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Protein Is Here To Challenge Diet Culture & Liberate Us From Restrictive Eating Patterns
It's official: Gym rats are no longer the only ones prioritizing their protein intake. As we predicted in last year's Wellness Trends, protein is now helping people (especially women) lose fat, supercharge their metabolism, and get stronger1.
And this isn't some fad diet. This is an eating pattern that promotes the mindset of more—more food, more muscle, more strength, more joy, more confidence, and more healthy years.
After decades of toxic diet culture and needless calorie restriction, a protein-centric way of eating is finally helping us fuel stronger bodies—releasing us from self-deprivation for the sake of smaller ones. This approach is long overdue, and we predict it's here to stay.
Meet the experts
Gabrielle Lyon, D.O.
Gabrielle Lyon, D.O., is a board-certified family physician leading a disruption in modern medicine that focuses on the largest organ in the body: skeletal muscle. With a background that includes a combined research and clinical fellowship in geriatrics and nutritional sciences at Washington University and undergraduate training in nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois, she is a subject-matter expert on protein for health, performance, aging, and disease prevention.
Holly Baxter
Holly Baxter is an accredited practicing dietitian (APD), competitive bodybuilder, and the founder of BiaBody—a company focused on addressing the unique health needs of women.
Kelly LeVeque
Kelly LeVeque is a holistic nutritionist, wellness expert, and celebrity health coach. Guided by a practical and optimistic approach, she helps clients develop sustainable habits to live a healthy and balanced life.
High-protein diets are challenging diet culture
The term "dieting" often implies limiting one's food intake (and therefore protein intake) to drop the number on the scale. And diet culture has historically tricked us into believing that achieving weight loss of any kind is good, regardless of what type of mass we're losing. But there's so much wrong with this approach as far as protein is concerned.
You see, eating protein-rich foods provides the body with the amino acids it needs to build all-important skeletal muscle. Having high levels of lean muscle mass increases your metabolic rate (since muscles burn more calories at rest than fat) and helps protect you from falls2, fractures, and osteoporosis as you age. If you're not eating enough protein, you won't have the building blocks your body needs to maintain this all-important muscle mass.
Instead of losing healthy muscle mass with restrictive dieting3, we're increasingly seeing people increase their protein intake to promote optimal health and body composition.
"It's not about what we have to lose anymore. It's the absolute opposite of fat shaming and calorie restriction," functional medicine doctor Gabrielle Lyon, D.O., says about the rise of protein-rich diets. "We are getting smarter because we've tried all the diets, and they've failed."
It’s not about what we have to lose anymore. It’s the absolute opposite of fat shaming and calorie restriction.
Our social media feeds show how protein is already starting to challenge diet culture. This year, TikTok and Instagram have flooded with recipes sporting upward of 30, 40, to 50 grams of protein in a meal. We're seeing people adding protein powder to foods beyond shakes and smoothies (hello, protein cereal bars and pancakes), snacking on cottage cheese, and eating ground beef for breakfast.
Dietitians are also increasingly communicating the importance of protein to clients. Holistic nutritionist and celebrity health coach Kelly LeVeque, for one, now encourages her clients to fuel like athletes by eating 40-50 grams of protein at each of their first two meals of the day.
Why higher protein is the way to go for optimal metabolism and body composition
If your goal is fat loss, the nutrition science is clear: Eating more real, hearty protein can help.
A food's calorie count is an easy number to fixate on—it's often the most prominent callout on nutrition labels, after all. But at mindbodygreen, we've known for years that there's more to the story (even the fat loss story) than calories alone. Where those calories come from and when they're consumed also matter.
Protein, compared to carbs or fat, is the best macronutrient for supporting metabolic health because of its thermic effect on the body4. The body has to spend more energy (calories) to break protein down, so eating more protein increases your daily energy expenditure or calorie burn.
Dietitian and renowned fitness coach Holly Baxter notes that protein can have a 20-30% thermic effect5, meaning, "if you eat 100 calories from protein, you'll be left with 70 [usable] calories because of its thermic effect," she says. Whereas dietary fat has a thermic effect of about 0. So 100 calories from fat equals 100 calories.
"Unless we use [those calories], they are stored. So you can see why substituting fat for protein, even if calories are matched, can make such a big impact on body fat loss," says Baxter.
