The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
The Simplicity of Wellness podcast is about learning how to bring your body into balance so that you get leaner, stronger and healthier as you age. Each week I'll share thoughts and ideas that help my clients build the self-awareness, self-confidence and self-reliance to lose weight, shed inches, manage muscle mass and master their mind so that they can stop dieting and enjoy living at their healthy weight with optimal wellness.
The Simplicity of Wellness Podcast
Protein Tip: Weight Loss Game Changer
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Unlock the secrets of sustainable weight loss by prioritizing protein in your diet. Discover why traditional calorie-cutting methods often fall short, and learn how setting your protein intake to 40% of your daily calories can be a transformative approach. As a board-certified holistic nutritionist and life coach, I, Amy White, will guide you through breaking free from outdated dieting principles to achieve lasting results. In this episode, we'll tackle common misconceptions about protein and illuminate how this macronutrient can help maintain muscle and strength while effectively shedding unwanted pounds.
Excitingly, you're also invited to join our Holiday Weight Loss Masterclass on Friday, October 25th, at 11 am Pacific time. This free event offers practical insights into utilizing protein for continuous weight loss during festive times. Bring along your friends and family to benefit from mutual support and accountability, and don't worry if you can't attend live—you'll receive a recording to catch up at your convenience. Make sure to register through the links in the show notes and seize this opportunity to become leaner, stronger, and healthier, all while enjoying your favorite holiday treats.
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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, today I want to talk about protein, more specifically, how to improve weight loss using the right amount of daily protein. As a listener of this podcast, I suspect that you are a smart, independent woman who doesn't waste time waiting for someone else to give you what you want. You decide what you want and then you figure out how to get it. This is the type of woman who reaches out to me for weight loss and health coaching.
Speaker 1:My clients know strong trumps skinny and that healthy, lasting weight loss is a real thing, but what they struggle with is what exactly is healthy weight loss? The one area where women are beginning to realize they're stuck is with dieting. My clients get it. They know that in order to maintain their independence and enjoy living life the way they want to live it, especially as they age, they have to have muscle and strength. Old, outdated dieting principles are hyper-focused on calories and trying to force weight loss by cutting those calories so low that you feel hungry, cranky and weak from lack of energy. Dieting principles that ensure you'll gain all of your weight back that's not healthy weight loss. That's not the type of weight loss that my clients or you should want or settle for.
Speaker 1:Yes, calories matter when it comes to weight loss, but if you want to lose weight in a healthy way, so that the weight doesn't just pile back on, then it's time to focus on where your calories are coming from. You want to lose weight feeling good, full, satisfied and with lots of daytime energy. All of the calories that enter your body come from a mix of protein, fat and carbohydrates. Think of protein as free calories. This is very simplistic, but let's just go with this. Proteins have a lot of jobs in the body, so the calories that come from protein in most cases get used rather than stored. Fats and carbohydrate calories are used as fuel to produce energy within the body. Your body will use what it needs and then, if there's extra, it will store the extra as fat. Most people eat beyond their energy needs and this causes weight gain. When the calories you eat come from mostly carbs and fats, it makes it easy to gain weight and also difficult to lose weight.
Speaker 1:So how, as a smart, independent woman who wants to lose weight in a healthy way, do you eat enough to maintain your muscle and strength while also reducing your incoming calories enough to shed the extra weight? You prioritize protein over carbs and fats. You see this all over social media as setting a daily protein goal by counting the grams of proteins you eat in a day. Up until recently, this is exactly what I've helped my clients do target a daily protein goal in grams. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but I have found that many of my clients struggle to hit their daily protein goal.
Speaker 1:The current health-forward rule of thumb for protein is to eat your ideal weight in grams of protein. If you weigh 200 pounds and you believe your ideal healthy, strong weight is 150 pounds, you should be targeting 150 grams of protein a day. Sounds simple until you try it. I have found that even a target of 130 grams a day is hard for many of my clients to hit consistently. I do believe there's a better way, and that's what we're going to get into in this podcast. It's likely that the average American woman only gets about 50 grams of protein a day. I'll explain how I got to this number shortly. When you tell someone who only eats 50 grams of protein a day I'll explain how I got to this number shortly when you tell someone who only eats 50 grams of protein normally that they should be getting 130 or more grams of protein in a day, they totally check out because that seems absurd to them, totally unrealistic. The better way, instead of a daily protein goal in grams, what I'm now encouraging my clients to do, is look at the percent of their calories that are coming from protein. If weight loss is a goal, I'm asking my clients to shoot for 40% of their daily calories to come from protein. Based on the research done by Marty Kendall, 40% appears to be the sweet spot for weight loss.
Speaker 1:Now, just a minute ago, I suggested that the average American woman is likely only getting about 50 grams of protein a day. I said this because 14% of calories from protein is the American average. This is the food bliss point, the point at which our taste buds, brain and the cells of our body are all happy If the average American woman is trying to lose weight and she's eating 1300 calories a day which, by the way, I think is generous. I think most women, when trying to lose weight, drop their calories much lower than that. If she's eating 1300 calories a day and only 14% of those calories are coming from protein, that's 182 calories. Of those 1300 calories coming from protein, there are approximately four calories per gram of protein. If we divide 182 calories by four, we will get 45.5 grams of protein. So my estimate of the average American woman getting 50 grams of protein a day was actually a little bit high. She's probably getting a little bit less than that.
