Are you on a strength and muscle-building quest? How about melting fat and improving your health, decreasing cholesterol and clearing arteries? Well, some say that there is one very special tool to make all these dreams come true – High Protein Diet. And that is what bodybuilders want – more protein, more muscles, just more of the hard lean stuff.

To start with, any diet will work for some people depending on what they want to achieve, as long as they choose it correctly and stick with the plan. Not just for a week or two, but for as long as it takes to get 'there' – wherever that 'there' is. The overly simplified formula for weight loss is to decrease the amount of food you put in your mouth and increase your physical activity; the reverse goes for weight gain.

You know you need energy from food, or calories, to keep your body going and it really matters where you get these from, at least we are starting to discover. Science and experience tell us that there is more to calories ingested and used up. High-Protein Diets, such as Atkins, Zone, Stillman, Protein Power, Sugar Busters and South Beach diets, claim that if most of your fuel comes from meat, fish, eggs, dairy and soy, you burn body fat for energy without wasting lean tissues more efficiently than when you eat sugars and starch. What's more, engaging in intense exercise program and eating additional protein will build you bigger and stronger muscles than you thought possible.

Gaining so much attention lately, the importance of nutrients became common sense, but most people don't know exactly how the mechanism works in our bodies. From High-Carb and Low-Fat of the past century, we have moved to the latest trend – High Protein Diets. Even though carbohydrates are the primary fuel for the brain and all other tissues, time has shown that in real life people gain fat very easily on these as a result of overconsumption. Indeed, sugars push the brain into a very pleasant state, spark the energy and get the muscles working non-stop. As much as you enjoy it, this ride doesn't last long – carbs burn fast. That's not bad. The bad stuff is that they get down the stomach even faster without any notice and leave the stomach within an hour. This is when the pleasing sensation stops. You want to continue the 'carb-experience', so you get more in.

More food in means more calories in to the point when the body says: “I can't use all this stuff that quickly, so I better store some in the liver and muscles for later. If I get more than these are able to hold, I have plenty of room in the fat cells.” And the stores become fuller, and fuller, and fuller. So, the body fat mass grows larger, and larger and larger. But your hunger, an evil friend, doesn't know that. The 'stored' carbs don't have the privilege of giving you the same 'high' you get from sugars. Despite the fat you have inside, your hormones, neurochemicals keep working on a regular basis, the heart keeps beating, the stomach juices keep releasing, and the fat just sits there in solitude quite happy with its being. How can you get rid of that boring fat, keep the hunger at bay, enjoy the food and still have energy to work out?

High-Protein Diet may help. Most associate Protein-High Diets with weight-loss and muscle mass. The reason is that protein takes longer to be digested and metabolized, is more satisfying and is not as fattening as sugars and fats. Seems like this is the way to solve your life-time bodybuilding problems, right? Do these High-Protein diets really work or is it just another hoax of modern times that will show irreversible health damage in the long run?

What Is Protein

Proteins are your body's food. They function as enzymes, hormones and antibodies helping you build skin, muscles, bones and hair and are also used for energy. Every cell in our body is constructed from the protein we get from foods. Composed of amino acids, proteins are metabolized to water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen through the process of transamination and oxidation. Your body constantly builds and loses tissues and cells – this chain of events known as protein turnover which dictates not only the size of your muscles and the health of your entire system, but your amino acid requirements as well. How much protein you need differs from person to person depending on genetic and lifestyle factors.

How High-Protein Diets Work

Different diets have different purposes, such as weight loss or weight gain, cholesterol reduction and insulin control to name a few. However, fitness conscious people look for diets that will help them burn as much body fat and build as much muscle mass as genetically possible. And High-Protein Diets came to be quite handy - simply eat more protein-rich foods and cut down on fats and carbohydrates to see your razor-sharp muscular striations and never worry about cellulite or bloating. The premise that the source of dietary calories effects whether you burn your fat stores or lean tissue for energy puts protein on top of the muscle-friendly lard-melting foods.

• Protein demands a lot more energy for its digestion than any other nutrients. In other words, your body has to work hard and burn multitudinous number of calories just to get the amino acids into your cells. This is referred to as the thermic effect of food, and protein has the highest. This thermic effect makes energy you get from protein-rich foods less likely to be deposited as fat. After you drink your protein shake, storing dietary amino acids as body protein costs approximately 24 percent of the calories these contain. At the same time, making use of glucose takes 7 percent and depositing food fat as body fat costs only 3 percent of available energy.

