Power Proteins Versus Problem Proteins

Fire Up Your Metabolism : 9 Proven Principles for Burning Fat and Losing Weight Forever
by Lyssie Lakatos, R.D., Tammy Lakatos Shames

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Myth: If you load up on protein you will be lean and muscular and have great muscle tone.

Busted: If you eat more protein than your body needs (if you eat more of anything than your body needs), you will gain body fat, not muscle.

Myth: If you replace the carbohydrates in your diet with protein, you will have a lot of energy and look great.

Busted: Carbohydrates provide your body with energy; protein doesn't. If you replace carbs with protein you will be exhausted, and when you look and feel tired, you don't look good.

Myth: Most people, and especially vegetarians, don't get enough protein in their diets.

Busted: Most people eat far more protein than their bodies require. Even most vegetarians get adequate protein. Many foods other than meat provide good sources of protein.

Myth: The fat in low-fat and nonfat dairy foods is replaced with chemicals.

Busted: Most low-fat and nonfat dairy products use the same ingredients as the full-fat versions, only whole milk is replaced with 1 percent or skim milk.

Our Twin Trial
in which you will witness the benefits of combining proteins and carbs

For this twin trial, we decided that the loser of the coin flip would have to eat a high-protein diet, with limited amounts of carbohydrate, just as many innocent, ill-fated dieters do. We wanted to see just how eating this way would affect us — and our metabolism.

We made sure we didn't change the amount of calories we normally ate, as this would jeopardize our trial — the change in calories, rather than the avoidance of carbohydrates, could influence the results. Instead, we just made sure to eat the amount of protein that "low-carb" diets have you eat, and to limit the carbohydrates that we ate to meet those recommendations as well.

Having witnessed countless clients come to us in desperation after trying very low-carbohydrate diets, we were prepared for the worst. These dieters had warned us: They had lost weight and gained it all back. They had gained back even more weight in some cases. Discouragement, deprivation, and an all-around crummy feeling were common refrains.

So we braced ourselves and held our breath as the coin sailed in the air.

Lyssie: I lost this coin flip. I would be forced to trade my morning breakfast of cereal, soy milk, and fruit for an equal-calorie portion of protein: an egg white omelet with nonfat cheese.

On the first morning of the experiment, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed my omelet. In fact I felt quite satisfied. That is, until midway through my morning exercise bike ride when I suddenly felt exhausted and hot. About forty-five minutes into my normally hour-long bike ride I actually began to feel so weak that I thought I was sick. I went home instead of finishing my workout.

At home I still felt faint and knew that I needed some carbohydrates to replace the muscle energy stores I had just depleted. I plopped down on the couch with a tuna sandwich with mustard. Just as I was about to take a bite, I remembered that during this experiment, I was allowed only a small amount of carbohydrate daily, equivalent to the two slices of bread on the sandwich. (This is actually almost twice the amount of carbohydrates that the Atkins diet allows during its initial phase.) If I ate this sandwich, I couldn't have any more carbohydrates for the rest of the day. I contemplated scraping the tuna from the whole wheat bread and leaving the bread behind, but that was for just a moment — right before I ate the whole thing.

After all, I was sick!

Several minutes later, I was feeling much better, and within about a half hour, I was back to normal. In fact, I got angry with myself for not finishing my workout and thinking I had been sick. I should have known that my dizziness and exhaustion were due to having the wrong kind of fuel for my body — protein. I had felt hot and overheated because I had perceived my workout to be too difficult when in fact I was just inadequately fueled. I decided to return to the gym later in the day.

I spent the rest of the day contemplating the challenge of figuring out what to eat. My next meal consisted of a chicken breast on a bed of lettuce with ½ cup of cottage cheese and low-fat string cheese. As midafternoon rolled around, I realized that I wasn't hungry for a midafternoon snack. Although this was nice, on the flip side, I was also tired and sluggish, and later in the day quite shaky. That night for dinner I had grilled fish and some vegetables. (This continued to be my usual dinner during the course of this experiment — fish, turkey, or chicken with veggies.)

The next morning I woke up feeling as though I hadn't even slept. I decided that I would need to eat my carbohydrate portion in the morning so that I could get through my exercise routine. My workout was easier than it had seemed the day before; however, it still felt much more challenging than usual, and I could not pedal as quickly. As the day continued and I was primarily fueling myself with protein, the sluggishness set in again. The only thing I could think about was sleep. I nodded off six times during the day! I had a hard time getting up from my desk to make photocopies. I was craving sleep.

There was also something else I was craving — carbohydrates. My carbohydrate cravings couldn't have been worse. You can't imagine how much restraint I had to use at lunch when I ate my tuna and turkey "sandwiches" on lettuce instead of on bread. Several days I actually had to drag my exhausted body out of my house just so that I wouldn't ruin the trial by diving into a loaf of bread. And things worsened as the day crept on. What fun were my snacks — cheese without crackers? By the time dinners rolled around, I would nearly cry staring at the hunk of fish, chicken, or turkey on my otherwise seemingly empty plate. What I would have done for pasta, rice, bread, or a potato. I was ready to sell my left kidney for just a couple of bites of bread or a Snyder's hard pretzel.

And one other thing. I wish I didn't have to mention it, but it's an issue for anyone who eats a high-protein, very low-carb diet: constipation. I finally know what this word means, literally, since I experienced it, despite eating decent portions of vegetables. "What do you mean I can't have prune juice?" I would have never dreamed that these words would come out of my mouth, but thanks to the carb restrictions, they did, as prune juice contains too many carbs for this trial. I now understand why my grandma drinks it. I would drink or eat anything to prevent the discomfort of constipation, too.

