Protein Leverage: Mastering Appetite

Can prioritizing protein be the key to a balanced and effortless approach to weight management? Discover the fascinating science behind satiety and protein in this episode with Amy White, a board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach. We explore the concept of "satiety per calorie" and how the protein leverage hypothesis explains why insufficient protein can lead to overconsumption of carbs and fats. Learn how modern processed foods disrupt our natural hunger signals and why making protein a priority can help you manage your hunger and maintain a healthy weight without restrictive diets. Amy also shares insightful tips on how daily movement and adequate sleep can enhance your body's natural satiety and calorie needs.

Get ready for a practical and engaging journey as we launch the protein-packed snack challenge, a seven-day initiative designed to boost your protein intake without adding unnecessary calories from carbs and fats. With daily emails offering valuable information, delicious snack ideas, and recipes, plus a supportive Facebook group, you'll have all the tools you need to succeed. We also delve into the philosophy of eating for the body you want and offer a free consultation to help you reach your health and fitness goals while still enjoying your favorite foods. Tune in for expert insights and practical strategies that will revolutionize your approach to nutrition and wellness.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Protein for Weight Management
• 10:53 Protein-Packed Snack Challenge Announcement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Simplicity of Wellness podcast. I'm your host, board-certified holistic nutritionist and professional life coach, amy White. The purpose of this podcast is to share information that you can use to become leaner, stronger and healthier by losing weight, shedding inches, maintaining muscle and managing your mind, all while living your normal busy life in this modern, sugar-filled world. Hello, simplifiers, let's talk about protein, appetite, feeling satiated and how these relate to weight loss and healthy body management, without the misery of restrictive dieting. Satiety in relationship to food means feeling full, satiated. Satiated doesn't necessarily mean satisfied. The best way I can describe this is feeling full, even stuffed, but still wanting more, maybe just a little something else to finish off your meal. You're so full, but yet you feel like you could still eat. You're satiated but not satisfied. The other thing I want to point out about being satiated is that you can eat a crazy amount of calories and feel very full, satiated, but I don't think any of us believe this is a healthy way to manage our food and hunger. Satiety is important, but when it comes to healthy body management, particularly weight management, satiety is only part of the equation. We don't want to manage our hunger and appetite in such a way that we're creating satiety by overeating calories and ensuring we'll never enjoy living at our healthy weight. Overeating calories and ensuring we'll never enjoy living at our healthy weight. Nor do we want to eat so little that we're always hungry and miserable in an attempt to lose weight and maintain our preferred weight long-term. The words hungry and miserable are pretty big clues that there really won't be any healthy, long-term body management if we never feel satiated. You want satiety for the least amount of energy. You want your appetite to work for your body so that you naturally eat exactly the right amount of food and calories that your body needs to be lean, strong and healthy. No hunger, no misery, just normal everyday life with a very calm appetite.

Speaker 1: 2:23

Eating too much isn't a great option. Eating too little is also not a great option. The better option is to think satiety per calorie. Picture a u-shaped curve in your head. Below the curve on the left side is not enough satiety, but plenty of calories. Below the top of the curve on the right side is too much satiety, but not enough calories. Again, neither is good or what you want. You want to find your sweet spot at the top of the curve, depending on where you currently are in relationship to your body goals, along with your lifestyle habits. Your satiety per calorie sweet spot won't be the very center of the curve. It will be left or right of center.

Speaker 1: 3:10

Before I go on, let me explain what I mean by lifestyle habits. This includes how much movement you do in a day. Do you sit behind a desk or are you on your feet all day? How much planned exercise do you actually do? What's your sleep like? These lifestyle habits and others will impact your body's calorie needs, so it's important to think about those factors when you're thinking about weight loss and body management. Okay, so, based on your goals and how you live your life on a regular day, you will feel more satiated and happy on the higher calorie side of center or on the higher satiety side of center. Again, which side of center is going to depend on your goals, and I'll explain that in more detail in a few minutes.

Speaker 1: 3:58

Satiety per calorie is the way you lose weight and then effortlessly manage your leaner, stronger and healthier body without ever feeling miserable or that you have to be dieting. Now that I've outlined satiety per calorie and why it's important if you want to lose weight and then easily live at your healthy weight, let's get into what this looks like in real life. It comes down to the amount of protein you eat. The best way to explain this is by explaining the protein leverage hypothesis. This hypothesis was created by two bug researchers, davin Robenheimer and Stephen Simpson. These researchers were not in the nutrition field, but what they discovered about nutritional geometry has had a huge impact on nutritional science. Basically, they discovered that many species, including humans, have nutrient-specific appetites for protein, fats, that many species, including humans, have nutrient-specific appetites for protein, fats, carbs, calcium and sodium. Today I'm going to focus on the big three protein, carbs and fats.