• There is another feature that makes High-Protein Diets so potent in their weight-loss effect. Scientists have discovered that eating protein-rich foods leads to the production of the peptide YY (PYY) in the body - a protein which prevents hunger and reduces appetite. Studies have found that genetically engineered mice that could not produce the PYY protein consumed more food and became obese even when their energy and protein intake was abundant.

• The Protein-rich diet induces fat loss. With all the protein you eat, and especially if this protein is of high quality, you get all the needed amino acids for body's functions. What is especially interesting is that one particular amino acid, Leucine, works together with hormone Insulin in stimulating protein synthesis in muscle.
  
  The extra protein reduces muscle loss, and if your carbs are kept low and Leucine high, your insulin levels never peak. This mechanism makes your body burn all the calories from food AND body fat for energy without wasting muscles or sending the extra calories to your spare tire. You get a slow steady release of all the delicious foods without going hungry for a long time.

• Besides losing fat, High-Protein Diets promise you strong muscles through positive nitrogen status. Exercise increases the body's anabolic efficiency, speeding up the rate of cellular turnover. The result – quicker breakdown and construction of new material in the body. Protein is exactly the nutrient that assists in this process giving a shine of health to all new cells, tissues, organs, body parts, and even sparking functions!
  
  By adding protein to your diet you give your muscles the stuff to grow on. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs complete muscle protein turnover, if you want your limited muscle cells to hypertrophy, or to enlarge, you need to increase your protein and amino acid intake in order to improve muscle quality in strength, power, function and size. Theoretically, High-Protein Diets help you get rid of the old muscle and build up new, more functional muscle cells to take their place more efficiently.

Side Effects of High-Protein Diets

Medical professionals warn that the dangers of High-Protein Diets include hemolytic anemia, high blood cholesterol levels, abnormal liver function, renal tubular acidosis, kidney stones and spontaneous bone fractures (despite calcium supplementation).

• Protein is not a very efficient energy source for the body to use. Humans are genetically and structurally designed to survive predominantly on plant foods rich in carbohydrates – lack of these disturbs many normal functions in the body, both physical and mental since brain, kidneys, liver, heart all depend on sugars to work properly. At rest, the brain consumes about 80 percent of all body energy needs and the only fuel it runs best on is glucose which cannot be manufactured from fat.
  
  Physically we are able to survive on stores of adipose and muscle tissue, but the disturbed metabolism makes the body produce ketones, an emergency fuel with toxic by-products. The build-up of ketones deranges the body’s balance of acids and alkalines causing a condition called acidosis. Think of it as being Type 1 diabetic, eating a big cake and having no insulin to inject – the brain goes crazy and the liver doesn't know how to deal with all the extra protein calories confusing its way to giving the needed cellular energy. Even though you may burn some fat at first, the weight-loss ketosis cannot last forever as you will feel the need for glucose energy. Once you start consuming carbohydrate-containing fruits, vegetables, or beans, the ketosis ends and the meat and fat become fattening again.

• High-Protein Diets may even be toxic for the liver and kidneys. Protein digestion, which takes place in the liver, raises the levels of uric acid in the blood, a harmful by-product normally excreted by your body. The more protein you consume, the more uric acid your body has to deal with through additional kidney work and flushing a lot of water. Essentially, this dehydration is the first step of how you lose weight on High-Protein Diets. Aging naturally degrades kidney function and by the eighth decade of life, most people naturally lose about 30 percent of their kidney function. High-Protein Diets speed up that process leading to kidney problems which are not shown even on the blood tests until the condition becomes chronic and the impairment may already be irreversible.

• Too much protein may affect the absorption of Calcium, disturb Potassium and Magnesium balance, and nay bring other minerals out of sync. Splitting proteins into amino acids which can be absorbed releases acids that the body usually neutralises with Calcium. This important mineral is now used to help protein digestion instead of building bones, facilitating muscle contraction and controlling neural adaptation.
  
  Besides, High-Protein Diets induce water excretion from the body, so your electrolytes are naturally flushed out of the system. This may lead to edema, dehydration, indigestion, bloating and poor performance, both physical and mental. Since you need Calcium for muscular contractions at the gym, and Magnesium for relaxation and growth, High-Protein intake will just strip you of these two most important bodybuilding needs. And this is just a piece of your entire protein cake.
  

