“…. and it was just right!” – Goldilocks

More protein in the diet.

But let us not go to extreme on this either!  You do not need to eat like a professional body builder to get some great benefit.  This article comes from Sciencedaily.com, and where trying to eat like a professional athlete may be a little extreme for the average weekend warrior, the reality is most North Americans, are not getting enough protein in their diet.  The article recommends approximately 1.2-1.6 grams per kilogram of body weight spread out evenly throughout the day.  So a little protein sourced food at each meal can have a tremendous impact on helping you feel full, lose fat, and preserve your hard earned lean tissue.  (All that rock solid muscle.)  Now most of us are getting plenty of protein at dinner time, so the article also suggests, as an option, splitting that piece of steak in half and saving the second half to eat with your morning meal or lunch, which is a great idea.  So let’s break this down into the nuts and bolts of what this can really look like.

So we got a lad who weighs 220 and he’s not too happy with his body composition, so how can this research and study summary help him out.  Well it recommends just over a gram per kilogram of body weight.  Okay so doing a some quick math (220/2.2) it turns out he weighs 100kg, so he’ll want to consume close to 120 grams of protein spread over his meals during the day.  Well that’s great, but how much food does that actually equal?  Well the good news is that it is not a huge amount. To say that it is totally doable.  For example 3 oz of Salman, Tuna, or Halibut has about 22grams of high quality protein.  An egg has 6-7g.  3 oz of steak has 19 grams.  3 oz of pork has 23grams (one slice of bacon has 3 grams of protein)  3 oz of chicken has 16 grams and 3 oz of turkey has 26g.  And 3 oz of tofu has about 6 grams of protein in it.  Okay so because I’m lazy, I’m going to say that on average for every 3 oz of meat, you’ll get about 20g of protein, so if our guy needs 120 grams.  That means he’ll want to eat 18 ounces of meat or fish a day.  Or only 6 oz per meal if he’s eating three times a day. At each meal the amount of meat he wouldd need would fit in his palm.  So in the morning he could have a couple eggs and a small can of salmon,  at lunch he could have a pork chop from last night’s leftovers and tonight have half of that 12 oz Ribeye and save the rest for lunch tomorrow.  The rest of his food for the day would come in the form of veggies and fruits and nuts. 1 oz of nuts can vary from 5 up to 9 grams of protein,  for this example he will eat almonds and could have a couple handfuls as a snack.  Now all of a sudden he’s getting plenty of protein. He feels full and doesn’t need to eat excess amounts of potato chips or cake.

So the last two things I wish to comment on is 1.  Meats, Fish, eggs etc. are considered “high-quality” proteins because they generally contain all the essential amino acids we need to make all the tissues of our bodies.  You will find protein in plants, but it is harder to find all the essentials. No single plant source contains all the essentials.  So being vegan, or vegetarian is possible, just harder, so be aware of this and make sure you are getting lots of variety of veggies in your diet to meet your needs.  Two this is exactly why Adkins’s famous diet worked so well for so many people who stuck with it.  When they finally broke it down.  They learned that even though he claimed, you could “eat as much as you want” Adkins followers in fact ate fewer overall calories than those who did not follow the Adkins/paleo diet.  The reason, was not the increased fat, but was the extra protein they were eating. It made them feel more satisfied and more full during the day resulting in smaller meals and eating less as often as the “pro-carb” folks.

Well how is this for some food for thought eh!?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150430124835.htm