Can increasing your protein intake aid your fat loss goals?
The summer holidays are coming our personal trainers are busy getting our clients in the shape for their summer holidays. In preparation for the shredding those few extra pounds of fat for the desired beach body, for our personal training clients we suggest increasing protein intake and logging how much protein you are ingesting on a daily basis to make sure we are hitting our protein targets for the day. If your numbers are too low, that may be slowing down your fat loss progress and in some situations you may lose muscle mass.
Protein can reduce hunger, increase meal satiety and keep you feeling fuller for longer as protein food sources are slow to digest.
Protein has higher TEF (thermic effect of food) than carbohydrates and fats which means you burn more calories in the processing of the protein.
Increasing your protein intake can assist your fat loss goals via the preservation of your muscle tissue if you are in a calorie deficit, and increase protein synthesis which will in-turn increase your basal metabolic rate.
Protein suggestions :
Grass Fed Organic red meat
Free range Poultry
Game
Fish ideally wild or organic
Free range eggs
Nuts and Seeds
Beans and Legumes
For vegans we recommend combining nuts and seeds with beans and legumes to complete the amino acid profile of the meal you are eating.
For example combining lentils with pumpkin seeds or chickpeas with sunflower seeds will give you all the amino acids.
At Soma a large amount of personal training clients are vegetarian or vegan which makes hitting protein targets a little challenging but with a little attention to detail with total calorie intake and combining foods it is still possible to hit your targets.
Variety :
Try having 3 different protein sources per day
Recommended intake :
1.8 g – 2.5 g per kilo of body weight.
Increasing your protein intake will assist your fat loss goals however sticking within the calorie boundaries and maintaining the energy balance ratio is vital towards your fat loss goals. We ultimately need to burn more calories than we are eating to burn fat.
To book a free consultation with one of our expert coaches contact us at Soma Fitness and we can help you further towards achieving your weight loss and body composition goals with our personal training and nutritional programmes.
Leave a Comment
(2 Comments)
Hi Stel/Stelio’s my friend told me about you and that you have a lot of knowledge in all sorts of stuff in your field. I used to be in good shape but I’ve let go over the years. Been off and on with gyms etc. but always wanted to get back to where I was. What would you recommend as the best way to do this? Thanks, D
Dear David,
There are many ways you could get in shape,
What are your specific goals? The first thing I would out line is your history as you used to be in shape but you have let it go, why was this? Then I would address your time an schedule when can you fit training in. If you can structure into your week some training sessions or your chosen sport and fit it into your diary and keep it consistent week in week out. The key to getting in shape and staying in shape is a balanced nutritional protocol specific to your goals and consistent training also specific to your goals. I hope this helps.
kind regards
Stelios Shengas
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
Categories