After calculating what you need to meet the calories you need a day, now it’s time to get to know the ultimate «building block» macronutrient, protein. And in this sense, know how much protein you need per day.
It doesn’t matter what your goal is, losing fat gaining muscle, or simply, meeting your protein requirements and thus maintaining a good state of health, meaning, a good functioning of the «human machine».
Protein plays an important role in carrying out all these processes.
Index
What is the role of protein?
In terms of overall health, and the function of the human body, protein is essential for building and repairing «things».
Amongst these things, we find a whole catalogue of internal factors:
- Organs.
- Muscles.
- Skin.
- Hair.
- Nails.
- Bones.
- Hormones.
All of them require a certain amount of protein to perform their physiological functions correctly. Protein is necessary for vital body functions.
How does protein help you lose fat?
Protein plays an incredibly important role in the calorie deficit process you need to lose fat. How? Pay attention to the following:
Maintaining muscle mass
Attention! We may also take away some muscle mass in the calorie deficit stage, and this is obviously undesirable. The body is undergoing a calorie cut, and it needs to get its energy from somewhere, otherwise you can imagine what might happen…
This point is more important than not focusing on losing so much fat, since muscle is a tissue, and active, and requires calories for its own maintenance.
Want to know a tip for this? You need eat enough protein to maintain muscle and burn fat at the same time.
Satiety level
Want more reasons? It has a role as a macronutrient with fuller satiety levels. It’s precisely what sets it apart from carbohydrates for example. Let the protein satisfy you!
This means you can control your hunger, appease the appetite, and feel fuller for longer. It all goes against gaining fat.
Burning calories
To digest protein, the body uses up a lot of calories. Protein is said to be the macronutrient with the greatest thermogenesis power.
When your body digests food, it needs calories, and this is related to the TEF (Thermic Effect of Food). Different foods require or provide different «TEFs», and the ones that contribute most to this are protein foods.
By increasing your daily protein intake, you’ll be burning more calories through this process. It’s an ally for burning fat.
How does protein help build muscle?
Unlike fat burning, where the only requirement is to establish the cited calorie deficit, to build muscle, you have 2 requirements:
- Extra energy, i.e. a calorie surplus.
- Eating enough protein.
Muscle builder
So, if your goal is to create new muscle, increase strength or improve performance over some capacity, a sufficient amount of protein must be provided to enable you to do so.
Related Entries
- Isolated and Concentrated Whey Protein
- Amino acids dose: How and When to take them
- Is it better to take Protein or Amino Acids?
Principle functions - 100%
Maintaining muscle - 100%
Satiety - 100%
Burning calories - 100%
100%