What Are the Benefits of Adding Protein to Your Diet
You may have heard your favorite fitness influencers talk about calories, carbs and most importantly, proteins. More often than not, folks get confused the first time they hear these terms. To be honest, it does sound a little overwhelming. It feels as if you’re going to have to study a whole course to start hitting the gym. But that’s not the case. Here’s a quick overview to get you up to pace within a few seconds:
- A calorie is the amount of energy released when your body breaks down food. In other words, it’s a way to measure your daily overall food intake.
- Carbs are short for carbohydrates. They provide energy to work your muscles and power your central nervous system.
- Proteins are the building blocks of your muscle. But there’s so much more to protein — it’s found in every cell of the human body.
Advantages of Consuming Protein
Now that you have the know-how of what protein is and what it does, let’s dig into some of the primary benefits of adding protein to your diet.
1. Combine with exercise: Build lean muscle
When you’re regularly working out and reaching hypertrophy, you’re going to need proteins to drive your muscle growth. In other words, when you add protein to your diet and exercise regularly, you’re going to end up starting to see changes. You may have seen fitness enthusiasts on the gram endorse large protein jars. Now you know why.
Many people start going to the gym, fail to see the results, and eventually give up. It’s almost always because they never knew they had to pair it up with a decent amount of protein.
2. Helps with weight loss
Folks who aren’t consistent in their weight loss journey and people who give up hitting the gym both usually have one concern — they don’t see the results. Well, it’s because both of them don’t know how carbs and proteins work in synergy.
If you want to lose weight, you need to go into a calorie deficit, consume fewer carbs and add more proteins to your diet. You’ll start seeing the results within weeks!
Another reason why protein helps with weight loss is that high protein intake helps boost metabolism. It helps you burn off more calories throughout the day, aiding your weight loss journey.
3. Good for your bones
People who consume more protein tend to maintain their bone mass better as they age. Women, in particular, are at a higher risk of osteoporosis after menopause. A higher protein intake is an excellent way to protect your bones and prevent that from happening.
4. Reduces late night cravings
Consuming more proteins suppresses hunger levels. As a result, you end up becoming more mindful of what goes into your body. Plus, if you’re guilty of ordering processed foods late at night, start by replacing some of those carbs and fats with proteins. You’ll notice the cravings getting weaker within days!
5. Regulates hormones
Protein targets the hypothalamus, an area in your brain, and helps regulate hormones that affect your weight. GLP-1, peptide YY and cholecystokinin are a few hormones that are increased causing your levels of satiety to increase too.
6. It helps recover faster after injury
Proteins are the main building blocks of your muscles, organs and tissues. In case of an injury, these are the components that suffer instantly. Eating more protein after a heavy resistance workout or injury can speed up the recovery process.
The Bottom Line
Lastly, always remember that too much of anything is bad. While there are a plethora of benefits of consuming proteins, make sure you’re not going for overkill. Consuming too much protein can tax the kidneys and lead to elevated blood lipids. Always strive to achieve a balance and pair things up with a workout.
If you aren’t too fond of coming up with detailed meal plans, you can always incorporate a high-protein snack into your diet.