calcium on your bones to break down and weaken your skeletal system. But if your blood ever ended up at that high level of acidity, you’d be dead, so it really wouldn’t matter.
What long-term studies have shown is that both animal and plant protein can actually help people maintain bone mass as they get older. According to some research, people who maintain a high protein diet over extended periods of time also seem to be at a lower risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures. It is important to point out that this does not mean you should immediately start consuming massive quantities of beef to increase your bone health.
There are better sources of protein, which we will break down for you in a bit. The same thing goes for this next health benefit. It is all contingent on what type of protein you are eating.
It may seem counterintuitive, but a high-protein diet can actually lower your blood pressure. The exact mechanism for this is not completely understood yet, but in one study, it was found that a high-protein diet did not just lower blood pressure but also reduced LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. This is important because these factors in high levels can be a recipe for heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease.
Although a high-protein diet can have harmful effects on the kidneys, you probably don’t need to worry too much as long as you are in good health. Doctors recommend that people with kidney diseases reduce the amount of protein they eat. This is because high amounts of protein can exacerbate problems in kidneys that are already damaged.
However, the same thing cannot be said about people with healthy kidneys. It is always important to follow the advice of doctors and medical professionals when they recommend lifestyle changes. However, no studies have connected high protein consumption to causing damage to healthy kidneys.
Protein may even be able to reverse and repair the damage done to the body. Since it is the building block of your cells, mussels, and organs, eating more protein actually provides your body with the resources it needs to help repair itself. Several studies have even claimed that after you suffer an injury, consuming more protein could help speed up the time it takes to recover.
Some researchers even claim that if you are on a high protein diet before you get injured, it may cause your body to heal faster than someone who is not. More analysis needs to be done, but it is possible that in the future, doctors will recommend foods high in protein after an injury, along with other already established treatments. So, we know that high protein diets have several immediate and short-term benefits for the body.
But what about as you get older? It may sound crazy, but a high protein diet in the middle stages of life can have lasting benefits even into your more mature years. It is no secret that as you age, your body becomes weaker.
Your muscles start to shrink, and your bones become more frail. However, studies have shown by eating more protein, these effects can be mitigated. It is important that you also maintain some form of activity as well because if you don’t use your muscles, they will begin to atrophy no matter how much protein you eat.
But eating a high-protein diet during your life and into your later years may help your body retain some of its strength and keep you in better overall health. There are definitely a lot of positives to eating a high protein diet, but is there a downside? Unfortunately, yes, so before you go on a meat buying spree, make sure to watch the rest of this video.
As we said before, there is no miracle diet that can solve all of your weight and health problems. This is especially true of high-protein diets that require you to cut out all other macronutrients from your meals. You should steer clear of any diet that tells you to remove all carbs or fats from your life.
In these types of situations, you could develop nutritional deficiencies such as low fiber, which can cause headaches and constipation. Therefore, a high-protein diet does not mean you should remove all other types of food from your life. As we said before, the type of protein you’re eating matters.
And there are definitely some foods that are better than others. You should not be eating all red meat or full-fat dairy foods because they can cause an increased risk of heart disease. This is because these types of food are often full of saturated fats and high in cholesterol.
So, this brings up the question: what type of foods should you be eating in your high protein diet? You obviously want to receive the benefits of consuming more protein but don't want to put yourself at risk for high cholesterol or heart disease. Luckily, The Infographics Show has got you covered.
The best meats to eat to get your protein fix are a mixture of birds, fish, and one other animal that you won’t believe. Chicken is a relatively low-priced meat that is healthy and can provide enough protein to meet your daily requirements. Chicken contains around 31 grams of protein in every 100 grams of meat.
The best thing about chicken is that about 90% of the calories in the meat come directly from protein. We discussed earlier how important this is for speeding up your metabolism and reducing daily caloric intake. However, an even healthier option for high protein meat is fish.
Yellowfin tuna contains around 30 grams of protein per 100 grams of meat. Other fish possess slightly less protein per serving, but not by much. However, the benefit of eating fish as part of a high protein diet is that they also contain omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins such as D and B2.
Omega-3 has shown to be extremely good for your heart and reduce plaque buildup around blood vessels. This means that fish is a two-for-one meal that provides both high amounts of protein and essential vitamins as well. Another seafood that is high in protein is shrimp.
These crustaceans contain 23 grams of protein for every 100 grams of meat. They also might provide a cheaper way to get your daily protein from seafood as shrimp tend to cost less per pound than higher-end fishes. The most surprising animal that can serve as a good source of protein isn’t a fish, bird, or mammal.
Instead, it is an insect. Crickets are an excellent source of protein. They contain around 60 grams of protein for every 100 grams of crickets consumed.
