Adding Protein in Your Daily Diet – Its Health Benefits and Prescribed Doses

Featured Image Caption: Protein Rich Diet Benefits

Each one of us aspires to acquire healthy food habits that consist of high protein and low-carbohydrate diets. These diets have been proved effective in contributing towards quick weight loss. Protein acts as an important component for cellular body function. Your hair and nails are mostly made of protein. Your body utilizes protein in order to build and repair tissues as well as to make hormones, enzymes and other body chemicals. Protein acts as an important building block for muscles, bones, skin, cartilage and blood. Eating proteins can trigger protein synthesis as well as can eliminate hunger, improve body composition and reduce body fat. It also leads to improve brain function, thus adding longevity.

Dose of Protein Required for the Body

Body need modest amount of protein in order to function well. Extra protein doesn’t gives you extra strength.

• Teenage boys and active men need for a total of seven ounces from three daily servings
• For children aged between 2 to 6 years, women as well as for older people, it is recommended   a total of five ounces by two daily servings.

Source of Protein:

Chicken, Fish, Cheese, Tofu, Beans, Eggs, Yogurt, Milk, Soymilk, Nuts and Seeds (Pumpkin, Squash, and Watermelon Seeds, Peanuts, Almonds)

Health Benefits of Proteins

Greater Muscle Mass and Lean Tissue:

Consuming protein in diet invigorates an increase in muscle protein synthesis and suppresses protein breakdown for several hours so that you acquire more lean tissue. Any time you restore that pool of building blocks by eating protein, it promotes muscle development.

Less Hunger and Lower Calorie Intake:

As high-protein diets are known for their fat-reducing benefits, thus they effectively reduces hunger cravings.  As Protein is considered to be stomach filling and on consuming more of it they tend to get quickly satisfied and crave for fewer calories.

Easier Fat Loss on a Calorie-Restricted Diet:

If you are trying to cut down your fat, high protein consumption not only keeps hunger far away but also has the cooling effect of increasing the amount of calories your body burns to digest it. This is termed as the thermic effect of food. Protein generally requires near about two times the calories in order to breakdown as carbs.

The most powerful effect of protein for fat loss completely depends on the preservation of lean muscle mass including your resting energy expenditure, which is the amount of calories that is being burnt by body when at rest.

Less Belly Fat:

According to various studies, high-quality protein intake of at least 10 grams of essential amino acids (EAAa) at every meal results in accumulation of less belly fat.

Evidence suggests that better results are obtained by consuming protein immediately after exercise compared to 2 hours, and larger doses in the 35 to 40 gram range are superior for muscle growth. Dosing with 20 grams of protein every 3 hours during daytime also results in greater muscle development than consuming larger amounts less frequently.

Better Bone Density and Less Risk of Osteoporosis:

According to the research conducted, higher protein intake increases bone density and decreases risk of osteoporosis. Studies have also showed that.

The acid is neutralized when the body releases bicarbonate ions from the bone matrix, a mechanism that is accompanied by a loss of sodium, calcium, and potassium. A higher protein intake maintains bone strength where the amino acids in protein are used to build bone. A higher protein intake enhances the action of the hormone IGF-1, which is a major regulator of bone metabolism.

Better Brain Function:

Protein is a key component for brain food. Eating high-quality protein that includes a variety of foods from animal sources provides the building blocks to make chemical messengers involved in energy production, hunger, motivation, and optimal cognition.

Better Sleep:

As compared to high carb diets, high-protein diets have effectively helped people to enjoy better sleep without waking up less frequently during the night. The fact is because protein may optimize chemical transmitter balance, making us wakeful and energized during the day, but sleepy and restful at night.

Lower Blood Pressure:

A higher protein intake has been found effective in reducing blood pressure in individuals with hypertension.

Greater Lifespan and Enhanced Life Quality as You Age:

Physical strength, bone health, muscle mass, leanness, lower blood pressure, and vital brain function are all key players in keeping you alive. Favoring protein and de-emphasizing carbohydrates will increase blood sugar tolerance, insulin health, and reduce diabetes and other heart related disease risk as well. On the other hand, low-protein intake is a strong predictor of death in aging people because it leads to functional decline, loss of muscle mass, and frailty.

Eating protein rich breakfast optimizes your brain’s ability to send messages to the rest of your body, helping you wake up. If you intake protein combined with carbohydrates, your body will eventually digest your breakfast, averting hunger and keeping you fully energized until lunch. Eating more protein than your body requires doesn’t prove to be helpful, as your body stores excess protein as fat, but if you maintain a diet with 10 to 35% of the calories you consume coming from protein, you can benefit from it.