Speaker 1: 4:58

We, as humans, have a stronger nutrient appetite for protein than we do for carbs or fats. Historically, humans didn't overeat calories because foods weren't processed, carbs or fats. Historically, humans didn't overeat calories because foods weren't processed. Whole, real foods come balanced. Our appetite for protein, carbs, fats, calcium and sodium were easy to satisfy with just the right amount of calories. Our modern food is not nutritionally balanced. It comes with too many carbs and fats relative to protein. This causes our nutrient appetites to compete with each other. Because protein is our strongest appetite, we will overeat carbs and fats in an effort to get the protein our body needs. When you think you love and crave carbs and fats. In reality, you're craving protein. Think of your body as having to work its way through food, through carbs and fats, to get to the protein. The protein leverage hypothesis suggests the dilution of protein in our modern food supply interacts with our strong human appetite for protein, and that drives energy overconsumption and obesity.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Let's go back to the idea of satiety per calorie. Get that U-shaped curve back in your head. The left side of that curve is energy, carbs and fats. The right side of that curve is protein. When you're too far to the left side of the curve, you'll overeat calories as carbs and fats. When you're too far to the right side of the curve, you're overeating lean protein and not getting enough calories. You might be thinking, wouldn't it actually be good to overeat protein? Here's why satiety per calorie matters. You'll feel uncomfortable on both ends of this U-shaped curve. Too much energy calories without protein will leave you hungry, lethargic and likely overweight. Too much protein with very little energy calories will leave you feeling exhausted and likely even sick. You need both energy and protein, but in a ratio that works for your body. The ratio that's right for you will depend on your body goals and those lifestyle habits we talked about. The far right side of the U-shaped curve is very lean protein Egg whites, boneless, skinless chicken breast, white fish, whey protein really boring food that has a very low calorie impact.

Speaker 1: 7:21

There's a lot of protein but not a lot of calories. This is the zone that competitive bodybuilders live in when they're trying to cut body fat to extremely low levels. Even these professionals only do this for a short period of time because it's so miserable and ultimately not really great for the body. The far left side of the curve is butter cream, olive oil, mayonnaise, nut butters A lot of calories but very little to no protein. These are foods that most people will overeat without even realizing it. Most people don't measure olive oil, they just pour from the bottle. There are just about 240 calories in two tablespoons of olive oil. Peanut butter is another favorite that people like to eat with a spoon. There are just about 100 calories in one tablespoon of peanut butter, and one tablespoon is a lot less than the average spoonful. You can see how these energy calories can easily add up. It's easy to think you're not eating a lot of calories and then be frustrated because your body management efforts aren't working, but in reality, you're not in a calorie deficit.

Speaker 1: 8:27

When you look at the U-shaped satiety per calorie curve, your sweet spot will be toward the top of the curve. Let me be clear your sweet spot is where satiety and calories work best for your body so that you can achieve your weight loss and body management goals without feeling hungry, deprived, tired or mentally dopey. When you're in a weight loss phase, your sweet spot will likely be center right toward higher protein. You'll have great energy, enjoy your food and be losing weight. Weight loss will feel good. You won't be miserable. You won't be dieting. You're using protein leverage to work with your body. As someone who may be an endurance athlete, your sweet spot will be center left toward more energy, because you likely won't have a lot of body fat. You won't have the onboard fuel that most people carry and can tap into when fuel is required between meals.

Speaker 1: 9:24

You, as somebody who's very lean with very little body fat, will need to bring extra energy into your body through your food. As an average person not an endurance athlete who's living as your lean, strong, healthy self you'll swing around on the top of the curve Sometimes more energy, sometimes more protein. On average, you'll be at about a one-to-one ratio of protein to energy and you'll love how you feel and what you're eating. You won't feel miserable. You won't feel like managing your weight and your body is hard, because it isn't. You're not hunting around for snacks or trying to satisfy a food urge. When you prioritize protein with the right amount of calories for your body, you become properly satiated. You become properly satiated. When you're properly satiated, you don't have an urge to be satisfied, so you stop eating extra calories.

Speaker 1: 10:15

It's always important to start where you are. If you're someone who eats cereal, pop-tarts, ice cream and other goodies regularly, moving to the right side of the curve will be hard and uncomfortable. It's too big a swing. Instead, shift a little bit up that left side towards center. Trade out one thing for a higher protein option, for example, skip the cereal and have egg bites instead for breakfast. Egg bites take three minutes in the microwave or you can pick them up hot and ready at Starbucks. They don't take any more time than it would take you to put a bowl of cereal together and they're so much better for your body.

Speaker 1: 10:53

Once that first change feels comfortable, swap out another one of your higher energy foods for a higher protein option, if you like how all of this is sounding and you're interested in increasing protein, but feeling overwhelmed by the idea, jump into my protein-packed snack challenge. I'll put the link in the show notes. This protein-packed snack challenge is brand new and I'm really excited to share it. I think it's going to be really fun and a great way to help you feel more confident about including more protein into your diet. It's a seven-day challenge. For each of the seven days, you'll receive an email from me with information about protein, some store-bought protein snack ideas, as well as a whip-this-up-at-home recipe idea. There'll also be a Facebook group just for those who join the challenge. I thought a Facebook group would be a great place for you to ask questions and get some extra support. All right, that's it for today.

Speaker 1: 11:48

So start thinking about how you can increase your protein without increasing calories from carbs and fats. I will catch you in the next episode. Do you like the idea of eating for the body you want? Is there a piece of you that's eager to learn how to become leaner, stronger and healthier without having to overhaul your entire life? If this is you, then you're in luck, because this is what I do. I can help you reconnect and work with your body so that you can enjoy the body, comfort and confidence you deserve, eating foods you love. Click the free consult link in the show notes. Let's talk about where you are, what you want and how you can get there.