Recent study suggests more protein = more weight loss

According to a recent article published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people who follow high-protein diets may have more success losing weight than those who eat less protein and more carbohydrates. Researchers pooled results from 24 past trials that put subjects on reduced-calorie, low-fat diets. Half of the subjects were assigned to a high-protein diet (on average, about 120 grams of protein per day), while the other half consumed a standard-protein diet (on average, about 67 grams per day).

Both diets had an average energy intake, for males and females, of 1,550 calories per day, says study author Thomas Wycherley, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of South Australia in Adelaide. But over an average of 12 weeks, people who followed the high-protein diet lost 1.7 pounds more than those in the standard-protein group.

You may lose more weight on a high-protein diet because your body spends more energy processing dietary protein than it does carbohydrates, Wycherley says.

Think of it this way: If you eat 100 calories of protein, your body will burn about 20 to 30 of those calories while processing the protein, says Wycherley. Compare that to 100 calories of carbs, and your body only burns about 5 to 10 calories.

Another reason for the weight loss may be because protein helps preserve muscle mass. And since muscle mass burns more calories than other types of mass, the additional calorie burn could result in a decrease in weight.

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