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Ep.21 – More Protein, Less Body Fat


Carrie: Jonathan Bailor – this is Carrie Brown – how are you?

Jonathan: I’m really well, Carrie, I’m excited. Today we are going to talk about protein. It’s one of my favourite things to talk about since it’s such an important part of living a SANE life style.

Carrie: I love protein!

Jonathan: I’m a fan as well and the scientific community is quite a big fan of protein as well and that is really what I want to cover today because protein is such a critical component of, not only of our body, but it’s a critical component of what we eat and it’s so fantastically healthy for us. And there has been some misinformation about it and I want to make sure that we get the facts on the table this week. So let’s talk about the science of protein.

Carrie: Let’s get some facts.

Jonathan: So let’s start with Dr Halton over at Harvard University who tells us “Exchange of protein for carbohydrates has been shown to improve blood lipids… Higher protein diets have been associated with lower blood pressure and reduced risk of coronary heart disease.” Which is great because I believe this statistic is somewhere between three to four out of every ten death that are occurring in the United States every year have to do with a heart issue. So if we can help our heart be eating a higher protein diet that is certainly good news.

Carrie: That’s awesome news. But you know, and I think I have said this probably a dozen times already but I’m going to say it again because it’s so exciting, is that when I started eating a significant amount more protein, my muffin top disappeared so I exchanged my muffin top for protein and that made me so happy I can’t even tell you.

Jonathan: That’s your version of exchanging carbohydrates for protein as Dr Halton put it, but one of the things – and we talked about this back when we talked about the S in SANE, or Satiety – one of the key reasons that protein is so useful for us is that it is so satisfying. So there are many reasons it is useful but most of the time when we eat more protein, ironically we will be eating more food and we will be more full but many studies have shown that this actually causes a spontaneous or unconscious reduction of calories, meaning we will accidentally eat fewer calories while taking in more nutrition because of all the other SANE foods we are eating. But that partially explains the muffin top disappearing. Protein also changes the hormonal balance of our body, again contributing to that muffin top disappearing, and then finally we also know that protein helps to preserve our lean muscle tissue which is so important to having a slim and healthy physique rather than one where everything is broken down and burned off, which is not what we are after. We are after fat loss and the preservation of lean tissue which protein does. And finally, Carrie, we know that protein is very inEfficient so when we eat more protein our body will actually metabolise fewer calories or burn more calories just doing digestion. So it’s really a multi-faceted attack on that muffin top, which is great.

Carrie: The thing I really, really noticed apart from the fact that my muffin top miraculously disappeared was that my cravings dropped, I should clarify: my cravings for sugar and starch dropped dramatically, almost unbelievably. I was like ‘what happened to me’. This is really weird because I don’t even want to eat that stuff anymore. Which for anyone that knows me – you know, hey I’m a pastry chef… that’s just been part of my life and to not have those cravings was a miracle. It certainly helped me enormously to not have the cravings, then you don’t feel like you are depriving yourself. Without the craving you don’t feel you are missing anything so that helped me enormously. And that was the protein that did that.

Jonathan: Absolutely. Remember we talked about the three components to SANE food: protein, water and fibre. So protein really is front and center. And really, you can almost think of just building off what you said, Carrie, protein is almost a prescription to eliminate cravings. Like you’re never going to get rid of cravings by starving yourself. In fact that will cause cravings to go up. However if you “take protein” or eat whole food protein it will really keep those cravings at bay because of what it does from a satisfaction perspective as well as what it does from a hormonal perspective. Very, very powerful stuff.

Carrie: I love protein. Protein, apart from that, is some of the tastiest food there is.

Jonathan: Very, very tasty. And again, folks, one of the other benefits we talked about was the preservation of lean muscle tissue and just to really bring that point home because that is really important, we want to burn fat, we don’t want to burn off everything, we just want to burn fat. Dr Donald Layman over at the University of Illinois tells us point blank: “Use of higher protein diets reduces lean tissue loss to less than 15 percent and when combined with exercise can halt loss of lean muscle tissue during weight loss.” That is actually a very profound finding because remember we talked about earlier that when people go on starvation diet up to 70% of non-water weight lost can be from lean tissue and that’s terrible for us in the long term and we really want to avoid that. What Dr Layman is telling us here that just by eating more protein we can reduce that number to 15 percent and then when we combine smarter exercise, which involves eccentric resistance training, we can basically eliminate the loss of lean tissue which is wonderful and that is what gives us that tight, firm figure and keeps us strong and feeling healthy and robust rather than being broken down. And that is just so powerful. And another thing to keep in mind when we talk about the recommendations about how much protein to consume is that everything about a SANE lifestyle should be thought of in the context of smarter exercise. This isn’t just a way of eating, it is an entire new approach to eating and to exercise. So when we say the recommendation for protein on a SANE type of lifestyle is anywhere from between 125 grams if you’re a smaller woman to 200 grams if you’re a larger man. The reason that range is so critical is for what we just talked about and we have to remember we’re resistance training in a very intense fashion so we are breaking down our body protein, or breaking down our muscle tissue, and we need to have the ability to rebuild that. So if you want to look at this way of eating just in isolation, it looks different from when you look at it from a resistance training perspective. We have to remember that this is an integrated, complete lifestyle – not just a “diet”.

