Protein’s role in weight loss

Eating more protein is a major part of muscle building, but isn’t the only component. Exercise and weight training work with nutrition to help you gain muscle mass. When working out, microtears form in the muscle fibers, which signals your immune system to repair the muscles through stem cells and growth hormones and to rebuild muscle fibers in the presence of protein.

To get into the fine details, protein is made from amino acids (amino meaning containing nitrogen), which are the building blocks in your body that are necessary for repairing, maintaining and building cells and tissues. 50% of the protein in the body is stored up in skeletal muscle, about 15% is in structural tissues like the skin and bone and the remaining protein is located in other tissues and organs including the liver and kidneys.

Protein is made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Having enough protein in your system will put your body into a positive nitrogen balance, otherwise known as an anabolic state. Being in an anabolic state enables you to build muscle. The amino acids work to weave new myofibrils, which are protein filament bundles, and are key to muscle contraction. These myofibrils bind to any areas of damage in the muscle tissue and also make the muscle larger and stronger. However, if you have a negative nitrogen load, then you will be in a catabolic state, which breaks down muscle tissue. This is why it’s important to calibrate your protein intake to match your goals of either maintaining muscle mass or building it up.

When losing weight, it’s not just fat that that gets burnt, muscle mass is also shed in the process if you’re not consuming enough protein. When you lose muscle mass, your metabolic rate also decreases, which means burning lesser calories than you did before you lost the weight. If you’re working out and also calorie restricting, then make sure to get an adequate amount of protein on a daily basis in order to maintain or increase your muscle mass.

How much protein you consume to maintain or build muscle is also tied to age. People over the age of 50 have greater anabolic resistance, which means that muscle synthesis is lower when consuming protein. To this effect, higher amounts of protein are needed for older people to maintain or increase their muscle mass.

When consuming higher amounts of protein, be sure to balance it out with enough fiber and water to keep your digestion in tip top shape. You can also explore digestive enzyme supplements containing protease and betaine HCL to boost your body’s protein digesting abilities. To figure out how much water to drink daily, multiply your weight in kilograms by 1.1. If you weigh 60kg then you should be drinking 66oz of water daily, which is almost 2 liters.


How much protein you need
Anywhere from 25% to 30% of your daily caloric intake should come from protein. This means if you are supposed to be consuming 2000 calories daily to maintain your weight, then 600 of those calories should come from protein.

To figure out how many grams of protein to eat, multiply your caloric intake by 0.075. For a 2000 calorie RDA that would be 150 grams of protein. Another rule of thumb is to  multiply 1.1g per kilo of body weight or up to 1.8g if you’re looking to build muscle.

Protein breakdown in Cocorico chicken
This is a quick reference guide for the protein content in 100g of chicken:

Chicken fillet
Protein – 23.28g

Chicken inner fillet
Protein – 22.38g

Grilled chicken
Protein – 20.43g

Chicken breast
Protein – 19.16g

Chicken drumsticks
Protein – 19.16g

Chicken thighs with bone and skin
Protein – 19.16g

Chicken wings with skin
Protein – 16.83g

Chicken prime wings
Protein – 16.83g

Chicken gizzards
Protein – 16.76g

Chicken liver
Protein – 0.23g