Can Protein Supplements Aid in Weight Loss?
In the struggle to lose weight and gain a fit, sculpted body, have you considered turning to protein as an ally?
Essential to any animal’s diet, proteins and their component amino acids play a role in virtually every cellular process. Most importantly to those trying to maintain good health and lose extra fat, proteins are the literal ‘building blocks’ of muscle. Without them, no muscle growth would even be possible.
During weight loss, a quality protein will help keep your muscles from degrading and disappearing along with the fat, allowing them to grow when it seems like everything else is shrinking.
After a punishing workout, having ample protein in your system will prevent a reaction called muscle catabolism. This is when the muscle cells that have been damaged by your workout repair themselves by stealing nutrients from their healthy neighbors. This process will work against your efforts to build a lean, muscular physique, since your muscles will be basically cannibalizing themselves!
Protein also works to support your overall health in more subtle ways. It can help bolster your immune function, break down cholesterol, and deliver nitrogen, an essential element in your body development and DNA synthesis. There’s evidence, too, that it plays a role in boosting your metabolism, which is good news for those trying to burn up their fat reserves.
Many athletes the world over, pro and novice alike, have added protein supplements to their diets. This is due to the fact that most dietary sources of protein (meat, dairy, certain vegetables and grains) come with unwanted add-ons like trans fat and bad cholesterol. A quality protein supplement will deliver the health-supporting protein you need (usually derived from dairy sources), without any of these add-ons. And be sure to check the label—the highest quality supplements often come with an impressive array of vitamins and minerals, as well.
The powdered versions of protein supplements are probably the most widespread and the most versatile. They come flavored or unflavored, and can be used to add a protein punch to virtually anything—pancakes, cookies, muffins, smoothies, soups, you name it!
Eating more high-quality protein and less sugar can also help reduce blood pressure. Though managing high blood pressure will never be a matter of simply swapping out items in your diet, it’s generally agreed that your consumption of carbs can have a direct effect on your blood sugar. Supplementing out some of the flour and sugar in your baking recipes for a protein powder instead can help you take steps towards better overall health.
There are hundreds of sites and blogs online with recipes that include protein powders. With a bit of research you’ll find a brand of supplement that suits you, and then you can start raking in the health benefits!
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What is the Paleo Diet?
I have to admit, when I saw the name, I thought of a plant based diet, or vegetarian. I guess because the name sort of sounds like the word plant. But when I really thought about it, that was silly, because they were really naming this diet out of a period of time where humans ate certain foods in the hunting and gathering age of man.
This was the time when men and women did not have access to such processed and unhealthy foods as we do today. Foods were simple, stripped down. Even the way they cooked their foods was minimal because they only had one way to do it – with fire. They probably didn’t salt the heck out of their meats, they probably ate it right from the animal, barely cooked.
They also ate a lot of their veggies and fruits raw. They basically consumed a very minimally processed diet, whereas today we consume a ton of processed, over cooked foods that have a lot of the nutrients cooked out or processed right out of them.
The meats that are focused upon in the paleo diet are leaner meats, not the fatty variety or processed variety like sausages and bacon. They are lean cuts of beef, chicken, venison (deer meat, which is actually pretty healthy for you), and fish (which is always excellent for you).
The other foods that you should eat are fruits and vegetables, minimally processed of course. Notice how they do not want you to totally shun carbs. They instead focus on unprocessed, whole foods that are naturally low in fat and which give natural, all day energy.
The low carb diet on the other hand, can leave people feeling groggy, depressed and with a total lack of energy because there are no raw foods with high carb content and fiber content that gives them that full satisfied feeling as well as quick body fuel for the day.
This is kind of the way my husband and I eat, so I thought that was amusing, because we do find that we feel our best when we eat this way. It may not be the best way to strip off the weight very quickly, but it’s a great way to slowly lose weight as well as to make sure you have a lean physique over the long term.
It’s way easier to stick to than a traditional low carb diet too, because you still get those carbs in there, they’re just natural and fiber filled.
BOOKMARK OR SHARE :CLA : Does It Really Reduce Body Fat?
There has been a lot of discussion about CLA in the world of health and overall wellness and anti cancer properties, as well as in the world of dieting and weightloss. I remember initially hearing about this acid when I was much younger for the first time.
Someone had told me that it was the latest “miracle” supplement that would help your body to retain lean muscle and lose extra fat. Who wouldn’t want that! So I remember that I took it for about a month, saw no results, and stopped taking it because I was bored with it.
Back then I had a much shorter attention span, and I always expected instant results. Instead of sticking with it for a while and seeing if it made any difference in my goals to be more of a “fat free” kind of gal, I ditched it after a month.
Often times, one month is not long enough to let a supplement work, and to really build up levels of a certain nutrient that has certain therapeutic properties in the blood stream so that it can actually DO what it says.
However, I read that CLA after all did not really show much of a difference in reduction of body fat in human trials. I think that was more of a wishful thinking thing by scientists who had seen positive results in lab rats.
With that in mind though, there are some who still firmly believe that CLA not only can help you to retain lean muscle mass and shed body fat when you take it over time, but there is also quite a bit of evidence that CLA has some excellent benefits as a weapon against cancer.
In fact, it was shown that tumors were basically much smaller or nonexistent in mice who had high levels of CLA in their blood stream, whereas those mice that did not, developed larger and perhaps more agressive tumors.
Similar effects have been seen in humans. Cancers of the mammary glands ( breast cancer), prostate cancer and other types of cancer have shown to be inhibited by high levels of CLA in the blood stream.
So, aside from adding another supplement to your regimen, what can you do to build your levels of this acid in your blood and at least gain the known benefits of it? By the way, the full name for it is Conjugated Linoleic Acid.
The foods you can eat that are high in CLA are eggs, preferably organic and cage free, any type of organic milk, since cows that eat grass typically produce milk and meat that is much higher in CLA, and cheeses that are full-fat cheese.
Cow meat from cows that are grass fed are sky high in CLA. Eating foods high in CLA may be connected to maintaining a healthy body weight.
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