About Protein Drinks & Weight Loss

Diet fads come and go about as fast as the new styles on the runways of New York. One of the latest is the use of protein drinks to lose weight. Protein is one of the major building blocks of the human body, regulating mood and acting as an energy source when you are dieting. As long as you drink the right protein drinks, the diet can be successful.

Principles

Basic weight loss means eating fewer calories than you body burns. The problem is that two or three weeks into your diet, your body goes into starvation mode, your metabolism slows and your weight loss stops. One way to overcome this is to replace at least one or two meals a day with a protein drink and make your remaining meal a small one. It must be small so that your body will not store excess calories as fat.

How Does it Work?

One gram of protein will burn 30 calories, so if you use a protein drink that contains at least 12 grams of protein per serving, you will be burning 360 calories per drink. Two drinks a deal translates to 720 calories. Combining the drinks with a small meal of complex carbohydrates will allow you to consume somewhere around 1,000 to 1,200 calories per day. The average human body needs approximately 1,500 calories a day for its normal functions, so your body will need to obtain the extra 300 calories from fat stored in your body.

Types of Protein Drinks

Only consume protein drinks that contain amino acids. If your body does not get them from the drinks, it will digest its own muscle tissue to get them, meaning you lose muscle rather than fat. Beware of protein drinks that contain few or no amino acids, and may also contain fillers that are hard for your body to digest. It is well worth the few extra dollars to purchase a quality product.

Other Proteins

If you are on a budget and cannot afford to replace two meals a day with a protein drink, you can replace one of the meals with a protein meal. Good sources of protein include all kind of meats (avoid those with high fat content), fish, eggs, tofu, seeds, nuts and legumes such as soy and dried beans. Keep your protein intake separate from your carbohydrate intake for the best results.

Insight From Experts

In a study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition," participants who followed a diet in which fat was 20 percent of their total calories, carbohydrates accounted for 50 percent and total protein was increased to 30 percent, reported weight loss, greater satiety and less hunger than those who simply tried dieting with caloric restriction alone. The participants on the high calorie diet consumed an average of 440 calories fewer than their counterparts.