Is This The Best ‘Hack’ For Weight Loss? One Easy Change To Your Diet
Here’s the eleventh podcast of Vegetarian Health and Longevity from Hurry The Food Up and Sports Nutritionist James LeBaigue.
There are lots of methods and diets that people claim as the best for weight loss.
Most of it, unfortunately, is not true and doesn’t have a good scientific basis. However, there is one nutrient which is incredibly helpful for weight loss and has a huge evidence base to support it.
If you’re trying to lose weight then this nutrient is absolutely vital, and it could be the critical factor in you doing it successfully.
That nutrient is protein, and in this episode I talk you through the science behind protein, why it works for you and link it to practical tips for you to include more protein in your diet.
There is evidence to support protein’s impact on hunger signalling, as well as preserve more muscle mass which can increase your resting calorie expenditure.
Not only that, but it’s also been shown to reduce the risk of weight regain after hitting your goal.
Listen to the podcast on your favourite provider or click play below.
Introduction
So this nutrient. It’s kind of a Biggie.
I love using evidence and data to inform decisions about health and fitness. I think it’s so important to be able to create strategies which are backed up by science because you know that there is a genuine benefit or rationale to it.
What I love even more is tying the evidence into practical strategies that actually work for people, and that’s what’s going to happen in today’s episode.
We’re going to dive into the science a little bit and then apply that to real life examples, so that you get an understanding of how you can use these tricks and tips for yourself.
The nutrient we’re talking about today is protein, and yes, it really is important. There are so many misconceptions around protein and in this episode we’ll talk through why it plays such a crucial role, and how to get enough of it as a vegetarian.
Late-morning hunger
One of the common problems I hear is that people are often really hungry by late morning and they worry about snacking when they don’t actually need it.
It’s all well and good to have a plan and calorie goals for weight loss, but if you find cravings and hunger a real issue then that’s going to be difficult to manage long term.
It turns out that there may be a scientific reason for having these midmorning cravings other than just being in a calorie deficit.
There was a study which investigated the impact of consuming low protein, high processed foods in the morning. The study was called “Macronutrient (im)balance drives energy intake in an obesogenic food environment: An ecological analysis”.
Leveraging Protein
It examined something called the Protein Leverage Hypothesis, which is an idea where when someone consumes a low protein diet, they consume more energy to try to account for this.
This can then lead to an overconsumption of energy, leading to increased adiposity, which is essentially obesity.
The study found that those who consumed less protein at breakfast then consumed more overall food in the day, and conversely those with a higher protein intake at breakfast ate less over the day.
Importantly, highly processed foods were a significant contributor to this from both a low protein and high energy intake perspective.
Practical strategies
So the first practical strategy that you could use is to ensure you have a high protein breakfast, and there are loads of different options you could choose from.
Some of my favourite Hurry The Food Up recipes include the blueberry cheesecake overnight oats, Asian-inspired tofu egg muffins and cottage cheese pancakes.
These all give a super hit of protein but are also simple to make, with the overnight oats and egg muffins being easy to take to work or eat on the go.
Phenomenoms
It seems like there is this phenomenon that occurs where if you eat less protein you try to eat more calories. But the opposite is true too, where eating more protein helps you feel more full and satisfied, and this is deeply linked in the hormonal changes that occur when you eat protein rich meals.
While lots of people think about protein in terms of muscle building and gym goers, its role in our diet goes beyond way that.
Protein is pivotal in regulating the hormonal pathways that influence our appetite and satiety. Key hormones affected by protein intake include cholecystokinin, glucagon-like peptide-1, and peptide tyrosine-tyrosine, otherwise known as peptide YY.
All of which are known to decrease appetite, and these hormones are stimulated when you consume high-protein meals.
This means when you follow a high protein diet you’re more likely to feel full after eating, which can help to reduce the urge to eat more frequently or excessively.
In it for the long-term
This modulation of hormonal levels by dietary protein is essential not only for immediate effects on appetite but also for long-term weight management.
By helping maintain a feeling of fullness, protein supports sustained weight loss efforts and prevents weight regain.
As well as that, by being directly involved in muscle maintenance, protein ensures that your metabolic rate remains high—even as you lose weight.
This is because muscle tissue is metabolically active and burns more calories than fat, even at rest.
I’ve discussed this more in episode 3, “Why resistance training helps you live longer”, so have a listen to that episode after this one if you’re interested in learning more about it.
More practical strategies
The practical strategy here is to have a good serving of protein in every meal.
One of the common things I’ve seen with clients that I’ve worked with in the past is that they don’t have much protein at lunch, because they’ll often have something like a salad to help with their calorie intake.
While this might mean their lunch IS lower in calories, it won’t be that satiating which means they’re more likely to want to eat again later.
If you struggle with lunch recipes or aren’t sure where to get protein from in your meals then you can try one of our free meal plans, which you can download from hurrythefoodup.com/try.
We’ve made it simple for you by planning the meals, calories and macronutrients for you and even provide you with a shopping list so that you can get started straight away.
So head over to hurrythefoodup.com/try to download your free weight loss meal plan and get started.
