Ok, how about calories from protein? Glad you asked.
Again, speaking of the oh so crucial insulin levels, protein helps to keep it in check. Balanced levels of this hormone help keep your energy levels, and your appetite, balanced and healthy.
Protein also helps to stimulate your metabolism to burn more fat, as do the proper kinds of fats talked about above. It’s also necessary to build muscle, which in turn will burn more fat.
And finally, carbs. I’m not a carb hater, what I am though is a big proponent of controlling your carbohydrate intake. It has been proven beyond a shadow of any doubt that excessive carbohydrate intake, especially simple carbs, are the leading cause of obesity today.
They cause extreme swings in blood insulin levels causing energy crashes which jack your appetite back up again even shortly after you ate the first time creating a vicious cycle.
When insulin is high, what this is doing is signaling for all of those calories your eating to be transported into storage into fat cells for later use. The trouble comes when there is no ‘later use’ as its always just more of the same, high carbs no exercise so they all just get dumped into fat cells and the fat get fatter.
So, after reading that, are you still of the mind that ‘a calorie is a calorie is a calorie’? I should hope not.
Take two people of the same metabolism and weight, everything the same, and feed one x amount of calories consisting of all carbohydrates and take the second person and feed them the same number of calories but have them come from a balance of healthy fats, protein, and perhaps some complex carbohydrates.
The first person can actually get fatter while the other person maintains or loses weight.
Food for thought for your weight loss goals.
