If anyone were to ask me “What is one dietary change that someone can make that will make the biggest difference in how their body looks?” my answer will easily be – “A high-protein breakfast”. The idea of making your breakfast a high-protein one, containing at least 20-30g of protein is not new. High protein diets that work fast date as far back as 50 years ago, starting with the original Atkins-style diet. Unfortunately, these diets often result in a rebound weight gain, because your body quickly gets used to the higher protein intake and up-regulates your metabolism.
However, just making your breakfast a high-protein one, without making any other changes to your eating/fitness habits can boost your metabolism by as much as 300% and enable your body to quickly start getting rid of stored fat, especially stubborn one like belly and thigh fat.
Why does a high-protein breakfast work?
You’d be surprised at how well it works. Most fitness models that I know use this. It is a very easy way to enable your body to burn fat, while at the same time putting on muscle, which leads to even more fat-loss and very good muscle tone, which is extremely important for us women.
My breakfast is always a high-protein one, unless I plan on having a very draining workout soon. This is easily the one thing that has improved my physique the most!
A high-protein breakfast works by three mechanisms – it increases leptin, boosts metabolism and requires additional calories to break down. Your body turns a certain amount of the protein you ingest into glucose, by using a process called gluoconeogenesis. This process requires some energy, which in itself burns calories and fires your metabolism even more.
What is the best high-protein breakfast recipe that I use?
I personally use this simple smoothie recipe, but you can use whatever you like. Any smoothie with protein powder will do. A good replacement for whey protein, in case you don’t like it, are natural nut proteins, like hemp protein or sesame protein, which is basically the natural seeds, which they squeeze to get the oil out of, resulting in a 50% protein powder.
Are there any cons to such a breakfast?
Just one. It’s inconvenient. However, you can easily get around this, by making a simple smoothie with whey protein. The goal is a breakfast, containing at least 20g, ideally 30g of protein, and being less than 400 kcal. Skim milk combined with whey protein is a good way to go. A salad that contains meat or fish is best, but not a lot of people are willing to prepare such a dish first thing in the morning!
If you want to give this trick a try, go ahead. Try it for a month and see how it goes. You will notice results, I can guarantee that! Most people who fail to lose weight do the exact opposite – their breakfast consists of whole-bread cereals, low-fat biscuits and other commonly advertised “health-foods”. It is not unlikely that such breakfast will contain 300-500 calories, while being high in carbohydrates and providing less than 10 grams of protein. This is a very easy way to shut down your metabolism, decrease leptin and make sure your body stores excess calories as stubborn fat!
Posted on Feb 07th by Angelina Wright