Speaker 1:This food bliss point of 14% of calories from protein helped us evolve as humans. It helped our ancestors find food that had a lot of energy so that they could store the excess and stay alive when food was scarce. In our modern food world, this bliss point sets us up for maximum fat gain because food is now very plentiful. This bliss point the point at which we overeat food is the point when all of our body systems taste, pleasure and nutrients converge. The food is super tasty, so our taste buds love it. The food has enough fat and carbs to create that pleasure dopamine response in the brain, so the brain loves it, and there's just enough protein to keep the cells interested, realizing that there's a hint of the nutrients they need to function properly. So they want more. The bliss point is the point of maximum fat gain. As humans, we will overeat calories in an attempt to get the protein that carries the nutrients that our cells are looking for. The cells sense the protein, but it's not nearly enough, so they increase our appetite to encourage more food intake. Our taste buds and brain are all in because of the pleasure response. This food bliss point is what food manufacturers successfully achieve with all of those packaged foods we love.
Speaker 1:Again, this bliss point is when 86% or more of the calories you eat are coming from a combination of carbs and fats, leaving 14% or less of those calories coming from protein. People who get 60% of their calories from protein eat approximately 56 percent less food in a day, compared to the people who only get 14 percent of their calories from protein. Can you see how this helps with weight loss? You eat less food. Trying to maintain 50 to 60 percent of your calories from protein consistently is difficult because your overall energy intake from carbs and fats goes way down. Now you're running into the age-old weight loss problem of feeling cranky, exhausted and craving carbs and fats. This is why getting 40% of your calories from protein is the sweet spot for weight loss. When 40% of your calories come from protein, the research shows that you eat about 50% less than what you would eat if only getting 14% of your calories from protein. You'll also notice that you're not cranky, tired or craving carbs and fats. When consuming 40% of your calories as protein and 60% as a combination of carbs and fats, you give the cells everything they need to function properly. In return, because your cells have the energy and the nutrients they need, they tell your body to turn your appetite down. Protein, as 40% of your calories, calms your appetite, curbs your cravings and causes you to eat less without feeling hungry, deprived or weak from lack of energy. This is healthy weight loss. This is how you create a calorie deficit that still allows your body to get everything it needs, without causing excessive hunger, deprivation, muscle breakdown or lack of energy, so you can stay alert and engaged in your day.
Speaker 1:The two big reasons I'm switching my clients away from a daily protein goal in grams to a percent of calories from protein are number one it makes it easier to stick to the number one weight loss rule Don't eat if you aren't hungry. When tracking protein grams as a daily goal, it's very common to feel that you have to hit your goal by the end of the day. This means if you haven't hit that magic number and you're not hungry, you'll likely eat anyway to get those extra grams of protein. When percent of calories from protein is your goal, you can achieve that goal when you have a big appetite, and when you have a very small appetite, your appetite will ebb and flow. This is normal On a low appetite day. Instead of trying to eat more than your body needs, make sure what you do eat comes from food that gives you approximately 40% of your calories as protein. Number two, when you focus on percent of calories from protein, you weed out the protein sources that are calorically expensive, meaning you eat less of the proteins that are actually making weight loss feel really hard.
Speaker 1:There is protein in many foods, but they're not all good options for weight loss. Many common go-to proteins are weight loss saboteurs because they have more fat and carbs than protein. An example of this is peanut butter. Only 16% of the calories you get eating peanut butter come from protein. This is only slightly higher than that bliss point of 14% and way off from the weight loss sweet spot of 40%. Once again, the typical American gets about 14% or less of their calories from protein. The typical American is overweight. I'm sure this sounds great because it is great, but you're probably wondering how you can use this in your life.
Speaker 1:First, the best way to truly grasp what's going on with your calories is to track your food. When you track in a food tracker like carb manager or my fitness pal or chronometer, you'll see how your proteins, fats and carbs break down in a day. You should be able to see the individual grams for each, as well as how your percent of calories break out. If you're at the store and want to know percent of calories from protein on anything with a nutrition label, do this. Look at the grams of protein. Add a zero to that number. Now look at the total calories per serving. If the grams of protein with the added zero is the same number as the calories per serving, then 40% of the calories from that food will be from protein. If the protein grams with the added zero is greater than the calories per serving, you know that more than 40 percent of your calories will be coming from protein. Both of these would be excellent protein sources. If the protein number, with that added zero, is lower than the number of calories per serving, then you'll be getting less than 40% of the calories from protein.
Speaker 1:Here's something that is super simple when you eat whole food proteins like ground beef, ground turkey, steak, pork, fish, shrimp and other lean meats you'll be getting 40% or more of the calories from those foods as protein. If you don't want to track your food, the simplest thing to do is make sure that you have a very simple protein source on your plate, something that you can identify. You know what it is it's a steak, it's a burger, it's fish, whatever it is. That's the primary thing on your plate. From there, you add some non-starchy vegetables and maybe you'd use a little bit of olive oil or butter to make that food super tasty. That will be a high protein meal. That meal will be 40% or more of your calories from protein. But I still think the best thing you can do is actually track your food in a food tracker. It just makes this so simple. You can actually see how your meals individually are breaking down when it comes to percent of calories, but you can also see the entire day and then from there you can start looking at what your average is over a week. And that's really where the magic is. It's that averaging Because, like I said, your appetite will ebb and flow, so some days you're going to eat a lot less and other days you're going to eat more. So you really want to see what is your average intake and what is your average percent of calories from protein.
Speaker 1:I'm hosting a free masterclass this coming Friday, october 25th, at 11 am Pacific time on how to feel great and lose weight during the holidays. One of the topics we'll cover is how to properly use protein for consistent weight loss. Click the registration link in the show notes to register. I will record the live class. So, even if you can't make it live, as long as you've registered, you'll be on the list to receive the recording.
Speaker 1:Invite your friends and family and anyone else who's going to be around you a lot during the holidays, because you're in this together. Support each other, be accountability buddies. I do encourage you to come live. I will be taking questions as we move through the class. The more questions you have and ask, the more you'll get out of the masterclass. I hope to see you this Friday for the live, but if not, I will be back in the next podcast 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.
