Why should you eat more protein than your body is going to use? Because it throws the "metabolic switch" and changes the way your body decides to store and use the excess calories.
You see, your body has choices. It can use that energy in a nearly infinite number of ways. It could, for example, decide to use extra calories for something like building bone or repairing damaged tissues.
Doctors, nutritionists, and the media all miss this point. They still cling to the idea that your body always stores excess calories as fat. Surprisingly, this has rarely been considered in clinical research. Yet when studied, the results back me up. For instance, a study published in Obesity Research found that people could lose weight independent of calories consumed when the ratio of protein and carbohydrate changed.
The trick is to change your metabolism. By throwing your metabolic switch, you can accomplish these two important goals of sustained fat loss:
• Increase the calories you use for maintenance and repair.
• Decrease the calories you shunt toward fat deposition.
Tell Your Body to Invest in Fat Loss
Your body makes its decisions about its energy reserves for the sake of survival. It's an instinct that goes back to caveman days, when a drop in protein and calories signaled the body "These are bad times. So to survive this famine/plague/winter, we'd better store as much energy as possible." And when protein and calories were up, the signal was "Times are good, so we can burn that energy."
During good times, your body "invests" in procreation and fat loss. It uses the extra protein to boost levels of growth hormone and sex hormones and burn fat stores by lowering insulin. Having sex and babies requires lots of energy and your body makes these adjustments only when "times are good."
If your body senses that times are bad, it decides that this is not a good time to have children. So the production of growth hormone and sex hormones is suppressed. And to protect itself against the threat of starvation, it boosts insulin to promote fat gain.
In our modern environment, excessive stress and a nutrient-poor diet can cause your body to think times are bad. This puts your metabolism in a perpetual state of preparing for the worst. The result? You not only gain weight, you also feel sluggish and tired.
If you want to burn fat, you have to stop starving your body. Forget about tofu burgers and whole-grain breads. The good news is you can start eating the hearty foods you've been denying yourself - like steak and eggs. These are the foods we used to think were healthy. (My father said they would "put hair on your chest.")
Jumpstart Your Metabolism and Get Naturally Lean in 2008
These days, the best source of red meat is grass-fed animals. It's more expensive... but the benefits far outweigh the extra money. Grass-fed beef pumps up your muscles and wipes out body fat at the same time. Imagine eating a big, juicy steak to get thin! I can already hear the pundits screaming their protests. But just try it and you'll see.
With a little planning, you get naturally lean by eating the foods you enjoy. Start by eating at least one gram of protein per day for every pound of lean body mass. You can find your lean body mass by having your body composition measured. (Ask your doctor or the trainer at your gym for help with this.)
Here's an example: If you weigh 180 pounds and have 60 pounds of body fat, your lean body mass is 120 pounds. That means you should get at least 120 grams of protein a day. When you consider that an egg has about 6 grams of protein and a quarter-pound of T-bone steak has about 20 grams, 120 grams is far more than you get from the standard American diet.
To further shift your metabolism away from storing fat, cut your carbs. Your ancient ancestors never ate grains, and you should keep yours to a minimum. Take a scientific approach to this by using the glycemic index to determine how much insulin various foods will stimulate based on the carbs they contain.
Lastly, to maximize your fat loss and boost your lean body mass, exercise in ways that burn lots of energy fast. This is important because fat is a slow-burn fuel. So if you ask your body for higher energy output than it can get from fat, it will get the message to stop shunting calories to fat. Instead, it will store more energy as glycogen in the muscles.
The kind of exercises that burn lots of energy fast will feel like a short sprint and leave you panting after you finish. You can do this with calisthenics, weight training, or routines that focus on your legs, like running or biking uphill. (Start off easy and gradually increase the intensity of the exercise as you become conditioned.)
Dr. Sears, a practicing physician and the author of PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness, is a leading authority on longevity, physical fitness, nutrition, and heart health. Find Dr. Sears' practical solutions and get immediate access to more than 450 of his articles by visiting: www.alsearsmd.com or Dr Sears on Amazon.com
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