First, the number 1 reason why we want to eat a diet filled with lean protein is to build lean muscle. That is first and foremost but we already know, that right?
The second reason and something some of you may NOT know is the reason why we want to consume a high amount of protein each day is because consuming foods high in protein helps increase our metabolic rate IE – the rate at which our body burns calories. Now let’s discuss TEF.
TEF stands for the Thermic Effect of Food. What this means and to provide you guys with a clear definition TEF is a reference to an increase in metabolic rate which translates to the rate at which your body burns calories after ingestion of food.
If you’re someone who consumes a low protein diet you will receive huge benefits by increasing this number. Let’s say you’re currently consuming 60g of protein a day and you increase this number to 150g a day. This is what we call thermogenesis. Remember when we consume food, it requires energy to break that food down which we then need to burn off to lose weight. To give you an idea and specific break down protein has a 30% effect on the TEF, Carbs has a 6-8% effect, Fats has a 2-3% effect and fibre is 30%.
If you eat a high protein and high fibre diet BUT you keep your calories the SAME as what you were having BEFORE you’re going to get a much greater effect on TEF which means you won’t need to BURN as many calories as what you did before to burn that food off.
To help you further understand let’s come up with a scenario. Let’s say we have two different people who are both consuming the EXACT same number of calories a day at say 2,000.
The first person chooses to fill their calories with 150g of protein and 40g of fibre in contrast the other person chooses to fill their calories with 60g of protein and 15g of fibre the rest of the calories is obviously made up of carbs and fats. Because consuming a higher amount of foods rich in protein increases your TEF this means that the person who is consuming more protein won’t need to burn as many calories as the other person does in order to BURN those SAME 2,000 calories off, which is a massive win when wanting to lose weight.
What this means in simpler terms is it is much EASIER for person “A” to get themselves into a negative energy balance/calorie deficit than it is for person “B”. Remember to lose weight we need to be BURNING more calories than what we are consuming so person ”A” won’t be required to burn as many calories as person “B” in order to do this even though they are consuming the same amount of calories. With person “A” choosing to fill their daily calories with more protein and fibre this will allow you them to be in a negative energy balance MUCH EASIER than the other person who fills their calories mostly with carbs and fats.
In summary guys choose to consume a diet filled with lean meats, vegetables and high fibrous foods and you make losing weight much easier on yourself.
I hope this makes sense team please feel FREE to shoot me back an email simon@sqfitness.com.au if you have any further questions about this as I am always here to help.
As always Yours in Health and Fitness,
SQ
