Fast and complete recuperation are two of the most important elements of improving your athletic performance – especially if you run a hard training schedule. Faster recuperation means you don’t fall behind: you can fit more training sessions in, and you’re not out of commission for a week or two after a big event. More complete recuperation means your training sessions will be more productive: you’re body is stronger and more fully healed, ready to push harder. And if you can train harder and more often without suffering the negative consequences of over training, your performance will improve, along with your general well-being.
Read the full story »We all know protein is necessary to help build muscle, but did you know it also plays a role in weight loss? Protein can help you get rid of unwanted fat through four main channels:
Protein doesn't just help build muscle. Protein can also help us lose weight.
Protein helps you burn more calories than fat or carbohydrates. While the reasons for this aren’t entirely understood, a possible theory is that because protein can’t be stored like carbs and fats, it needs to be processed immediately. Whereas the thermic effect of carbohydrates is only between 5 and 15%, and even lower for fat, the thermic effect of protein is between 20-35% of energy consumed.1 This means that your body burns extra calories just by maintaining a high-protein diet. You lose weight with protein. How many extra calories? One recent study found that people consuming a 30% protein diet burned an extra 34kj/hour more over the study duration than those who ate a 15% protein diet.2 This is about twice the thermic effect!
Scientific studies have consistently found that people on higher protein diets tend to feel less hungry for longer periods than those on low protein diets. Feeling more satiated for longer helps prevent snacking and taking in extra calories, which in turn aids weight loss. By how much? While this effect is difficult to isolate, at least 5 major studies have found that long term high protein diets have led to significantly higher levels of weight loss when compared to those on low protein diets. For example, a six-month long randomized trial on 132 obese subjects found that those consuming a 22% protein diet low in carbs lost more than 3 times as much weight on average than the group consuming a low fat and high carbohydrate diet consisting of just 16% protein.3
Your gut releases many hormones that regulate how full you feel and how often you crave food. High protein diets have been found to induce your gut to release the greatest amounts of anorectic hormone peptide YY (PYY), which decreases hunger. A long term study of protein intake in mice found that higher protein levels increased plasma PYY levels, decreased food intake, and reduced their body fat.4
Muscles are your best friend if you’re trying to lose fat. Roughly stated, the more muscle you have, the more energy you burn, and the more likely you are to dip into your fat cells for that energy. Muscles help you burn extra energy even when you’re not working out. The more lean body mass you have, the higher your resting energy expenditure. For example, every 10 kg (22lb) difference in lean body mass translates to a difference in energy expenditure of approximately 100 calories a day.5
In addition to weight loss benefits, increased protein and lean body mass may be good for overall health. The author of a review article on protein and health in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that,
“abundant evidence points to a key role of altered muscle metabolism in the genesis, and therefore prevention, of many common pathologic conditions and chronic diseases. […] increasing protein or amino acid intakes may optimize muscle strength and metabolism and thereby improve health.”6
Not all proteins are equally as effective though, and some have added weight-loss benefits on top of those already mentioned. Undenatured whey protein works in conjunction with several other key ingredients found in GSH Ignite to increase intracellular glutathione levels. This is important in weight loss because it allows cellular respiration to increase, which means that your cells are better able to produce energy and get rid of toxins that tend to build up.
Just as consuming more energy than you burn causes your fat cells to grow larger, they can also grow as a result of accumulated toxins. When your fat cells are full of toxins they get congested – they can expand to several times their original size, which has the consequence of making you fatter also. When your cells have sufficient glutathione levels, then they can ramp up their metabolism and expel waste more efficiently. This means both leaner cells and an overall higher resting metabolic rate in your body. GSH-Ignite is a high quality source of easily digestible protein and other thermogenic aids, helping you to increase lean body mass and overall cellular health.
References:
1. Halton TL, Hu FB. The effects of high protein diets on thermogenesis, satiety and weight loss: a critical review. J Am Coll Nutr. 2004 Oct;23(5):373-85.
2. Johnston CS, Day CS, Swan PD: Postprandial thermogenesis is increased 100% on a high protein, low fat diet versus a high carbohydrate low fat diet in healthy young women. J Am Coll Nut21 :55 –61,2002.
3. Skov AR, Toubro S, Ronn B, Holm L, Astrup A: Randomized trial on protein vs carbohydrate in ad libitum fat reduced diet for the treatment of obesity. Int J Obes23 :528 –536,1999.
4. Batterham, R.L. and Heffron, H. and Kapoor, S. and Chivers, J.E. and Chandarana, K. and Herzog, H. and Le Roux, C.W. and Thomas, E.L. and Bell, J.D. and Withers, D.J. (2006) Critical role for peptide YY in protein-mediated satiation and body-weight regulation. Cell Metabolism, 4 (3). pp. 223-233. ISSN 15504131
5. Robert R Wolfe. The under appreciated role of muscle in health and disease: review article. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 84, No. 3, 475-482, September 2006
6. ibid.
Copyright 2010 Elite Sports and Fitness
Adenosine triphosphate, also referred to as ATP, is nature’s energy store. Every living organism needs ATP energy in order to carry out the processes that maintain life within that organism, including us humans for whom a continuous energy source is essential for our biochemistry, movement of fluids and the involuntary muscular movements exemplified by our heartbeat, respiration and digestion.
Fast and complete recuperation are two of the most important elements of improving your athletic performance – especially if you run a hard training schedule. Faster recuperation means you don’t fall behind: you can fit more training sessions in, and you’re not out of commission for a week or two after a big event. More complete recuperation means your training sessions will be more productive: you’re body is stronger and more fully healed, ready to push harder. And if you can train harder and more often without suffering the negative consequences of over training, your performance will improve, along with your general well-being.
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What is the best way to promote a healthy inflammatory response? The answer to a healthy inflammatory response is by working with your body’s natural systems. TGF-ß (transforming growth factor beta) is a naturally occurring anti-inflammatory peptide that stimulates the healing process and helps promote a healthy inflammatory response to muscle inflammation. It can be found in …
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Your body’s energy is produced through a process known as cellular respiration: this is where your cells use the nutrients you’ve ingested through food, along with the air you breathe, and transform them into adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the fuel for the creation of our body’s energy via cellular respiration. For a cell to ‘breathe’ at optimal levels, there are two systems that need to balance each other: the oxidative system and the reductive system.
Gazzy Parman is a black belt Jiu-Jitsu World Champion and Submission Grappler. Amongst her achievements are: winning the World No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu Championship in the women’s lightweight division; becoming the first American female black belt member of the legendary Nova União competition team; and becoming one of the first eight women in the world ever invited to compete at Sheik Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship – the world’s most prestigious submission grappling tournament.
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