Carrie: Could I just mention that everything hurts today and I blame you!

Jonathan: Hurts in a good way…?

Carrie: My entire body hurts today. Well, you brought up exercise, so… My entire body hurts and it’s all your fault.

Jonathan: Well, that is actually good news because that means your body is spending it’s calories rebuilding and building new and repairing muscle tissue rather than potentially building new fat tissue. It’s always better to build and maintain lean tissue than it is to build and maintain fat tissue, so… But Carrie, let’s now move on to the haters. We have talked about why protein is so useful and we will continue to talk about why protein is so useful but some of the common objections that our listeners may hear when people see them eating. Really folks, I’m not talking about go eating a crazy amount of protein it’s just about really at breakfast, lunch and dinner make sure you are taking in at least 30 grams of protein and then if you happen to have some snacks, take in some protein there as well. Just as long as at every meal you are taking in a certain amount of protein you will hit that 125-mark and you will be too full for starches and sweets. People will still… they’re always trying to look for something to poke at when you are not doing what everyone else is doing so the first thing you may hear is talking about protein’s impact on liver function. So this is simply just not borne out. Another one has to do with kidney function. Let’s talk about both of those, liver and kidney function. So, for example, Dr Manninen over at the University of Oulu, simply stated: “There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that high protein intakes have adverse effects on liver function.” and then Dr Halton over at Harvard university talks to the kidney objection with: “There is little evidence that high protein diets pose a serious risk to kidney function in healthy populations.” Now, combine those two. So, no scientific evidence substantiating these objections and on the other hand, guess how many studies have shown dusins of health benefits and body fat benefits stemming from a more natural intake of protein. And I say ‘natural’ intentionally, because when we look back at our evolutionary ancestry getting this level of protein was quite common and in fact Dr Cordain, who is one of the pioneers of the paleolithic type lifestyle and has done amazing research over at Colorado State University, tells us: “There is now a large body of experimental evidence increasingly demonstrating that a higher intake of lean animal protein reduces the risk for cardiovascular disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity, insulin resistance and osteoporosis while not impairing kidney function.” That is a pretty strong endorsement.

Carrie: That is a pretty strong endorsement and I just want to say there are going to be – and I’m glad you used the word ‘normal’ back a few paragraphs ago – there are going to be some people for whom their kidneys don’t necessarily function right for whom, if you eat a lot of protein, that might be a problem. If you are one of those people you probably know that. What we’re talking about is for the 98 percent whose kidneys work fine this is not going to be a problem. There is also exceptions to the rule but those people obviously need to get that figured out with a medical professional in their own way.

Jonathan: Absolutely. And it’s important. Hopefully no professional medical professional would tell you that because you have poor kidney function you should now eat sugar and starch. So, you know, they won’t say that. But the other thing to keep in mind is: I sometimes feel a little bit odd when we say ‘a high amount of protein’ because as Dr Cordain goes on to tell us – this is a direct quote and I love it – “So called …‘very high protein diets’ (30% – 40% total energy) actually represent the norm which conditioned the present day human genome…The evolutionary template would predict that human health and well-being will suffer when dietary intakes fall outside this range.” The basic point Dr Cordain is making here is that how could a ratio of protein that was the norm for 99.8% of our evolutionary existence now somehow spontaneously be bad for us.

Carrie: Well, it’s relative, isn’t it. It’s relative what we have become accustomed to eating so it seems high relative to what we have done for the last 40 years.

