Key takeaways:
Protein can help you lose weight by making you feel full, increasing the amount of calories your body burns, and reducing your appetite.
Some of the best protein foods for weight loss include fish, poultry, Greek yogurt, and plant foods like beans and whole grains.
When starting a high-protein diet, try to include a high-protein food at each meal and snack.
The media is full of health claims about foods that can help with weight loss. This may lead you to wonder what’s actually effective — and what’s just hype. Maybe you’ve wondered what the connection is between protein and weight loss. Read on to learn what the science says about protein’s role in weight loss — and get some concrete tips for following a high-protein diet.
Quiz: What foods have the most protein?
Does protein help you lose weight?
Yes, protein can help you lose weight. Here are some of the ways a high-protein diet may help support your weight goals.
1. Reducing appetite
Protein may reduce appetite by decreasing levels of ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry. And protein may increase other hormones — including cholecystokinin and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) — that help reduce your appetite. Still, more longer-term studies are needed to confirm these findings.
2. Helping you feel full
Satiety refers to the feeling of fullness that signals it’s time to stop eating. Research suggests that protein has a greater effect on satiety than carbohydrates or fat. Eating high amounts of protein can help you feel full more quickly and stay full for longer. This means you may consume fewer total calories, which can influence weight loss.
For this same reason, eating a high-protein diet after weight loss may help you keep the weight off. This benefit is significant, since weight regain is common after weight loss.
3. Burning more calories
Your body burns energy — in the form of calories — to digest food. This is called the thermic effect of food (TEF). And some nutrients burn more calories than others. Digesting protein burns more calories than digesting carbohydrates or fat.
4. Building and maintaining muscle
Protein is essential for building and repairing muscle tissue. And muscles use more calories than fat uses, even when you’re resting. Eating a high-protein diet — combined with doing muscle-building exercises — can increase your lean muscle mass. This helps your body burn more calories throughout the day.
Sometimes, people lose muscle when they lose weight. But following a high-protein diet can help prevent this. Protein helps preserve your body’s fat-free mass (tissues in your body that are not fat, such as muscle, bone, and organs). Maintaining this muscle mass can help keep your overall metabolism higher than it would be if you didn’t follow a high-protein diet.
5. Serving as an alternative energy source
Your body uses carbohydrates as its primary source of energy. But when you follow a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet, your body doesn’t always have enough carbs available to use for energy.
Can a high-protein breakfast help you lose weight? Yes. High-protein breakfasts support weight loss in a few ways. These breakfast options are packed with protein.
Top nuts highest in protein: Nuts alone are unlikely to provide all the protein that you need, but they can contribute to your daily requirements. See which have the most.
Quick, easy ways to get more protein: Meal-prepping, adding in protein-rich grains, and snacking on nuts and seeds are a few easy ways to bump up your protein intake.
High-protein grains: Did you know that many grains are high in protein? And it’s easy to swap them into dishes you already love.
In these cases, your body can create energy (glucose) from noncarbohydrate sources like protein. This is called gluconeogenesis. The process of gluconeogenesis itself uses more energy, and it can help you feel full, both of which can lead to weight loss.
How much protein should I eat to lose weight?
People working toward weight loss should aim for 1.07 g to 1.6 g of protein per kilogram of body weight. For someone who weighs 180 lbs (82 kg), this amounts to 87 g to 131 g of protein per day.
This is higher than the standard recommended amount of 0.8 g per kilogram of body weight per day for a healthy adult. But many experts believe that this amount is too low for optimal health anyway. Most recommend aiming for 25 g to 30 g of protein per meal. But the exact amount of protein you need depends on your:
Age
Size
Sex
Activity level
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What are the best high-protein foods for weight loss?
The type of protein food you eat matters. Choosing less nutritious protein sources won’t be as beneficial. Examples include processed foods and foods high in added sugar, calories, and/or saturated fat.
For weight-loss benefits and overall health benefits, it’s best to focus on lean, nutrient-dense proteins. Some of the best sources of protein for weight loss include:
Poultry like chicken and turkey breast
Nuts and seeds, as well as nut and seed butters
Beans and lentils
Plain low-fat milk, cheese, and Greek yogurt
Whole grains like quinoa, oats, and barley
How long does it take to lose weight with a high-protein diet?
