Why Weight Loss Really Happens

Welcome to the 23rd episode of Vegetarian Health and Longevity from Hurry The Food Up and Sports Nutritionist James LeBaigue.

The principle of losing weight is easy, but the act of losing weight is hard.

On paper you can say well I just need to eat less calories per day and that’s it, weight loss happens.

And that is true, it IS as simple as that.

But the tricky thing is the act of doing it. Of being in a calorie deficit, day in day out for an extended period of time.

You’ve got to navigate life and everything it throws at you, cravings, stress at home and at work, tiredness and a whole host of other things.

So if there’s a way to make this easier then that’s worth exploring.

Now I don’t care for diet “hacks” or gimmicks that don’t make a tangible difference. I care about things that are backed by science and have a genuine, proven benefit, and that’s what we’re going to talk about in this episode.

By the end of it you’ll know how this one simple change to your diet can actually lead to huge results with weight loss, so let’s get into it.

Listen to it here on your favourite provider.

It’s hard to know what really works – so pay attention to the fundamentals

In a world that’s full of diet hacks, superfoods and unhealthy protocols which people can’t safely sustain, it’s hard to know what really works.

The fortunate, or unfortunate truth, is that the things which really help aren’t particularly sexy or exciting.

Instead, they’re something that seems so simple, so basic, that it can’t really make that big of a difference… but that’s exactly what they do.

And the power comes from a compounding effect where when you do this day in, day out, for months, years and well, your life, it creates this massive change.

One of the problems that I frequently see when I review a client’s food diary is that they usually do well with one of their meals a day.

By that, I mean they’ll put effort into their dinner or maybe their lunch, but then the other meals aren’t anywhere near as good, in terms of overall dietary quality and their protein intake.

And this is a big problem, especially if they’re trying to lose weight.

The change that you should make

When you’re trying to lose weight there’s no denying that calories are important. In simple terms, you have to consume less calories than your body is burning.

So while this is simple enough, actually putting this into practice is more difficult and people often struggle with cravings and not feeling like they’ve eaten enough.

And I’d like to introduce the main change I would love you to try in the coming weeks or months and see what a difference it makes to you and your diet.

That change is evenly spacing your protein intake throughout the day.

It’s so common for people to eat a good amount of protein in their dinner, and only at dinner, and this goes for meat eaters too. 

But this has some pretty big downsides, and I’d love to show you how making a change could help you out.

Eat less calories, feel fuller

If I were to say to you that you could eat more food but consume less calories and feel more satisfied, would you take it?

Kind of feels like a trick question really doesn’t it because of course the answer is yes.

But this is actually a genuine possibility if you consume protein regularly in good amounts throughout the day.

When you eat protein, you stimulate the hormones which are involved in the satiety process. Chiefly, hormones called cholecystokinin and peptide YY.

All about the hormones

These hormones are released when food such as protein gets eaten, and they have been shown in studies to reduce hunger.

Higher protein foods will trigger this mechanism to a greater extent than lower protein foods, meaning that higher protein foods are going to make you feel less hungry after eating them, reducing the risk of cravings and/or overeating.

If you’ve ever tried losing weight before then you’ll know how strong these feelings can be, so reducing them is clearly going to be an incredibly beneficial outcome.

The other amazing thing about protein is to do with something called the thermic effect of food, and when you understand it it can be super powerful and even change the way you think about food. 

When you eat food, your body has to spend energy digesting it, and different foods require different amounts of energy to break them down.

What does the thermic effect do?

Protein has the highest thermic effect of food, and fat has the lowest, which means that in order to break protein down you have to spend more energy doing so compared to carbohydrate or fat.

Now that might sound kinda cool but the real benefit of this comes into play when you start considering how much food you can eat in a day when you take into account the thermic effect of food.

The thermic effect of protein is around 25-30%, with fat as low as 3%.

This means if, for example, you ate 100 calories worth of protein, your net calorie consumption would be around 75 calories after taking into account that 25% requirement to break the protein down into usable energy.

If you eat 100 calories worth of fat, your net calorie consumption will be about 97 calories.

Practical examples of high protein diets

As a practical outcome for you, this means one of two things.

One, you aim for your target calories, for example 1,500 calories, and you actually consume less calories due to a higher thermic effect of food.

Two, you aim above your target calories by eating more, higher protein foods, and consume almost bang on your target calories after taking into account the thermic effect of food.