Jonathan: And we know how well what we have done for the past 40 years has worked out so fortunately the bar is very low in terms of… certainly it’s not like ‘oh man, what we have been doing has been working so well so we should definitely stick with that.’ But, just to drive this home Boyd Eaton and Dr Konner over at Emory University further ecco this point: “It would be paradoxical if humans…should now somehow be harmed as a result of protein intake habitually tolerated or even required by their near relatives.” One key point here, these researchers at least Dr Cordain back a few minutes ago mentioned animal protein and a common question we get asked at the Smarter Science of Slim is if it is compatible with a vegetarian lifestyle and it absolutely is. You don’t have to get your protein for animal sources. Animal sources of protein are fantastically healthy for you when they are from high-quality sources but it is absolutely not required. One of our, in fact one of my favourite success stories about the Smarter Science of Slim, is a middle-aged woman who was diabetic and after I think 12 weeks of a SANE lifestyle, and she is a vegetarian mind you, lost around 48 pounds and was able to go off her diabetes medication. And again she was just using vegetarian sources of protein and had great success. So animal proteins are wonderful for us, but if for moral reasons or for cultural reasons you avoid them there is no reason you still can’t be SANE.

Carrie: That’s awesome. I personally couldn’t give up bacon but…

Jonathan: I was actually discussing this with someone, they really liked it so I will share it here, eating SANEly is really… there is just four factors that we use to evaluate the quality of food: Satiety, Aggression, Nutrition and Efficiency so you could be on a low-carb diet and do that SANEly. You could be SANE low-carb. You could be SANE paleo. You could be SANE vegetarian. You could be SANE Atkins. You could be SANE South Beach. You could be SANE Zone. SANE is just a way we evaluate food. So really you could be… call-it-whatever-you-want-it, just keep it Satisfying, unAggressive, Nutritious and inEfficient you are good to go.

Carrie: Except you don’t need to be all those other things. If you are SANE you are going to get where you want to go.

Jonathan: That is true as well, but if they’re helpful for you feel free to continue along that path. Let’s shift back to praising protein. We’ll alternate between the haters of protein and just lathering protein up with praise. I’m not sure ‘lathering’ is the correct word but protein, yay! So Dr Willett who is the chair of the department of nutrition over at Harvard School of Public Health, tells us that “…the Nurses’ Health Study is the only large prospective study to have examined the link between dietary protein and cardiovascular disease….The group of women who ate the most protein…were 25% less likely to have had a heart attack or to have died of heart disease…eating a lot of protein doesn’t harm the heart.” And then Dr McCullough from the American Cancer Society tells us “Seafood and poultry have been associated with lower rates of coronary heart disease and cancer…” So, with all of this evidence stacking in favour of protein and just common sense that these natural foods containing protein, why would we have evolved to eat them if they were harmful, that just doesn’t make sense. You can certainly be wondering how did these myths that protein is bad for us get started in the first place. The reason is, Carrie, there were some animal studies done, where researchers fed the animal *extreme* amounts of protein and then these animals experienced problems but my interpretation of these studies is that rather than proving that the levels of protein we are talking about are harmful, these studies actually prove that until we exceed 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day, we will only get healthier and slimmer by upping our protein intake. To put that in perspective: 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight in a 150 pound woman would be that woman eating 11 chicken breasts per day every day. That’s physically impossible. We’re not accidentally going to eat 2 grams of protein…

Carrie: There wouldn’t be a lot of non-starchy vegetables coming down with 11 chicken breasts, would there.

Jonathan: That would give her 300 grams of protein and that would mean that about 60% of her total daily caloric intake would be coming from protein and that’s an imbalanced diet. No-one is saying eat 60% of your calories from protein. That is much too hight. What we’re saying is again: Let’s move more towards our evolutionary heritage and let’s eat between 125 and 200 grams of protein. Because bad things happen if we eat too much of anything. Almost every year we hear some stunt on the radio where some shock-jock is like trying to see how much water they can drink and they end up having to rush to the hospital and even in some cases dying from over-hydration. So even drinking too much water can be bad for us.

Carrie: And again, I think, that the problem here is relativity. When you eat a SANE diet you almost certainly eat more protein that we have gotten used to eating over the last 30-40 years, so it seems high, but it isn’t. It just seems that way.

