How Does Protein Help You Burn Fat

You might hear a lot of talk about high protein diets, but receive few answers when you ask how does protein help you burn fat.  A number of studies show that a diet high in protein and lower in carbohydrates helped people lose more weight and gain more muscle mass on their body. The reason for the increased weight loss might lie in two reasons.

People who eat a diet higher in protein feel full sooner. The research team at the University College, London, felt that when the protein moved into the stomach, it helped produce PYY, a hormone that decreases the sense of hunger. When you have more protein in your diet, you increase the hormone and reduce the amount you eat. It's still all about calories and the amount you eat, but by increasing your protein intake, you get the aid of your own appetite suppressant.

Several studies show that people eating more protein in their diet ended up with a higher

Another reason protein can help you burn off fat was approached in a different manner in the "American Journal of Physiology." In this study, one group received a diet higher in protein and the second group had a diet that followed the minimum daily requirement for protein.

The group that ate the diet higher in protein burned a higher amount of fat than the others did. The theory behind this phenomenon was the "thermic" effect of the protein.  The thermic effect of a food is the increase in the energy used above the baseline after the consumption of the food. In other words, it takes more energy to digest it, absorb it and dispose of the digested nutrients. While carbohydrates have a thermic effect of 5 percent to 15 percent, protein has one of 20 percent to 35 percent.  Therefore, even if you ate the same number of calories, if you ate a high protein diet, compared to a high carbohydrate diet, you'd use more calories to digest the food because digesting the protein increases your rate of metabolism.

If you take this information one-step further and break your three meals a day into six meals a day, you'd increase your body's metabolism all through the day. In effect, you'd be a fat burning machine. You'd also feel full and never have the pangs or cravings many dieters face when they restrict their calories.  Eating more smaller meals also helps prevent your body from entering the starvation mode where it attempts to conserve calories by slowing your metabolism and making weight loss more difficult.

Be careful, however, to make sure you don't eat only protein foods and omit the other food groups. You need the nutrients of all types of food. Too much protein can also cause kidney damage and dehydration. In order to keep yourself healthy, make sure you drink plenty of water while on your diet. Now  you know the answer to the question of how does protein help you burn fat, and you won't have to ask the next time someone mentions protein as a fat burner.