Every other week there is some new diet fad that is promising to get you into the best shape of your life. Modern research constantly disproves previous research. From carbs, to fats, to protein – you name it. Different diets yielded different results for everybody.

One thing people never really mention though is protein. What is protein? Protein is made up of 20 building blocks called amino acids, 11 of those being classified as nonessential amino acids. The other nine essential amino acids must be provided by food.

Protein can further be divided into two kinds of protein – complete proteins and incomplete proteins. Protein sources such as animal and soy proteins are classified as complete proteins because they contain the nine essential amino acids. Plant proteins, such as vegetables and nuts, are classified as incomplete proteins because they lack certain essential amino acids.

So now that you have a quick heads up about protein, what effect on the diet does it have and how can it help you burn fat? Protein helps curb your appetite. Seeing as how it only contains 4 calories per gram, and a gram of fat contains 9 calories per gram, it is easy to see that you can eat more of this macro nutrient while taking in less calories. Proteins serve as immune system antibodies and help regulate sleep, digestion, ovulation, and importantly to bodybuilders and fitness athletes, the recovery of lean muscle mass.

Now remember that if you eat too much of any type of food – whether the calories come primarily from fat, carbohydrates, or even protein, you’re still putting calories into your body and if your daily caloric intake is too high, you’re going to gain weight. Since there are more than double the calories in a gram of fat than a gram of protein, let’s move over to the carbohydrate discussion.

Why would protein be more important to losing weight than carbohydrates? Both provide the same amount of calories per gram consumed, so it’s hard to figure out why. And of course seeing as how carbs can be so delicious, many people will look for a reason to quickly consume some carbohydrates. The problem with carbohydrates and weight gain is that when you eat carbohydrates, most of them are rapidly digested and quickly converted to blood glucose.

Shortly after consuming a high-carbohydrate meal, the glucose inside of your bloodstream rises rapidly, forcing your pancreas to produce a large amount of insulin to take the excess glucose out. This glucose is converted to a starch that is called glycogen, which is stored in the muscles and in the liver. When the muscles are full of glycogen and there is excess glucose – it is stored as fat. Now we see why carbohydrates – while they don’t seem so bad at a first look – can be converted into fat.

What are good protein sources?

Another mistake people will make when going to convert to high protein diets is the foods in which the protein comes from. Eating fatty beef products as well as any other protein that is not lean, will just give you an abundance of calories from fat. Breaded chicken products as well as these non-lean protein foods will give you a good amount of protein – yes – but you will also intake a lot of carbohydrates and fat. Choose foods like fish, skinless chicken breast, and lean cuts from beef.

You can always look on the back to see the composition of the product. I’d say a lean source of protein will have 10-20% of calories from fat and 80-90% of calories from protein. You might have a gram or two of carbs, but generally there will be zero carbs from most animal protein products unless they are breaded or come with sauces.

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