Eating protein foods DOES help you lose fat…..

Today's post: Monday, 1-21-2008

Researchers recently established a key reason why eating protein foods tends to help people lose fat.

Eating protein foods suppresses a key hormone that turns off hunger. Even better the hormone, called Ghrelin, stays turned down for a good bit from eating protein foods. This helps you avoid overeating from continuing to feel hungry after you eat.

So, if you eat a bit less calories than you are used to but eat well from lean or nonfat protein foods, you are much less likely to get too hungry to continue eating that way.

Separate research shows that continuing to eat some fats & oils makes losing fat permanently MUCH more likely. However, doing so apparently works through a different pathway as this research showed that eating fat did NOT turn down this hormone.

Carbohydrate foods, & it sounds like this research used fast absorbing carbohydrates like sugars that did NOT come with fiber when eaten, were definitely BAD actors.

Eating carbohydrate foods did lower ghrelin levels at first. But they then reversed & INCREASED them above where they were when the carbohydrate foods were eaten.

This clearly makes it much more likely a person will overeat because this effect ensures they will get quite hungry sooner than they should.

Here’s where I first saw the research reported.:

“Thu Jan 17, 7:20 PM ET CHICAGO (Reuters) –

Diets high in protein may be the best way to keep hunger in check, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that offers insight into how diets work.

They found that protein does the best job at keeping a hunger hormone in check, while carbohydrates and fats may well deserve their current nasty reputation.

The study, which will appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, looked at the effectiveness of different nutrients at suppressing ghrelin, a hormone secreted by the stomach that stimulates appetite.

"Suppression of ghrelin is one of the ways that you lose your appetite as you begin to eat and become sated," said Dr. David Cummings of the University of Washington in Seattle, who worked on the study.

The researchers gave 16 people three different beverages, each with varying levels of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. They took blood samples before the first beverage, then every 20 minutes for six hours afterward, measuring ghrelin levels in each sample.

"The interesting findings were that fats suppress ghrelin quite poorly," Cummings said in a telephone interview. They fared the poorest overall.

"Proteins were the best suppressor of ghrelin in terms of the combination of the depth and duration of suppression," he said. "That is truly satisfying because high proteins are essentially common to almost all of the popular diets."

They also found that eating carbohydrates resulted in a strong ghrelin suppression at first, but ghrelin levels rebounded with a vengeance, rising to an even higher level.

Basically, the carbohydrates eventually made people even hungrier than before they had eaten.“


This research endorses what has become clear is the best way to eat to lose fat & then stay trim permanently.

1. Eat nonfat & lower fat sources of protein. Egg whites, whey, & protein supplements made from them work well.

Since the separate research shows that eating some fats & oils DOES help keep hunger away enough to make continuing to eat right & permanent fat loss much more doable & likely, it’s quite clear that eating high protein foods with some health OK fats & oils also works.

(Eating fats clearly has this effect without reducing Ghrelin however, according to this research. So this must work through taste or another system your body uses to gauge energy intake.)

That means that eating whole eggs, wild caught fish high in omega 3 oils, beef fad only grass, and eating nuts are all good ways to get protein for people who want to lose fat permanently.

Eating beans & lentils also works well. They do have carbohydrates. But, since they are also quite high in fiber, the carbohydrates are released to your body gradually enough over a long enough period of time that by the time the rebound effect overcomes the reducing effect, it will be the right time for your next meal anyway.

Important note: Fatty & grain fed meats & poultry contain enough extra calories as saturated fat & omega 6 oils from the grain they eat that they should be eaten much less often, in smaller amounts, & in as fat trimmed & lean a version as possible. These foods tend to have too much fat & calories for the protein they contain to be good fat loss tools. These fats & oils are NOT health OK as they may cause cancer & have been implicated in causing heart disease. And, since these same animals are often raised around pesticides & given antibiotics which are bioconcentrated in their fat, minimizing your consumption of those fats is wise.

2. Similarly, small amounts of avocado & extra virgin olive oil are also OK. Just don’t overdo the amount. They have MUCH better health effects than dairy fats & polyunsaturated oils high in omega 6 oils. So eating dairy fats & polyunsaturated oils high in omega 6 oils is not wise both for health & for fat loss except in very small amounts & not every day.

3. The other kind of food that reduces hunger is food that is high in fiber since your stomach will give you hunger pains if it gets too empty.

Here again beans & lentils work well as they are quite high in fiber, nutrition, & protein also.

But, the best food category for this is green, nonstarchy vegetables. They do have carbohydrates but the amount is quite low compared with the fiber & nutrition they contain. This is so much the case that your body may burn as many calories to digest them as they contain. Weight Watches lists them as having zero points. That means their experience has shown that green, nonstarchy vegetables have zero net calories when you eat them. This means eating them in abundance will help you feel full but NOT put fat on you.

Yellow, red, & orange, nonstarchy vegetables such as tomatoes, summer squash, & carrots also work.

Somewhat starchy vegetables like pumpkin & sweet potatoes & yams or whole fresh fruits are OK, but like eating fats like extra virgin olive oil, avoid eating too much of them.

4. It’s quite clear from this research that drinking soft drinks, eating refined grain foods, & eating more than tiny amounts of sugar & not doing so every day, is also a HUGE key to not being fat or staying fat.

They found these foods make you less hungry at first & then uncontrollably more hungry later.

Eliminate or cut these back by 98 percent & it will be much easier for you to lose fat.

In fact, if they are a big chunk of what you eat & drink now, this research suggests you will be LESS hungry if you eat protein foods instead. Even better, you may lose 10 or 15 percent of your body weight as fat. if you simply keep doing it.