Jonathan: Absolutely. And the other thing, let’s just talk about this directly. Probably the most well-known criticizer of protein would be a book called ‘The China Study’ which basically makes the assertion that animal products, specifically protein, causes cancer. First, if you haven’t already, go to Google and type in ‘China Study debunked’ because The China Study book, there’s little resemblance to the actual China Study that was conducted. A brilliant woman by the name of Denise Minger has done a beautiful critical analysis of the book and I would encourage you to check it out. The other thing to keep in mind is that while the China Study itself, which is very distinct from the book of the same name, that’s one epidemiological study. Both the words ‘one’ and ‘epidemiological’ matters a lot here because making a lifestyle change based on *one* study can quickly make your life very complicated. Because every single week you’ll see study A conflicts with study B conflicts with study C and we should never change anything in our life based on one scientific study. Further, an epidemiological study is a study where researchers look at people and they find correlations and that’s all they find. So for example they might say ‘there was more death among people’ – I’m just going to make up an example here – ‘people who watched comedies had a higher rate of death than people who watched dramas on television’. In fact you could look at any population sample and you could find correlations like that. But that certainly doesn’t prove that watching comedies kills you. At all. In fact what these epidemiological studies do is they can generally show us interesting things to test clinically. If we did see that in a massive study over 20 years that looked at 100,000 people found that people who laughed more died more frequently, well then we might want to get someone in a controlled environment and hold everything else constant and then make them laugh and see what about laughter could be causing death. But certainly without doing that we can’t go out and say things like ‘well, clearly we all need to stop laughing, because laughing causes death.’ And actually this analogy works pretty well because what the China Study book tells us, basically, is that individuals who ate animal products had a higher incidence of death and when we unpack that, that it’s actually not true: Individuals who ate seafood for example had a lower incidence of death, and even that was true we don’t know that were they smoking, were they doing this, were they doing that. And what’s even more important is that was *one* epidemiological study. We’ve got so many other epidemiological studies, like the Nurses’ Health Study we just heard from Dr Willard. That’s a huge epidemiological study which found that women who ate the most protein were 25% less likely to have a heart attack or die of heart disease. And we have even… let’s for example look at the Journal of the American Medical Association that reviewed meta-analysis of 147 studies on the impact of diet and health and found zero correlation between meat consumption and cardiovascular disease. So that is 147 studies, 147 is greater than 1, so… ha ha…

Carrie: I knew you were good at math!

Jonathan: Ha ha… separately, researchers found that people in England have eaten about the same amount of animal fat, which is what most people, if they are concerned with the consumption of meat, they are concerned because of animal fat, so people in England have eaten the same amount of animal fat since 1910, meanwhile the number of heart attacks have increased 1,000% between 1930 and 1970. Well, if the animal fat percentage stayed constant during that time period how could it play a role in that 1,000% heart attack increase?

Carrie: We love our animal fat in England. We do. We eat lard, we eat bacon, we eat all sorts of fun animal fat things.

Jonathan: And if that stayed constant while heart attacks rose it would be pretty odd for it to be the cause. And during basically the same period in the US we saw a similar increase in heart attacks while the amount of animal fats being consumed actually dropped, so the clinical data and the mass of data in the scientific community shows us that meat is not unhealthy. It’s a fantastic source of protein and therefore a key part of a natural diet and in fact Dr O’Keefe at the Mid America Heart Institute listed all the advantages and tells us that “Diets high in lean animal protein can improve lipid profiles and overall health…Lean animal protein eaten at regular intervals improves satiety levels, increases thermogenesis [calorie burning], improves insulin sensitivity [clears clogs], and thereby facilitates weight loss while providing many essential nutrients.”

Carrie: That was an awful lot of geekiness and I think I need to reel you in. If you say ‘epidemiological’ one more time I think I’m going to poke you.

Jonathan: Ha ha, I don’t think I’m going to, I think I’m past that, but I do want to bring up one more bit of data. Because I feel like we have provided our listeners with a bunch of great ammunition. We have put a bunch of great science on the table. But at some point they may read some misguided magazine article that protein promotes osteoporosis. Now, this myth, it is a myth, it comes from the fact that digesting protein does require more calcium than the digestion of carbohydrate. Certain individuals falsely infer that this means that eating more protein will suck calcium from our bones and turn us into jellyfish.

Carrie: And I got to tell you, for anyone who has never met Jonathan Bailor, you would *never* describe him as a jellyfish.

Jonathan: Ha ha. Not a jellyfish.

Carrie: Nothing jelly going on over there.

Jonathan: Nothing jelly. And in fact, folks, this is actually important, very important. You want to strengthen your bones, consuming the same amount of protein as well as doing the amount of resistance training we recommend it’s going to do nothing but make them more dense. And this is from Dr Westerterp-Plantenga over at Maastricht University: “With respect to adverse effects, no protein-induced effects are observed on net bone balance or on calcium balance in young adults and elderly persons. Dietary protein even increases bone mineral mass and reduces incidence of osteoporotic fracture.” Protein is all good!