But that’s not all
So, having a good amount of protein in every meal helps with weight loss by curbing hunger and reducing cravings.
Obviously this is super helpful because it means someone will find it easier to stick in a calorie deficit, which is what they need to lose weight.
However, that’s not the only benefit from having good amounts of protein in your diet.
A very helpful study
There was a study which investigated the effects of spacing protein evenly through the day, and it was called “Evenness of Dietary Protein Intake Is Positively Associated with Lean Mass and Strength in Healthy Women”.
This study included 192 healthy women, aged between 18 to 79! Their research found that intakes of more than 25g of protein in one of the three periods, which they classified as waking to 11:30, 11:31 to 16:30, and after 16:30, was positively associated with lean mass, upper and lower body strength.
They even go one step further and say for women under 60, consuming at least 0.24g of protein per kg per one of those 3 periods is the ideal amount, and 0.4g of protein per kg of body weight per period if you are over 60.
In practical terms, let’s say you weigh 60kg, or at least that would be an ideal body weight. That means you should consume at least 15g of protein per period if you’re under 60, or at least 24g of protein per period if you’re over 60. And those are those 3 periods that I just mentioned that essentially split the day up.
Why it’s so helpful
Now this study is so cool, and I absolutely love it. Firstly, because it only involved women, which is quite uncommon in scientific studies about muscle as they usually focus on guys. Secondly, there was a huge range of age, from 18 to 79, so it means you can apply to this to different age groups with more confidence.
It gives some practical numbers, and actually is one of the studies which helps us at Hurry The Food Up to create our meal plans.
When we design our recipes we try to make sure that they have a decent amount of protein, and it would be rare for a main meal to be under 15g of protein. By doing this we help to keep the protein content up and in line with this sort of research.
A vast array of research backs up the facts
The effectiveness of high-protein diets in weight management and overall health enhancement is well-supported by a vast array of clinical research.
Numerous studies and meta-analyses have demonstrated that individuals adhering to diets higher in protein tend to achieve better outcomes in terms of weight loss, fat mass reduction, and preservation of lean mass compared to those on lower-protein diets.
Gold standard
A meta analysis is usually considered the gold-standard of research, as it combines data from different studies so that there is a larger population group to understanding results from.
One from Wycherley and colleagues in 2012 examined the effect of a high protein diet compared to a standard protein diet on weight loss, and found a significant benefit for weight loss.
On top of this, evidence suggests that a high protein diet can also help with stopping weight regain, too. I’ll link these in the shownotes as there are 4 to mention, but the short story is that in adults who have lost weight, a high protein diet seems to reduce the chances of putting it back on.
Suffice to say, when it comes to weight loss, high protein diets seem to be an incredibly powerful tool.
But let’s bring this back to practical strategies and how you can leverage everything we’ve talked about today so far.
The big ones
The first tip is to incorporate a good protein source into every meal. Good vegetarian protein sources here include eggs, low fat dairy, and plant-based sources such as beans, lentils, and tofu.
And although they aren’t super high in protein, wholegrain carbohydrates, so brown rice and pasta, contain a decent amount of protein and help to bump up the overall content.
I typically advise our members to have one of these sources of protein in each of their main meals, and by doing so you’ll set yourself up really well from a protein point of view.
The second tip is to include protein-rich snacks between meals.
It means that even if your main meal wasn’t particularly high in protein, you’ll still benefit from an overall higher protein intake because your snack is contributing, which is the really important part.
If you want some great snack ideas then you can check out the snack vault as we’ve got loads for you to choose from.
Finally, remember you can use protein supplements like protein shakes to help hit your protein targets.
There isn’t anything inherently bad about protein shakes, as they are just powdered forms of protein, with the most common one being whey protein which is derived from dairy.
There are also plant based protein shakes which use sources such as soy, pea or rice.
How much are you consuming?
My usual advice is to first learn more about how much protein you’re actually consuming, and if you need to get extra and you’re still struggling then a protein shake might make sense.
If it helps you to reach your goal and there’s no other way to do it then that, in my opinion, is way more important.
You could have a protein shake on its own or include them in something like a smoothie, and they can be a really nice way of bumping up your protein intake.
So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, and if you did find it useful then I’d really appreciate it if you could give this podcast a quick review on whatever platform you’re listening on.
It’ll only take a moment but it helps the podcast spread to more people like you who are interested in learning more about the power of nutrition.
Studies discussed in today’s podcast
High protein intake sustains weight maintenance after body weight loss in humans
Additional protein intake limits weight regain after weight loss in humans.
Long-term effects of a high protein weight-loss diet.
This preservation of muscle is critical, as muscle tissue is not only essential for strength and mobility but also plays a key role in maintaining an elevated basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy expended while at rest.
Moreover, high-protein diets contribute to significant improvements in various cardiometabolic risk factors.
These diets have been shown to lower triglycerides, reduce blood pressure, and decrease waist circumference, factors closely linked with reduced risks for heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
By influencing these risk factors, high-protein diets can have a profound impact on long-term health outcomes, making them effective both as a preventive measure and as part of therapeutic strategies for existing health issues
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And a list of our vegetarian meal plans (all also free).
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