Will High Protein Help To Lose Weight |
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Myth 3: If you eat a high-protein diet you lose calories in urine, so you shed more weight. When you're on a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, your body switches from using carbohydrates as its primary fuel to using fat and protein instead – including the body's fat reserves. As the body burns fat, ketones – a by-product of the process are excreted in the urine. This process is called ketosis. Since fat and protein constitute a less efficient fuel than carbohydrate, you can eat more. The thinking is that the body will excrete some of the calories of this inefficient fuel as ketones. Nice theory, but wrong. It is true that people do lose more weight on high-protein diets. But the reason is that they eat less on those diets. And the reason they eat less is that high-protein diets help stabilize blood sugar. The high-protein-diet camp, led by the late Dr Atkins, were one of the first to say that sugar makes you fat. But their solution was to say that carbohydrates are bad and protein is good, so you should eat a high-protein diet that's very low in carbohydrates. Now, a high-protein meal has a low, which as we've seen is the key to stabilizing blood sugar, which in turn balances our appetite and helps us lose weight. But a meal with some protein and some low carbohydrate works in the same way, There is absolutely no need to avoid or massively restrict carbohydrates to lose weight, provided you are eating the right low kind, plus protein. Take a look at the science. There have been two proper weight-loss trials to date published on the Atkins-type fat/high-protein diet versus a conventional low-fat diet. The first showed that, after six months, those on the high-fat /high protein diet had lost 12.71b, compared with 41b on the low fat diet. That's a rather unexciting half-pound a week. However, there was no significance difference after 12 months. The other trial showed no real difference in weight loss between the high-protein approach and conventional dieting , with an average weight loss of 101b after six months. That's less than half a pound a week. Similarly, a review of all the high protein/low-carbohydrate diet studies done to date concludes `Weight loss was principally associated with decreased calorie intake..In other words, an Atkins-type diet works, but the results aren't spectacular and are principally due to eating less in general, rather than eating fewer carbohydrates. The first problem is ketosis itself. In excess, ketones can be very toxic and in extreme cases ketosis can be fatal. Reports suggest that 58 deaths have been associated with very low-calorie, very high-protein diets. Moreover, recent research has proved that the amount of calories lost through ketosis is negligible. This makes the risk pretty high for diets based on this principle. The diet promises more than it delivers in other ways. As I've said, I think the switch to ketosis triggers weight loss by stabilizing blood sugar, and it's known that ketosis also suppresses appetite. A low-carbohydrate diet also kick-starts weight loss because you use up your short-term stores of glucose, which are stored as glycogen, bound with water. In fact, for every pound of glycogen, you store 3 to 41b of water. The net result is an immediate weight loss of up to 51b just one reason why people claim spectacular short-term weight loss. But it's not sustainable. The glycogen and water will come back, as will your appetite. Many people on high-protein diets lose weight, bored, then gain it all back.A diet lacking in carbohydrates such as fruit and green leafy vegetables will leave you deficient in antioxidants and vitamins, unless you are very careful about what you eat, and take supplements. You won't get enough fibre, and could get constipated as a result, which can lead to digestive problems.Additionally, many people feel ill as they go through sugar withdrawal and switch to ketosis. Nausea and tiredness continue for some, making it hard to stick to the diet. Finally, high protein diet especially those based on meat and milk can be very dangerous. They potentially increase the risk of bone and kidney problems, breast and prostate cancer. As we have seen the weight loss results are little different from those of conventional dieting in the long run. In my opinion the high-protein approach to stabilizing your blood sugar, and hence your weight, is certainly not worth the risk.
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