The amount of time it takes to lose weight on a high-protein diet is different for everyone. Your unique metabolism will respond to increased protein differently depending on your:
Age
Sex
Body size and composition
Activity or fitness level
Genetics
But research shows that losing weight quickly isn’t ideal. That’s because quick weight loss is often a result of losing muscle mass and/or water rather than fat. Losing weight too quickly makes you more likely to gain it back.
How to create a high-protein diet plan
If you’re working to increase your daily protein to support your weight goals, try to do the following:
Get familiar with the protein content in common foods. It’s helpful to know about how much protein is in the foods you commonly eat. Then you’ll have a general sense of how much protein you’re getting at each meal and snack.
Start your day with a high-protein breakfast. A high-protein breakfast supports weight loss by making you feel full longer and helping you eat less throughout the day.
Spread out your protein intake over the day. If you need 80 g of protein each day, you might aim for 20 g per meal and 10 g per snack. The amounts don’t have to be exact, but the goal is to spread out protein foods across the day.
Frequently asked questions
Experts usually recommend limiting protein intake to 2 g per kilogram of body weight per day. Too much protein can crowd out fiber from your diet. This can lead to constipation and other health issues. Excess protein can also put stress on the kidneys, particularly in people with chronic kidney disease (who aren’t on dialysis).
A diet high in protein usually supports weight loss. But getting too much protein — more than 2 g per kilogram of body weight daily — can lead to weight gain, since it adds extra calories.
Protein shakes aren’t always good for weight loss. Many protein powders are high in calories, fats, and sugars. This can work against your weight-loss efforts. More often than not, people use protein shakes to gain weight. For weight loss, it’s best to emphasize foods over protein powders. Try lean protein sources like poultry, seafood, and plant-based proteins like legumes, nuts/seeds, and whole grains.
Whey protein powder may be better than plant protein powder if you're struggling to get enough protein on your weight-loss journey. But protein powders aren’t usually the best choice for weight loss. Many protein powders are intended to help people gain weight. If your goal is weight loss, whole foods are usually better for you than protein powder. That’s because it’s easier for your body to absorb the nutrients from foods.
It's safe for most people to follow a high-protein diet. This includes people who want to lose weight, as well as those who don’t. A high-protein diet can also benefit those looking to build lean muscle mass and/or support bone health. Older adults need more protein too.
There’s no single best time to eat protein to lose weight. Instead, try to spread out your protein intake over the course of the day. And evidence suggests that starting your day with protein can help you lose weight. That’s because a high-protein breakfast may help you eat less food throughout the rest of the day and increase the hormones that make you feel more full.
Experts usually recommend limiting protein intake to 2 g per kilogram of body weight per day. Too much protein can crowd out fiber from your diet. This can lead to constipation and other health issues. Excess protein can also put stress on the kidneys, particularly in people with chronic kidney disease (who aren’t on dialysis).
A diet high in protein usually supports weight loss. But getting too much protein — more than 2 g per kilogram of body weight daily — can lead to weight gain, since it adds extra calories.
Protein shakes aren’t always good for weight loss. Many protein powders are high in calories, fats, and sugars. This can work against your weight-loss efforts. More often than not, people use protein shakes to gain weight. For weight loss, it’s best to emphasize foods over protein powders. Try lean protein sources like poultry, seafood, and plant-based proteins like legumes, nuts/seeds, and whole grains.
Whey protein powder may be better than plant protein powder if you're struggling to get enough protein on your weight-loss journey. But protein powders aren’t usually the best choice for weight loss. Many protein powders are intended to help people gain weight. If your goal is weight loss, whole foods are usually better for you than protein powder. That’s because it’s easier for your body to absorb the nutrients from foods.
It's safe for most people to follow a high-protein diet. This includes people who want to lose weight, as well as those who don’t. A high-protein diet can also benefit those looking to build lean muscle mass and/or support bone health. Older adults need more protein too.
There’s no single best time to eat protein to lose weight. Instead, try to spread out your protein intake over the course of the day. And evidence suggests that starting your day with protein can help you lose weight. That’s because a high-protein breakfast may help you eat less food throughout the rest of the day and increase the hormones that make you feel more full.
The bottom line
Getting more protein may help you lose weight. Protein has many potential benefits for weight management, such as reducing your appetite and helping your body burn more calories. The healthiest protein foods are those that are unprocessed and low in excess calories, saturated fat, and added sugar.
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