The Facts Behind Using High Protein Diets for Weight Loss
The use of high-protein diets have intermittently come under immense criticisms from a lot of nutrition experts. Despite these criticisms, the use of these diets have continued to receive a lot of increased interest from weight loss seekers. http://bit.ly/weightlossfitnes
High-protein diets are essentially diets in which about 20% or more of the total daily calorie consumption comes from proteins. These diets attempt to reduce the amount of consumed carbohydrate while making increased protein consumption the mainstay of the diet. However, nutrition experts are of the opinion that although eating a high-protein diet may actually reduce food intake due to the fact that they make people become quickly satiated and for longer while also increasing the thermic effect of food temporarily, the long-term health risks such as kidney problems, bone mineral loss, and other risk factor outweigh the benefits. Notwithstanding the above, especially the issue of high-protein diets not being really sustainable for long, with some adjustments, these diets can however become very effective and sustainable diet plans. So, how exactly does a high-protein diet really affect weight loss? Proteins are fundamentally made from amino acids and for the most part are not stored in the body because the resultant amino acids are metabolized or split apart by enzymes within hours. While the resulting nitrogen is excreted by the kidney in urine, the remaining amino acids are either converted into glucose to be used for energy or stored as glycogen. However, protein is generally regarded as an inefficient source of energy fuel partly due to the fact that it is the hardest and slowest to be metabolized of the three macronutrients. Naturally, the muscle cells and brain are designed to run exclusively on glucose which is a faster burning energy as it's quite rapidly processed from carbohydrate foods. The brain is also known to consume about 80% of our calories while we are at rest. High-protein low-carbohydrate diets however result in a significant reduction in available blood glucose causing decreased energy. The low glucose level triggers the release of a hormone called glucagon which causes two different but interrelated processes (glycogenolysis and lipolysis) to take place.