LeVeque also emphasizes the importance of morning protein intake, in part because the body is more metabolically active earlier in the day6—so it's even more equipped to metabolize and utilize the food you eat.
Redefining optimal protein intake
The current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day. But as leading protein researcher Don Layman, Ph.D., explained on the mindbodygreen podcast, this is the absolute minimum amount of protein a person needs to get to survive—not thrive. Protein recommendations for optimal health are vastly higher.
"The ideal amount of protein to consume has shifted dramatically," says Baxter. A growing number of health and nutrition experts now encourage people to get at least 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight a day. Though exact protein needs vary based on factors like age, activity level, and weight, most people will want to aim to get at least 100 grams a day.
Lyon defines a "high-protein" diet as anything above 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight daily. So if someone weighs 170 lbs, their optimal daily intake would be 87-116 grams, and a high-protein diet would be considered 170 grams (or more) daily. This amount of protein may be suitable for people who are very physically active or are striving for muscle protein synthesis.
Next, we'll need to overcome protein hesitancy
Now, these may sound like big numbers (I'm a dietitian, and they seemed jarring to me at first). But, what are we comparing them to? Are they big compared to our previous suboptimal protein intake? Or are we still holding on to the belief that less of everything is better for our weight?
The nutrition experts we talked to note that many women are still hesitant to adopt a higher-protein diet. "Emotional habits and ways of thinking are more challenging to break than anything," says Lyon. "We've been so ingrained to take things away that sometimes adding things can just feel uncomfortable for some people."
"There are some clients who I have to beg to get on board with this," LeVeque says. But once they do, she finds that it only takes a few weeks for their hesitancies to subside and their trust in themselves to grow.
New food companies are emerging to help people overcome these initial hurdles of hitting higher protein goals. Meal kits and delivery services like Trifecta, Fresh N Lean, and Factor 75 offer ready-to-heat high-protein meals, while high-protein dairy foods like cottage cheese are having a renaissance. We're also seeing foods that are notoriously low in protein get a macronutrient makeover. Three Wishes and Magic Spoon sell high-protein (and low-sugar) breakfast cereals; immi provides an instant ramen base with 21 grams of protein; and fan-favorite Kodiac Cakes offers high-protein frozen waffles, pancakes, and baking mixes.
How to make a "more is more" eating pattern work for you
Having a few high-protein foods on hand is a solid first step in building an optimal protein diet. From there, here are a few expert-backed tips to keep in mind:
- Allow yourself a goal protein range: We've touched on how many grams of protein seems to be best—but you also don't have to hyper-fixate on a number. Baxter encourages giving yourself a buffer if you're new to setting protein goals. Start by trying to reach the lower end of the range and working up from there. You don't have to be perfect!
- Not all protein is created equal: Remember, protein is the vehicle that delivers amino acids to your body. And each amino acid plays a unique role. Animal proteins contain a greater amino acid diversity than plants and are the main source of the critical muscle-building amino acid leucine. Animal proteins are also a rich source of heme iron. (Many women fall short on iron intake, which can harm energy levels.)
- Up your serving size: A typical serving of animal proteins (whether that's a chicken breast, ground beef, or a fish filet) is generally considered to be 3-4 ounces. But LeVeque recommends bumping that up to 6-8 ounces. For reference, 6 ounces of chicken breast7 provides just over 40 grams of protein.
- Don't be scared of red meat: Red meat often gets a bad rap in the heart-health world due to its saturated fat content. But Lyon says if you're choosing lean red meat and keeping your total calories in check, then this saturated fat content isn't something to worry about. Of course, you'll want to ensure that any protein you buy is sustainably sourced, which takes more effort with red meat.
Forecasting the future
At mindbodygreen, we've advocated for higher-protein diets for years, and it's exciting to watch prominent health and nutrition experts become more vocal about the importance of this macronutrient.
In the year ahead, we hope to see women, in particular, challenge their internalized views on what a healthy diet consists of and what a healthy body looks like. We also expect to see more people rely on high-quality animal proteins to reach their protein needs. Most importantly, we're optimistic that a higher-protein eating pattern will finally squash the arbitrary value we place on numbers on the scale.
7 Sources
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32699189/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899404/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5421125/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15466943/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC524030/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6835928/
- https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/2341373/nutrients
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