Carrie: Protein is awesome!

Jonathan: Haters are going to hate but that is just because they have not been informed but hopefully we can inform them some day.

Carrie: We love protein. Well, you know, our job is to tell people the truth and then they will go do what they decide to do.

Jonathan: Exactly. And in fact the one thing that is a potential drawback about protein – and it’s not protein’s fault per se but the way protein has been messaged to us is the misinformation of good sources of protein. So, call me crazy, but I like to define a good source of protein as a common food, that has more of its calories coming from protein than coming from fat or coming from carbohydrate.

Carrie: I think that’s where a lot of us has gone wrong over the years because I bet you most people would say that milk is a great source of protein.

Jonathan: And I think that is fair because we have never… what does it mean to be a good source of protein? Does it mean there is protein in it? I don’t think that makes it a good source. I would say it’s a good source if there’s more protein in it than there is carbohydrate or fat because, I mean, what else is a good source of protein?

Carrie: People have never looked at it that way. I certainly never have. And now even after all this time I still have to consciously make the shift of not thinking of milk as a protein. I’m still mentally going “no, no, milk’s not a good source of protein”.

Jonathan: Exactly. So when we talk about milk, which I believe is actually more like in the range of, depending of the fat content of the milk, 20-30% protein by weight you know, it’s not a good source of protein when for example we could be eating things like seafood which, depending on the type of seafood, ranges from 51-94% protein. Things like egg whites are 91% protein. Skinless, white meat is 51-80% protein, protein powders like whey are greater than 70% protein. Things like fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese and Greek yoghurt are anywhere from 60% protein to 85% protein. Carrie put this point so well in an earlier podcast: When we say things like ‘egg whites’ or ‘skinless, white meat chicken’ we’re not saying those things because fat is bad. We’re just saying that if you’re trying to eat protein, an egg white is 91% protein by weight, whereas a whole egg is, I think like 30-40% protein. So it doesn’t mean a whole egg is bad. It just means a whole egg is a great source of healthy fats and egg white is a great source of healthy protein.

Carrie: It’s not about low-fat, it’s about high protein. Good source of protein.

Jonathan: Yes, if you are eating a bunch of ham which is far and away mostly protein, then you can probably eat the whole egg because you are going to get some protein from the egg and the ham is actually a good source of protein. But if you are just eating eggs you might want to blend some egg whites with some whole eggs to balance out the ratio of protein to fat. And there are other pretty good sources of protein, and I say ‘pretty good’ because these are some of the things we just talked about, they still get quite a few of their calories from fat which is fine but if we’re eating an egg, like we just said, and an egg is only 35% protein by weight, you know let’s call it a ‘pretty good’ source of protein. Because there is certainly better sources of protein.

Carrie: Right.

Jonathan: And there is three pretty good sources of protein: Things like skinless, dark meat and a lot of red meat is going to be between 33 and 66% protein. Soybeans which are good for vegetarians, they are not my personal preference, they are really only 33% protein and whole eggs again 35% protein. Everything else is not even close to being a good source of protein. I think in an earlier episode we went through and we talked about how a serving of 250 calories of nuts contains less protein than an equal amount of like lettuce, and again it doesn’t mean nuts are bad it just means there’s actually very few good sources of protein and that is another reason why it’s going to be really hard for us to ever overeat it. Because we generally have to go out of our way to consume a SANE amount of protein, whereas consuming a SANE amount of fat or a SANE amount of carbohydrate is quite easy.

Carrie: It’s interesting that, for me and also I’ve seen on the community and other places, getting enough protein is one of the biggest problems people have with SANEly, eating enough protein, not the opposite. We talked about how the haters are saying ‘you’re going to eat too much protein and make yourself ill’. It’s actually *really* hard to eat as much protein as you suggest.

Jonathan: It’s very, very hard and it is just so key, because that protein along with those non-starchy vegetables – literally, Carrie said this and you will experience this first hand – if you can hit that 10+ servings of non-starchy vegetables and 125-200 grams of protein you will never have to worry about eating inSANE food because you will be physically repulsed by them. You will be like ‘get that away from me’. You will always be too full. And that’s a good state to be in, because it’s like you don’t even have to try.

Carrie: It’s incredible, it’s wonderful but it’s incredible to me how my palate has changed over the last 6 months. There are things that I used to eat, that now are almost too sweet, I can’t even put them in my mouth and a lot of that is to do with the fact that I have been eating so much SANE food that now my taste have changed – which makes it easier!

