Are you passing out from the turkey sandwich at the office cafeteria because you want lose weight? Then you might be doing it wrong, as turkey, chicken, and other foods which are rich in protein might help you lose weight.
According to a small study conducted by Australian researchers, people who are overweight are not efficient in burning fat after a meal than slimmer people, and that the protein composition of each meal affects this gap in weight.
In the study, the researchers discovered that overweight men and women burn a lot more fat every time they ate a breakfast and lunch full of high protein foods than when they ate meals with lesser protein. In short, the extra protein in the meals seemed to alter the fat-burning discrepancy in overweight individuals.
Dr. Marijka Batterham, the lead researcher of the study from University of Wollongong in New South Wales said in a newspaper interview that the research hypothesized that people who have a high level of body fat burn fat more efficiently after a high protein meal than with people who have lower body fat.
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Other studies, she added, have also theorized that diets which incorporate lots of protein can help overweight people shed pounds more easily, due in part because of the tendency of protein to suppress appetite better than fat or carbohydrates.
Dr. Batterham said, however, that their study did not concentrate on weight loss, so it cannot be confirmed whether the increased burning of fat seen in the overweight respondents of the study would lead to a reduction of weight over time.
However, she also added that their next study would that of finding out if there is a scientific link between high protein meals and weight loss.
The study was published in an international scientific journal and is based on 18 adults whose metabolism after every meal was observed on 3 separate days.
40 years was the average age of the subjects, with eight of them overweight, six with normal weight, and four with obesity. On the first day of the test, the subjects had a controlled breakfast and lunch composed mainly of carbohydrates and little protein.
And on the remaining test days, the meals that were given were more balanced. Eight hours after the controlled meal, the researchers discovered that the subjects who were overweight and obese burned less fat those participants with normal weight. However, this gap in metabolism was closed when they ate the meals with higher protein.
Although there is no scientific confirmation that eating lots of protein would lead to weight loss, a lot of experts have recommended having protein incorporated in diets to help reduce weight.
Some of the recommended high protein foods include low fat dairy, meat and eggs, as well as vegetarian sources of protein such as soy milk, beans, nuts and other legumes.
