Do high-protien diets work?

Amanda Beckner CN, HHP, Ph.D

Our society has gone through much hi-protein misinformation with diets offered over the years. It seems that because most weight loss clinics judge by the scale and not what you are actually losing, meaning fat, and not muscle.  Even medical readings when we test our blood and cholesterol can initially produce a false reading. That is why many medical doctors have been fooled into believing that hi-protein diets really work.

We have all lived our lives a certain way, eaten a certain way, had different stress levels which will affect us over the years, possibly developing into different diseases.  When we look at a "diet," it generally is concentrated on losing weight.  I have even seen diets that say "personalized" - but this really means is that they will go as far as to gear the diet around your "likes" of food with no consideration for your body's "needs" as an individual person.  Instead, everyone is thrown on a "hi protein" type of plan built around the illusion that it is "personalized."

The only true way to get your body fat tested is through biological impedance. This method works like an EKG. It's much like being water weighed but you don't get wet. Biological impedance correctly measures hydration, muscle, and fat.  Other methods do not accurately test your fat because they do not measure hydration.  Your Body Code has been in business for 28 years and my clients can attest that any time they cut out their complex carbohydrate intake - they loose muscle.  It is a visible notable drop in muscle and they feel it.  

Unfortunately, when you are initially on a higher unbalanced protein diet you have no way to compare the experience. You see the weight dropping and your cloth size may decrease somewhat, and you may feel better initially, but mainly because of your excitement over watching your scale weight drop.  But more than likely, you are losing muscle. Your energy will not be what it should be.  Again, my clients can attest to the fact that when they lose muscle and not fat at any particular time - especially when they have experienced what they feel like when they are losing fat, they have a loss in energy without fail.

If you are losing fat, maintaining your muscle and exercising, you will have more energy than you know what to do with.  You will not need naps in the day, you have a tight look in your face and body, and there is no sag.  When you go for a 3 to 5 mile run, you should not feel tired at the end of that run - but energized.  As I tell my clients, healthy weight loss is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise.

When you use hi-protein diets, you greatly limit or cut out your complex carbohydrates, creating an imbalance of nutrients and cell dehydration, which leads to muscle loss and little fat loss.  Most people on a low carbohydrate diet (i.e., "hi-protein") can probably sustain the weigh loss for 6 months but once they put the carbohydrate back in - the scale goes up, your weight creeps back. Only this time, you're not gaining fat; you are putting precious muscle back on top of the fat you have retained and gained through incorrect nutrition. There is no gimmick to this folks, your body works one way - it will not succumb to tricks and what you think should work.  Don't be fooled into being a skinny fat person, be an athletic looking healthy person.  

Let's take a look at how genetics plays a unique role part in your diet choices.  When you take on a popular diet such as eating for your blood type, you are not so much putting yourself into the "hi-protein" mode as much as you are playing the genetic card. The problem is that the diet is making the dangerous assumption that you and everybody else with your blood type should be treated the same way.  The problem with this strategy is that genetics is only 25% of the solution - you can do a lot with the remaining 75%.

You can change your potential for disease with a diet that is balanced to provide what your body needs to stay healthy.  For instance, if you are predisposed to cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol - you can plan your nutrition to minimize or even eliminate their effect.

Our cells have a memory, so as we age our cells slough off and die. With the correct diet, you can stop the on-set of just about any predisposed disease.  Your body undergoes a cell change every seven years. If you eat according to your 25% hereditary situation and 75% to fix the problem, when your cells go through that cycle they will create and generate new and healthy cells that are more resistant to our 25% hereditary issues.  If you do not and your cells slough off and die in the cycle change, you will exacerbate any predisposition to disease, simply because  you are eating incorrectly for your disease disposition.   You cannot take a group of people who all have different diseases, different needs and who want to accomplish completely different things and put them all on the same diet plan and expect good results - that is ludicrous.

Everyone wants a quick fix but this is not the way to accomplish long-term goals. Your health should be your main concern even if you are not sick or on medication. Fat loss should be the bonus.  Yet without correct balance in nutrient, this cannot and will not be the result.  We have heard marketers and some pundits of diet say that "as long as you eat the correct calories, you can eat anything you want." Does this mean that we can eat candy bars all day as long as we don't go over 1,500 calories?  I think there is good reason to doubt that such a diet will work.

On an ending note, if your protein consumption overtakes your carbohydrate intake in the balance for your body and its personal needs - you will dehydrate and you will burn muscle and only muscle.  You need balance with carbohydrates and fats, vitamins and minerals that meet your dietary, medical and lifestyle needs.  That is the definition of a personalized diet; that's what Your Body Code specializes in providing.

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