Jonathan: It makes it absolutely easier. A general rule of thumb, and there is actually some really cool emerging research about this, make sure when you get your protein you get it in adequate doses, meaning you want to make sure that we you eat protein you eat 30 grams or more at a time. This actually triggers a different reaction in your body, it helps stimulate muscle-protein synthesis or the rebuilding of tissue, which is great. Our body is constantly regenerating cells because cells die and we generate new cells. So think about eating 30-60 grams of protein in a sitting, 3-4 times a day, however works for you, and just really enjoy that and of course if you get fat along with it that’s fine, we know fat is not bad for us, and then add some non-starchy vegetables on the side and you’ll be SANE, you’ll be healthy, you’ll be happy, you’ll be too full for anything else.

Carrie: And you’ll have no muffin top.

Jonathan: And you’ll have no muffin top.

Carrie: That’s very important for us girls, Jonathan.

Jonathan: It’s important for all of us. Men, we have a different muffin top, it usually just comes out at the front. The muffin top kind of tips over… One of the single most common critique or criticism that I hear about a SANE way of eating is people still think it is a way of eating that is afraid of fat. I assure you, that is not true. When we talk about lean things, we’ve said this ad nauseum but I’m going to say it again, it’s simply because in that context we are trying to get more protein, it’s not because fat is bad. And just to drive that home I want to give you even more support for the message that fat is not bad and I’m going to go one school, I’m going to go pretty prestigious school – let’s look at just the Harvard Medical School’s take on artificially eliminating foods containing fat from our diet. Not only to show our support for dietary fat but also because a lot of things that contain protein also contain fat so if we are going to eat enough protein we also have to be comfortable eating fat. So, Carrie, let’s alternate quotes because there is quite a lot of them. Why don’t you start with the first one. These are all coming from the Harvard Medical School.

Carrie: “The emphasis on total fat reduction has been a serious distraction in efforts to control obesity and improve health in general.”

Jonathan: “Within the United States, a substantial decline in the percentage of energy from fat during the last two decades has corresponded with a massive increase in the prevalence of obesity. Diets high in fat do not appear to be the primary cause of the high prevalence of excess body fat in our society, and reductions in fat will not be a solution.”

Carrie: “Among European countries, no association was observed between the national percentage of energy from fat and median body mass index in men…a clear inverse relation was observed in women.”

Jonathan: “Limiting unsaturated fats, which is usually done by increasing carbohydrate…is detrimental. This is consistent with metabolic studies indicating that replacing unsaturated fats with carbohydrate increases triacylglycerol and decreases HDL cholesterol. Furthermore, low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets provide a higher glycemic load, aggravate hyperinsulinemia [clogging], and may thus increase the risk of diabetes and coronary artery disease.”

Carrie: “Studies and…trials have provided strong evidence that a higher intake of [omega-3] fatty acids from fish or plant sources lowers risk of coronary heart disease.”

Jonathan: Love it, love it. Folks, eat more SANE foods. Eat more smarter. Exercise less but smarter. Enjoy yourself. And next week Carrie and I will be back with some steps we can take to start on that path to eating more smarter but hopefully you got what you need to get started.

This week:
– How protein is hugely healthy
– How protein took away Carrie’s “muffin top”
– The simple science of protein
– How protein will automatically enable us to avoid overeating
– How protein changes our hormonal balance to facilitate fat loss
– How protein enables us to burn fat instead of muscle
– How protein clears up cravings for sugar and starch
– How a SANE approach to protein assumes eccentric exercise
– How 125 to 200 grams of protein is one of the most powerful prescriptions for long-term weight loss and health
– How a SANE amount of protein does nothing bad to your kidneys nor liver
– How a SANE amount of protein is both natural and normal when we look at our ancestors
– How you can eat a SANE amount of protein and still be a vegetarian or vegan
– How you can be SANE low-carb, SANE paleo, SANE Atkins, SANE South Beach, SANE Zone, etc.
– How to think about a SANE amount of protein given the book The China Study
– How over 147 studies showed zero correlation between meat consumption and cardiovascular disease
– How eating more protein increases bone density
– How we’ve been deeply misinformed about what good sources of protein are
– How a good source of protein is a food that contains more protein than carbs or fat
– How to simply and inexpensively eat truly good sources of protein
– How it’s important to eat at least 30 grams of protein every time we eat