Protein Is Essential for Healthy Muscle Mass

Protein is important to your body. It uses protein to produce hormones, enzymes and other crucial chemicals to build and repair tissues in every cell. Protein is a building block of skin, blood, muscles, cartilage and bones. Proteins are made up of smaller building blocks called amino acids, which are joined together in chains. Some amino acid chains are short while others are made up of several thousand linked together to form complex shapes. Over time, an insufficient intake of protein can cause you to lose muscle mass, which in turn reduces your strength and slowing your metabolism. It can also lead to a medical condition called anemia, where your cells do not get enough oxygen and results in your feeling tired. Beware of high protein diets with big weight loss claims. Since excess protein is normally stored as fat, you can lose weight quickly but it leads to weight gain over time if too many calories are consumed.

Tips for Boosting Your Weight Loss Efforts

Replacing sugary soft drinks like soda and high-calorie beverages like fancy coffee drinks with protein drinks or green teas can minimize hunger and increase satiety, which can boost weight loss.

• Add Protein to Every Meal - A recent study concluded that participants who consumed healthy amounts of protein average about 440 fewer calories per day for their total intake.
• Avoid Excessive Calorie Cutting - Trying to lose weight by over restricting caloric intake can force your body to cannibalize muscle mass while holding onto stored fat deposits making it more difficult for you to reach your target weight.
• Consume More Water - Not only can water eliminate numerous calories found in sugary beverages, drinking water (especially cold water) can temporarily speed up your resting metabolic rate.
• Drink Unsweetened Coffee or Tea - Consumed in moderation, one of coffee's weight loss benefits may be a short-term boost to your metabolic rate. Caffeine also can increase your endurance for exercise and help you feel less fatigued.
• Add Strength Training - Strength training is like hitting the Daily Double. Not only will you benefit from muscle tone and added strength, but more muscle mass results in faster metabolism, which means more calories burned and that converts to faster weight loss.

If you are trying to lose weight, increasing your metabolic rate means you will see results sooner than later, and the final results will be longer lasting.

How to Avoid Hitting a Weight Loss Plateau

Metabolism can refer to any of the numerous chemical processes that take place in the human body. Nonetheless, what most people are referencing is the total number of calories their body can burn at rest. According to Mayo Clinic online, a slow metabolism is rarely the cause of excessive weight gain. Although metabolism influences your body's basic energy needs, what you eat and drink and how much physical activity you engage in ultimately determines weight gain or loss. Specific illnesses also can affect the speed at which you burn energy. For example, if your body does not make enough thyroid hormone, it can be easy to gain weight and difficult to lose it. When your calorie intake is too low, your body can go into starvation mode causing you to hit a weight loss plateau, which starts a vicious cycle where you stop losing weight even though you're eating far less.

For more than thirty years, Metabolic Research Center has been warning dieters about potential dangers of following a crash diet as well as how fad diets can trigger the body to slow metabolism. If your goal is to lose weight and keep it off, visit the MRC location nearest you or use this website's Contact Us form to submit your questions for a prompt response.