Right now, crickets tend not to be the main source of protein for any diet. However, as scientists and nutritionists work to make crickets more mainstream, this is changing. The great thing about these insects is that they are plentiful, reproduce rapidly, and have minimal impact on the environment.
When they are eaten whole, crickets don’t really have much of a taste other than whatever seasoning is put on them. Some companies are even using crickets in their protein bars and powder. Regardless of your feelings on bugs, crickets may be the most sustainable, cost-effective source of protein we have.
Meat is not the only way to get your protein, though. If you are a vegetarian or just looking for plant-based options, there are plenty of high-protein plants that will allow you to meet your daily intake goals. These foods also are healthier than eating most meats and can either be used as a substitute or an extra source of protein during a meal.
One of the richest plant proteins is seitan. This durable food is made from the gluten of wheat and contains around 25 grams of protein for every 100 grams of seitan. It also boasts the highest amount of protein per gram out of any plant-based alternatives to meat.
Tofu is also high in protein as well. Tofu is actually made of coagulated soy milk that has been pressed together into a block. Although this doesn’t sound super appetizing, Tofu has the ability to fit into almost any dish as it has very little taste of its own and its texture can change based on how it’s cooked.
The best part about tofu is that it not only contains high amounts of protein but it is rich in iron and calcium as well. In 100 grams of tofu, there are around 20 grams of protein. Beans are also a great protein source for anyone trying to stay away from meat.
Most beans constrain around 15 grams of protein per cup. And since beans can be cooked in a variety of ways, they can easily be added to pretty much any meal to boost your protein intake. Medical professionals recommend that most of your protein should come from plant sources.
This is because they tend to be a healthier option than meat due to the fact that plants contain many nutrients and vitamins your body needs. If you only eat meat, you will definitely have a high-protein diet, but that will be about it. There is no substitute for a well-balanced diet, so make sure to incorporate different protein sources in your meals throughout the day.
This brings us to a very important question. How much protein is too much? And what side effects can consuming too much protein have?
It is always possible to have too much of a good thing in life, and protein is no different. When you consume too much protein the risks outweigh the benefits. For example, although protein has been shown to have no long-term effects on healthy kidneys, it can still cause other problems in this part of the body.
Eating too much protein can lead to kidney stones, which are incredibly painful until removed. Depending on the size of the stones, a doctor may need to use a laser to break them up into smaller pieces. There are two main ways that the kidney stones can then be removed; both are painful enough that the patient needs to be given anesthesia.
One method is known as a cystoscopy, where the doctor inserts a cystoscope into the urethra to locate and remove the stones. You can imagine that having anything stuck up your urethra would be unpleasant. Another method of removing kidney stones is called percutaneous nephrolithotomy.
This is when the doctor cuts a hole in your side and kidney and inserts a tool called a nephroscope into it . This device then allows the doctor to look around and remove any stones they find. As mentioned before, eating too much red meat can also lead to high cholesterol and heart problems.
Therefore, it is important not to restrict your high protein diet to just one type of meat or protein source. There is still disagreement amongst medical professionals as to how much protein is too much, but there are definitely some guidelines to follow. For the average person, it is recommended you not eat more than 0.
9 grams of protein for every pound you weigh. This means that a 150-pound person should not consume more than 135 grams of protein in a day. And this is the very upper limit.
That being said, if you are someone who is extremely active or an athlete, you can probably get away with eating slightly more protein as your body will use it to repair and build muscle. It is when the body becomes oversaturated with protein that problems start to arise. There are some key steps you should take before starting a high-protein diet, especially if you are going to try and consume the upper limits for your body weight.
The first is to discuss the decision with your doctor. They will likely want to run some tests just to make sure your kidneys are healthy and in working order. You will also need to do your research.
We have tried to provide you with some of the best food options to eat while on a high protein diet, but there are many other choices. Depending on where you live and what type of foods you like, there are likely other sources of protein that might be better for you. You can also talk to a nutritionist who may be able to give you further guidance.
It is important to remember that although some meats have higher amounts of protein than other foods, fish, nuts, and beans can all be healthy supplements to any meal. Regardless of what high-protein foods you decide to eat, you should still include fruits and vegetables in your diet. They may not have as much protein as meat, but they are rich in vitamins and minerals your body needs.
You also should identify exactly why you are starting your high protein diet. If your goal is to lose weight, you don’t need to consume as much protein as someone who is working to bulk up and gain muscle. Or maybe you are just planning for the future and want to have a healthier body in the long run.
There are many benefits to eating a high protein diet, but there can also be risks. This is why it never hurts to discuss your dietary plan with medical professionals. Now watch “What Happens To Your Body When You Don't Eat (Fast).
” Or check out “What Happens To Your Body If You Never Move.