The only good thing about this experiment was that I never really felt too hungry. However, I never felt healthy or energetic either, and especially not during my exercise, which I still dragged myself to do anyway, only at a much slower pace than usual. I convinced Tammy to allow this experiment to last only three weeks.

I was relieved to be done with the experiment — and crestfallen to learn that in just twenty-one days my body fat increased 1 percent even though my calorie intake was the same as it was before the trial. The reason: I felt so lifeless during the whole trial that I didn't burn off nearly as many calories through exercise and everyday activity as I usually burn when my body gets the fuel it needs.

Unfortunately, I didn't gain muscle either. Instead, since I had not fed my body the carbohydrates it needed for energy, my body was forced to use some protein I was eating to get energy, stealing it from its real job — assisting in muscle growth. In fact, since my weight remained the same yet my body fat increased, that signified that I had actually lost muscle (my fatigue prevented me from completing my normal strength-training routine) and worse still, I had gained body fat and slowed my metabolic rate. My muscles looked less shapely, particularly in my arms.

On the bright side, I have to say that the next morning, my granola, soy milk, and fruit had never tasted so good, and my workout had never seemed easier and more fun!

Protein Propaganda

Protein bars, protein shakes, protein powders, protein drinks. Protein seems to be all the rage. Shelves nationwide are stocked with the latest popular protein supplements. Fueled by all of this hype, everyone from stay-at-home moms and weekend exercisers to professional athletes comes into our office for the first time with many misconceptions about what these protein supplements will and will not do for them. Some clients tell us that they eat an afternoon protein bar to give them energy and to keep them lean. We repeatedly hear many of the same comments and questions:

"I don't love the way this protein bar tastes, but I should eat it because it's good for me, right?"

"I heard this protein drink will make me lean. It will, won't it?"

"If I take this protein powder three times a day like the container says, it will help me to build muscle, right?"

Everyone wants to hear the same thing: Eating a protein bar or drinking a shake will make them stronger and leaner and able to perform better.

Well, here's the truth: Don't waste your time and money on these protein supplements. They will not make you stronger or firmer. Nor do they provide any benefit over eating a protein-containing food. In fact, foods that contain protein provide many benefits over the protein supplement, such as giving you the vitamins and minerals that naturally occur in the food, as well as making you feel full. Not to mention, it is easy to get all of the protein you need from real food, and it is a lot more flavorful and a lot less expensive. So instead of protein supplements, you should choose the right protein-rich foods at the right time; this will fire up your metabolism and help you to look the way you want to. In order to understand why certain proteins must be chosen at certain times, you must first know a little bit about protein and the way it works in your body.

What Does Protein Do for Me?

Protein is the main component of muscles, organs, and glands. Every living cell and all body fluids, except bile and urine, contain protein. Protein helps blood to clot by plugging cuts and scrapes with fibrin, a stringy mass of protein fibers. If it weren't for protein, a pinprick could drain your body of all your blood. Protein maintains the cells of muscles, tendons, and ligaments and helps to control your body's fluid balance by regulating the quantity of fluids inside the blood vessels, inside the cells, and surrounding the cells. It also helps maintain the body's acid-base balance, which is critical — if the blood gets either too acidic or too basic, life cannot be sustained as protein becomes denatured and cannot carry out any of its functions, causing bodily processes to fail.

Why Is Protein Essential for a Speedy Metabolism?

Remember, your metabolic rate is the speed at which your body burns calories.

Protein helps build and repair muscle broken down from activity and exercise. This is huge — the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns. The presence of muscle alone burns calories because it is metabolically active; this means muscle uses calories even while your body is at rest.

Protein also revs your metabolism by slowing down the digestion of carbohydrates. Protein is digested more slowly than carbohydrates, so when you mix carbohydrates with a little bit of protein, the protein causes the carbohydrates to digest more gradually, giving you an even energy flow. As you may remember from Chapters 2 and 3, carbohydrates provide the body with glucose, the primary fuel for the brain and muscles. The presence of carbohydrates prevents the body from feeling threatened and using your "calorie-burning" muscle tissue for fuel. However, as you also learned in Chapter 3, when carbohydrates are eaten alone (especially the "sometimes" or "rarely" ones), glucose (fuel) quickly enters your bloodstream, causing your pancreas to kick out an abnormally large amount of insulin, the hormone whose job it is to quickly shuttle the glucose out of the blood and into the tissues and muscles. This large surge of insulin results in your blood sugar level dropping quickly. As your blood sugar level dips, so does your energy level. Immediately, your brain realizes that your blood sugar is low and it sends the signal to your body to get more fuel... and so you eat.

Therefore, in the absence of a small amount of protein, carbohydrates cannot fire up the metabolism to its ultimate potential; the calorie-burning blast is short-lived. What's more, without a little bit of protein, the surge of insulin released may trigger you to overeat.

Copyright © 2004 by Lyssie Lakatos and Tammy Lakatos Shames

About the Author

Lyssie Lakatos and Tammy Lakatos Shames, registered dietitians, nutritionists, and personal trainers, are the founders of Healthy Happenings, Inc., a company that provides consultations to more than 300 corporations. Their advice has appeared in Self, Family Circle, Woman's Day, and Good Housekeeping. They live in New York City.

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