So to give an example here, let’s say two people, and we’ll call one Alex and the other Jamie.

Alex follows a high protein, balanced vegetarian diet. Jamie doesn’t think much about their diet and often ends up eating fatty foods like cheese and opts for fully fat dairy.

An average day of eating for Alex looks like this:

Breakfast—A smoothie made from low fat greek yogurt, milk and fruit

Lunch—A quinoa and chickpea salad

Dinner—A tofu stir fry

For Jamie, it looks like this:

Breakfast—Avocado on toast

Lunch—Cheese, pickle and vegetable sandwich

Dinner—Creamy pasta with vegetables

Both of their calorie intake is around 1,500 calories, but after taking into account Alex’s higher protein diet and Jamie’s lower protein but higher fat diet, you would find that their net calorie intake difference is between 100-150 calories per day.

Now I’ll be straight up and say that in the grand scheme of things this might not seem huge, and it isn’t.

But this would actually mean that Alex could have an extra snack which could be something like low-fat Greek yogurt and berries, and still be in the right range for weight loss, it’s then suddenly much more appealing.

And when you combine that with the knowledge that by default protein will make you feel more satisfied and full, if you eat more protein regularly throughout the day not only do you get to just eat more food but it’ll help reduce cravings and mean you stick to your calorie plan better.

This is why I am so bullish about protein, and why at Hurry The Food Up we’ve worked so hard on our recipes and meal plans.

We’ve leveraged the benefits of high protein meals to create weight loss meal plans with recipes that fill you up but are easy to cook and taste amazing.

Honestly I’m super proud of them and if you’d like to try them out then you can download a full week’s plan for free over at https://hurrythefoodup.com/try.

It contains a recipe list with ingredients and step-by-step instructions, as well as a shopping list for you to take out all the fuss. So what are you waiting for?!

Building more muscle through protein spacing

So, by eating more protein in a day and then spacing it at every meal, you’ll benefit from those two biggies, the thermic effect of food and the satiety mechanisms.

But it also comes into its own when it comes to building muscle, too.

When I talk about building muscle here, I mean strong, healthy functional muscle, the muscle that you use to lift stuff in your house, walk up the stairs. Basically, just being fit and healthy.

A study called “Evenness of Dietary Protein Intake Is Positively Associated with Lean Mass and Strength in Healthy Women” demonstrated that spreading protein intake throughout the day maximizes the anabolic response to dietary protein, benefiting muscle mass and performance.

Essentially, by having protein at more regular intervals throughout the day, women had better responses to the exercise that they did and had more muscle than those who didn’t space protein throughout the day.

You might know this already but strength or resistance training is a huge part of being healthy and living longer in better health, and if you haven’t already listened to it then check out episode 3, “How Resistance Training Can Help You Live For Longer In Better Health” for a deeper dive into it.

But not only will spreading protein throughout the day mean you can eat more calories and feel fuller, it also will help you to build or maintain muscle.

And by doing that, you’ll actually burn more calories because muscle uses more energy than fat which will further just improve the virtuous cycle.

Plus, I can pretty much guarantee that by doing all of this you will feel like you have more energy and more motivated.

I’ve seen this in my 1:1 clients and actually, Amy Roskelley from Health Beet, who was featured as a guest on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, said so too. She mentioned how although she didn’t want to sound cliché, having more muscle and losing weight literally changed her life. 

So I honestly love this topic because when you zoom about a bit you can really see how having a healthy, high protein diet can benefit so many different facets of your life.

However, it’s fair to say that it’s not all about protein. Yes, I love it and it’s super important but that’s not the only part of your diet and it’s not the only thing to focus on.

You should still be consuming lots of wholegrain carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, and yep, some healthy fats mixed in there too.

All of these are necessary in a balanced diet because they provide other nutrients like vitamins, minerals and fibre.

So I hope you found this episode interesting and gave you some helpful info about why regular eating protein is beneficial for you.

If you did find it useful then please give the podcast a quick review on whatever platform you’re listening on. 

It helps the podcast to spread to more like minded people like you, and it’ll only take a moment. Thanks so much, and we’ll speak soon.

And finally, here is the easiest way to sign up to try our meal plans (free).

And a list of our vegetarian meal plans (all also free).

And finally finally: More vegetarian podcasts this way!

Studies used in this podcast: