What Happens If I Don't Eat or Eat Too Much Protein?

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

(Page 4 of 5)

What Happens If I Don't Eat Protein at My Meals?

Some clients come to us wondering why they always seem to be hungry shortly after finishing their meals. Actually, "ravenous" is the word they use. They claim that this hunger causes them to snack excessively and to consume extra calories. Debbie, for example, wanted to lose her "last six pounds" and return to her prepregnancy weight. Debbie's diet consisted of fruit and whole wheat toast with jam for breakfast; a large salad of greens with croutons, mixed vegetables, and nonfat dressing at lunch; and a small plate of pasta for dinner. Every hour or two, Debbie would get hungry, so she would snack on fruit, pretzels, frozen yogurt, and/or an occasional piece of candy. Although this is a seemingly healthy diet, and very similar to that of many Americans who are diligently trying to watch their weight, it is missing a key ingredient when it comes to speeding up your metabolic rate.

Protein.

None of Debbie's foods provided her with a significant amount of it. Without protein, the carbs Debbie was eating could not satisfy her nearly as long as they could had they been mixed with a bit of protein. Within one day of replacing the jam on her toast with some low-fat cottage cheese, exchanging the croutons on her lunchtime salad for tofu slices, and adding chicken to a smaller plate of pasta at dinner, Debbie no longer needed more than two or three snacks a day. Within three weeks, she had lost those six pounds and she has kept them off ever since.

TIPS

An appetizer of miso soup? That's a ball that goes right through the hoop. Most appetizers are loaded with fat and calories. Although miso soup is quite high in sodium, it is low in calories and provides you with a little bit of a great source of protein, tofu.

Eating Italian? The Chicken Marsala is one of your best bets. It uses the lean chicken breast, and a typical ten-ounce portion has 460 calories and only seven grams of "bad" fat — not bad for a restaurant meal. Keep in mind that ten ounces may be all the protein you need for the entire day, so don't eat it all in one sitting. If you get this much, take home half for tomorrow.

I Lift Weights, So Where Are My Muscles?

Like Debbie, a handful of clients come to us as protein conservatives, yet they have a different issue from hunger pangs. These clients exercise and lift weights but never seem to see the muscle tone or definition they are looking for. After making sure that these clients include a few more protein sources in their diet, these former "protein neglecters" are thrilled by their results as they finally see the body they work so hard for.

After reading this, many of you are probably going to add protein liberally to your plate. Not so fast. Being too extreme one way or another can ultimately fizzle rather than fire up your metabolism.

TIPS

Buying ground beef? It had better be a dark, deep red — without even a hint of pink! If your ground beef is pink, there is a lot of white (fat) mixed in with the red (lean meat [protein]).

Ban bacon, unless it's Canadian or turkey bacon. Just 2 ½ ounces of bacon (half the size of your palm) has 410 calories and thirty-five grams of fat (twelve of them are saturated), which is close to the maximum amount of artery-clogging saturated fat that you should get in an entire day. Regular bacon is about the worst thing you can eat. However, you can eat Canadian bacon or turkey bacon, which are lean, "thumbs-up" proteins. If you choose extra-lean turkey bacon or extra-lean Canadian bacon, you could have three slices for around the same calories as two slices of the regular turkey bacon or Canadian bacon. If you must eat bacon (a "thumbs-down" protein), eat just one slice.

Don't even think about ground turkey... unless it's the breast. Many people assume that ground turkey is leaner than ground beef because it's turkey, a supposedly healthy meat. Unfortunately, their good intentions backfire and they often get more calories and fat than if they had eaten red meat. That's because if it doesn't say ground turkey breast, you can bet that the skin and fattier parts of the bird are ground in there — tripling the fat and calories. Be sure to buy the ground breast of the turkey and avoid plain ground turkey.

Portion distortion. Never sit down to more than a palm-size (about five to six ounces) portion of protein, which is the maximum amount of meat that inactive people need each day. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends a maximum of six to nine ounces of meat a day, depending on your total calorie requirements. It is easy to go to a restaurant and get eight to nine ounces at just one meal! So put your hand next to your meat portion so you can see how it compares to the size of your palm (fingers not included). If it is bigger than your palm, cut away the excess and put it on your bread plate. Immediately ask your server to put it in a doggy bag or just take it away. That way it won't tempt you.

Brain teaser: When does 80 percent lean = 70 percent fat? When it comes to ground beef. Don't be tricked by "lean" or "extra-lean" ground beef labeled with its fat content, such as "10 percent fat" or, on the other hand, "90 percent lean." This is the percentage of fat by weight, not the "percentage of calories" from fat. Expressing fat by weight is misleading. If the meat is labeled 80 percent lean, 20 percent of its total weight is fat, which is equal to 70 percent of the total calories coming from fat. Meat that is labeled "10 percent fat" actually has 51 percent of its calories from fat. If it says "25 percent fat," then 75 percent of its calories come from fat!

What Happens When I Get Too Much Protein in My Diet?

We hate to have to be the protein police, but there are several things you should know before you have an omelet for breakfast, a chicken sandwich for lunch, and a steak for dinner.

First, when you consume more protein than you need, as the average American does, you crowd out your metabolism-revving carbohydrates, so your body starts the arduous, metabolism-inefficient task of using protein for fuel.

But more than anything, a diet that is too high in protein makes you tired. Protein takes a long time to digest (about four to six hours versus one half to four hours to digest and burn up carbohydrates). Although protein's slower digestion rate can be a good thing (it promotes satiety when you combine the right amounts of the best carbohydrates with the appropriate portions of the best proteins), it can also be a negative thing when you overdo it because a large portion of blood leaves the brain and muscles and stays in your stomach (and intestine) for a long period of time for digestion. This means that there is less blood available to supply the muscles and brain with oxygen, causing sluggishness and decreased energy. In addition, too much protein in the diet can lead to high cholesterol (many foods that are high in protein are also high in the artery-clogging saturated fat and/or cholesterol) or calcium loss from the bone, promoting osteoporosis or other diseases, such as gout. High-protein diets may also put a strain on your kidneys and liver, as these two organs are responsible for breaking down protein and then excreting the excess nitrogen that is created from the protein.

The trick to firing up your metabolism is balancing your intake of proteins and carbs.

TIPS

Surprise! A red meat that's leaner than chicken. Buffalo is actually a red meat that's leaner than most. Three ounces of buffalo have just 111 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. Even the leanest parts of the cow, such as the loin and the round, have about 180 calories and 7.5 grams of fat in the same-size serving. So if you enjoy the flavor of red meat, try buffalo.

Rotisserie chicken isn't as good for you as you may think. Usually, when you cook chicken, the fat drips off, but rotisserie chicken keeps turning and the fat drips right back into the chicken.

Good-bye, chicken pot pie. This meal usually uses the fatty dark meat. Making matters worse, the pastry dough is loaded with butter. Things don't get any better when it comes to the sauce, which is usually made of cream.

Eating Chinese? Always specify that you want white meat chicken. Otherwise you're sure to get the very fatty, dark meat, which can almost double the calories in your meal.

How Can I Get the Right Amount of Protein?

Follow our guidelines to get the right mix of protein and carbohydrates so that you will be like our clients who have fired up their metabolism.

Your daily grain servings (as determined in Chapter 3) equal your daily protein servings. Also refer to the "thumbs-up" and "thumbs-down" protein lists on pages 33 to 37 to see which list your favorite proteins are on and what constitutes a serving.

You can be sure that you're getting just the right amount of protein to fire up your metabolism by matching the number of your daily grain servings to your daily protein servings. For example, if you are allowed six grain servings daily, you are allowed six protein servings. (This should make it easier for you to remember how many servings you need.) Just be careful how you count them: Add up only your grain carbohydrates, not vegetables and fruits, when you are matching your protein servings. Remember, you can eat vegetables in unlimited quantities (just be sure to get a minimum of 4 ½ servings). And you can find how many servings of fruit you need on pages 73 to 74.

To ensure that you boost your metabolism to your utmost ability, you will never eat a grain by itself, even for a snack. Instead, you will couple it with a protein that you have chosen from the protein list on pages 33 to 35 (or with a fat, which we discuss in the next chapter). It is okay to eat a vegetable or a fruit by itself for a snack. Just make sure that you will be eating a larger meal within one to two hours, as the fruit or vegetable will neither satiate you nor provide you with energy for very long.

When you choose a protein, you will then use the Rule of Hand (see page 92) to apply the correct protein portion size to the carbohydrate serving you eat. Ideally, if you eat two servings of carbohydrates at one sitting, you also should aim to eat two servings of protein from the protein list. However, this is not always possible, so just remember to stick to your total daily servings of each grain and protein.

The Rule of Hand

The foods that contain protein are divided into two categories: powerful proteins, which receive the "thumbs-up"; and perilous proteins, which receive the "thumbs-down."

To get started, combine your carbohydrate choice with any of the options from the "Thumbs-Up" Powerful Proteins list on pages 33 to 35 in Chapter 2, and stick to the Rule of Hand. Each protein is listed with its part of the hand-size portion. The "thumbs-up" proteins have been carefully selected, as they are the best protein options for combining with carbohydrates. The "thumbs-up" options are ideal for firing up your metabolism because they are lean protein sources (low in fat) and, therefore, in their appropriate portion sizes they will adequately extend the metabolism-revving boost of the carbohydrates. What's more, since these protein portions are moderate size, and because they are low in fat, they don't overwhelm your system by causing the blood to stay in the stomach for too long, competing with your blood supply to your muscles. Therefore, you will have plenty of energy to be active and burn calories. And although it takes a little bit of practice to get accustomed to the serving sizes of each, soon, after using the Rule of Hand, it becomes easy.

TIPS

Tired of chicken? Take a walk on the wild side. Try ostrich, which, like chicken, is poultry. This bird has gained a lot of popularity as a healthy alternative to the same old chicken. Chicken breast has about 140 calories and three grams of fat in a three-ounce serving. Ostrich has 108 calories and two to three grams of fat in the same-size serving. (Three ounces is about the size of a deck of cards or the size of four fingers.)

A "thumbs-down" protein can become a "thumbs-up" one. Here's how to remove about half the fat from ground beef. 1) Start with the reddest, leanest meat possible. 2) Brown it in a skillet. 3) Place cooked meat on paper towels. 4) Dump meat into a strainer and rinse it with hot (not boiling) water. 5) Drain it completely.

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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