Upping our morning protein intake is one of the best ways for Brits to jump-start their weight-loss progress, say London’s personal trainers.
Please tell me if this sounds familiar – despite months of weight-loss progress following a strict fitness routine and making rigid dietary sacrifices, the number on the scale suddenly won’t budge. Personal trainers will tell you that this is what a weight-loss plateau looks like, and they can be oh-so-frustrating.
In fact, weight-loss plateaus can be so discouraging that we’ve seen people abandon their fitness goals altogether…just out of sheer frustration.
That’s concerning because, as the Spring season arrives, Brits are regaining access to an array of outdoor fitness areas, from London's Mile End, with its green gyms and free resistance machines, to the waterside boardwalks of Canary Wharf.
Ultimately, we're on the cusp of summer, and that's a bad time to be fighting discouragement when it comes to fitness goals like weight loss and healthier living.
But hold the phone!
What if we told you that weight-loss plateaus are a completely natural part of the weight-loss journey? And that they’re a healthy indication that our bodies are adapting to our new fitness and dieting strategies!
But who wants to hear that?
No. What fitness-minded professionals want to know is how to get past a stubborn weight-loss plateau and back on their way to making progress again.
We believe we’ve found the solution – and it’s much simpler than you might expect.
Protein
One of three vital macronutrients that our bodies use for fuel, our research has shown that upping your dietary protein intake, especially in the morning, can “spark” your muscles and turn your body into a calorie-burning machine. In fact, we found one report showing that consuming more protein in the morning hours can accelerate belly-fat loss by more than 200 percent.
Sound “overly simplistic?” Not to worry.
We talked to personal trainers who explained exactly why protein can be the key to smashing through weight-loss plateaus, and we’ll tell you why morning protein supplements are especially effective for overcoming them.
Weight-Loss Advantages of Rich Protein Sources
Of all the strategies for overcoming a weight-loss plateau, many fitness professionals agree that adding enough protein to our diets can be a huge difference-maker.
Here are the advantages:
Hunger Control: Protein is the most hunger-satisfying macronutrient, meaning it will keep you feeling fuller…longer. The obvious advantages include consuming fewer calories and reducing those pesky snack cravings that can throw our fitness goals off track.
Metabolism Booster: Protein has a nifty thermic effect too! In other words, the more protein we eat, the more calories our bodies are required to burn off to digest it.
All foods have a thermic effect, which is the energy (calories) our bodies expend to digest and metabolize the foods in our diet. Still, protein has an especially high thermic effect. Therefore, a diet rich in protein will naturally increase the number of calories our bodies burn each day just to digest our food.
Fortify Lean Muscle Tissue: Most of us attempt to lose weight by achieving a calorie deficit, meaning we deliberately eat less to lose more. But when you're in a calorie deficit, your body is prone to breaking down muscle tissue for energy – not good. The more lean muscle tissue in our bodies, the more calories we’re required to burn, so it’s important to preserve that muscle tissue.
A high-protein diet will feed and preserve this lean muscle tissue, ensuring your metabolic rate stays as high as possible.
Morning Protein is Vital
A lot of people skip breakfast altogether, thinking it'll only help their weight-loss efforts. However, eating breakfast foods that are high in protein can be precisely the change our bodies need to jump-start our weight-loss progress.
For example, eating something like a bagel that’s loaded with refined carbohydrates can make your blood sugar surge, and then crash shortly after – leaving us to contend with those pesky cravings for sweets or more carbs that can throw our progress off track.
If we focus instead on eating a protein-rich breakfast, it means better control of our blood sugar, and fewer of those snack cravings. And that’s just one advantage.
Morning protein essentially helps our bodies maintain a satisfied “full” feeling longer as protein is a very satisfying nutrient, and supplementing our morning meals with enough of it means we’re less likely to snack throughout the day.
In fact, studies have shown that a high-protein breakfast can help us eat up to 135 fewer calories per day!
Is belly fat a concern? One personal trainer showed us how dietary protein is inversely related to belly fat - the more high-quality protein we include in our diets, the less belly fat we have to deal with!
Convinced? Here are a few high-protein breakfast ideas:
Greek Yogurt
Cottage Cheese
Hard-boiled Eggs
Protein-boosted Oatmeal
High-Protein Breakfast Bars
Protein Smoothies
As our post-pandemic society maintains its focus on healthier living, the term “protein-maxxing” has gained considerable attention as of late. Ultimately, it’s the modern buzzword for maximizing the amount of dietary protein intake at every feeding opportunity.
While you need not go to such extremes, eating 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of your bodyweight per day is good starting point. For example, a 150-pound person’s recommended daily consumption of protein should be 80 to 110 grams!
Adopting a NEAT lifestyle
Finally, if you’re struggling to break through a weight-loss plateau, adopting a NEAT lifestyle is an excellent way of augmenting a high-protein diet. NEAT is an acronym for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It's essentially the energy our bodies need to fuel activities that don't include sleeping, eating, or exercising.
When personal trainers talk about embracing a NEAT lifestyle, they mean adding physical activities to our daily routine that aren't typically considered exercise but still produce the same effects.
Here’s what we mean:
Taking the stairs instead of the elevator is a NEAT activity.
Deliberately parking farther away from a store, even if you see an available parking slot closer, is a NEAT activity.
Standing at a desk instead of sitting is a NEAT activity.
Setting an alarm throughout the day to get up and walk around the office is a NEAT activity.
Don’t confuse NEAT with basal metabolic rate (BMR) - a metric referring to the calories our bodies burn to carry out basic life-sustaining functions like breathing or blood circulation.
Think of NEAT activities as physical movements that don’t rise to the level of “working out” but are undoubtedly physical efforts that burn unwanted calories.
One Canary Wharf personal trainer said it best: “Base d on my experience, sustainable weight loss only comes down to one thing – new habits that are cultivated into a daily routine. Without consistency, your chances of succeeding in the weight loss game are dramatically diminished!”
When paired with the right amount of morning protein, integrating more of these NEAT activities into our daily routine can be precisely what our bodies need to break through those stubborn weight-loss plateaus!