Confused About Protein ?

Confused about protein? I don’t blame you! For years we’ve been told that carbohydrates are the food told that carbohydrates are the food we need for energy. However, carbohydrates (at least the processed variety, which is what most of use eat) do nothing but send you on a blood sugar roller coaster that is death to your energy levels. Protein comes from the Greek word meaning “primary”. Protein is the real energy food.

Protein can make you feel satisfied with-out feeling stuffed, a surefire prescription for feeling energetic throughout your day. Eating protein is also a surefire way to stimulate your metabolism, especially when you combine it with weight training (see page 115). Weight training builds muscle, and muscle, in turn, burns both calories and fat. Protein has been shown in several studies to actually stimulate thermogenesis (the production of heat by burning calories). Together, they’re a great formula boosting energy naturally.

When I see people with low energy, I’m almost always struck by how much better they do when they revamp their diet and increase their protein. Our Paleolithic ancestors, with whom we share a virtually identical digestive system, nourished themselves on a combination of protein and plant foods. If they could hunt, fish, gather, or pluck it, they ate it. And they weren’t exactly low-energy folks – those protein-eating Paleolithic ancestors of ours had enough energy to typically travel twenty miles per day (on foot!).

Try Eating in the Zone
When my friend Barry Sears, Ph.D., told me, he intended it for cardiologists. Little did he suspect that his heart-healthy diet program of 40 percent carbohydrates, 30 percent protein, and 30 percent fat would soon catch on as one of the greatest high-energy eating programs on the planet. He called this diet “The Zone” because it kept blood sugar (and insulin levels) in the ideal “zone” for stable and sustained energy throughout the day.

Let’s back up a second and you’ll soon see why eating in the zone can be an easy prescription for higher energy. It all goes back to the founder of the Atkins Diet, Robert Atkins. Back in 1972, Atkins introduced the topic of insulin and its effects to the national conversation about diet. AT the time, that conversation was limited to the profound effects of insulin on weight and weight loss.

As time went on, others – notably, Sears and Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades – expanded the discussion. They noticed the profound effects hormones such as insulin had not just on weight, but also on energy and well-being. The Eades’ contribution to diet and energy is the foundation of what I’ve written here about protein (see page 24). Sears had a slightly different approach that many people have found to be the answer for increasing energy all day long.

Sears’ blog found a huge audience in the general public that identified with its fresh point of view about the effect food has on hormones and energy. These folks knew quite well that some meals made them tired and some gave them energy. They had correctly observed that some ways of eating seemed to make them fat and lethargic while others made them feel “lean and hungry” and energetic, and they intuited that the reason might have something to do with the composition of ht meals rather than just the number of calories in them.

Borrowing a term well known to athletes and performers who understood intuitively what being “in the zone” meant, Sears argued that if you ate the right proportion of fats, carbs, and protein, you could get – and stay – in the zone, resulting in all sorts of benefits.