Studies have shown that in several groups of people who were given a diet that was low in calories, the group that was given the most protein to eat, lost the least amount of muscle mass overall. When trying to lose fat by dieting, you want to make sure that you keep as much of your muscle mass as possible. This keeps your metabolism from slowing down too much. It is for this reason that you shouldn't take part in any kind of diet that asks you to give up all or most of the protein from your diet.



Muscles reduce fat stores because they use calories for sustenance. So the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn daily. People who go on starvation diets lose large amounts of muscle tissue. When they return to their usual diets, they will have a slower metabolism due to all of the muscle tissue that was lost. They will tend to put on even more weight than they initially lost from dieting and losing weight becomes even harder and frustrating.

The word "protein" actually means "of prime importance". It's a vital nutrient and is used primarlity to build the body structures, especially muscle. Protein is also needed to construct hormones, hair, nails, organs and many other things. Your body can't function properly without a supply of quality protein. People who tend to have issues with their weight were found to eat much less protein than needed. If you exercise or are very active mentally, your protein needs are actually much higher.

Protein is an excellent tool for aiding weight loss, and one way it helps is in it's thermic value. Of all types of foods, it is protein that possesses the greatest thermic value and is also the hardest of foods to digest which means it burns up more calories. As it takes a lot longer for digestion, it leaves you with a satisfied feeling for longer. It will also stop your blood sugar level from spiking to rapidly.

One important fact about protein is that it's constructed of smaller amino acids. There are infact, 12 amino acids that are essential, meaning that the body cannot make them and must get them from outside sources in our diet. The majority of people are deficient in certain amino acids. This is either because they simply don't consume enough, or that they don't eat foods that have high quality protein within them that the body can easily assimilate. Eggs and yogurt contain protein of high biological value. What this means is that we can use this type of protein much easier than other types. Isolated whey powder is another excellent source.

If the food you regularly like to eat is not nutrient dense, you will need to eat more food and you will be hungrier more often. This is because it needs to eat a lot to get those nutrients that it needs. If on the other hand, you started to eat nutrient-dense foods, the body will need less food and only need food when it needs calories for energy. This is actually one of the biggest reasons why people fail on crash or fad types of diets. They feel intense hunger when depriving their body from what it really needs.

I should mention at this point that cooking protein destoys some of the amino acids which can leave you with only partial and incomplete protein. As protein is sensitive to cooking and heat, it would be a great idea to eat some raw source of protein daily. These could include seeds, yogurt, nuts, fruit, some vegetables, whey and cheese that have not been cooked. This provides you with all of the essential 12 amino acids that your body is craving. It is then able to create the other acids from those 12.

To also help preserve the muscle tissue in the body, you can do more exercise or weight training. If your body needs it's muscle for frequent motion, it will tend not to use them as fuel. It will begin using stores of fat to feed the muscles and cells in the body.