• Eating more protein usually means cutting out fruit, vegetables, grains and pulses main sources of antioxidants and bioflavonoids, such as vitamins A, E, C, B , certain minerals and fibre. Deficiency of these upgrades your risk of any disease you can imagine while lowering your immunity in the short and long run. Want immediate results? You got these too - induced constipation and lack of energy, sluggish metabolism and dysfunctional Gastrointestinal Tract common with High-Protein Diets.
  

• Other common discomforts of a high protein diet can include bad breath, bad body odor, constipation, dehydration, dizziness, headache, mental fatigue, sleep problems and nausea. If you are very ready to burn fat and build muscles, be ready for the side effects of High-Protein Diets. The American Dietetic Association, the American College of Sports Medicine, the Women's Sports Foundation and the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research issued a joint statement saying that high-protein diet plans are not the solution for weight loss or for athletic performance and may even be harmful. Some people do lose some weight in the beginning on these high-protein diets because they provide very few calories. But, over the long term, they may deprive your body of the energy it needs to function, and they are often inadequate in some other major nutrients.
  

OK, noone has banned amino acids yet. And will never do. With all the beautiful functions of protein, you still can and should eat plenty of it, but make sure that your diet is complete.

Recommendations For High-Protein Diets

Bodybuilders are notorious for gorging on protein. Yes, athletes and serious weight lifters have a need for more protein, but they also need more fat and carbohydrates. In other words, more food and calories, not just protein best achieved from a balanced diet. Excess protein will not build bigger muscles – only plenty of exercise and carbohydrate energy will. In fact, a diet high in protein and fat, but low in carbohydrate, can significantly reduce the performance of endurance-sports athletes.

- Eat Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats In Balance

Go for the protein intake that allows maximal functioning of all metabolic processes, prevents excessive oxidation of amino acids and production of urea, produces ideal body size and composition for your particular training regimen. To boost your strength and performance, create workouts that work for you and eat balanced meals more often. The current recommendation is that proteins make up around 15-20 percent of your total calories for the day. Protein has four calories per gram, so for a 2000 calorie-a-day diet you could eat 75-100 grams of protein. Consume adequate dietary carbohydrates and fats (55-60% and 15-20% of total energy intake respectively – attribute the remaining fuel portion to protein) in order to maintain training intensity.

- Drink More Water

Since this type of diet does place additional demands on the kidneys, hydration is paramount. Boosting your amino acid intake naturally makes you thirsty due to the diuretic effect on the cellular level. Levels of your hormones involved in fluid balance (such as ADH or Anti-Diuretic, Renin, and Atrial Peptide) are altered and proper hydration may help to balance your electrolyte levels. Drinking more water than the standard recommendation of eight glasses of a day will help help your body to excrete any excess ammonia from digesting the proteins and will help to minimize any potential kidney damage. If you train hard and consume a lot of protein, down extra four to eight glasses of water throughout the day to get the most and the best out of your protein synthesis.

- Get Nourishment From Plants

Last but not least, keep your fiber from grains, fruit and vegetables and healthy fats from fish, olives and flaxseed up. This will also give you an edge in Micro-Nutrients, so much needed for the top-notch metabolism and electrifying workouts! Plus, the goodies from nature will shoot your immunity through the roof keeping you in the gym even during the Flu and Cold seasons. One of the terrific prizes you get from eating the crunchy rainbow of fruit, veggies, grains and legumes is your happy digestive system – anybody's dream! Better digestion means better nutrient, and protein use. Remember – High-Protein Diets are a GI nightmare. And if you are still obsessed about protein, let it come from good lean sources – seafood, egg whites, fatless meats and a combination of unprocessed grains and legumes.

References

1. Bankhead, C. 1998. Ketogenic diet can cause serious adverse effects, data suggests. Medical Tribune 39 (17): 23.

2. Brenner, B.M., T.W. Meyer, and T.H. Hostetter. 1982. Dietary protein intake and the progressive nature of kidney disease: the role of the hemodynamically mediated glomerular injury in the pathogensis of progressive glomerular sclerosis in aging, renal ablation and intrinsic renal disease. N. Eng. J. Med. 307 (11): 652-59.

3. Clark, B. 2000. Biology of renal aging in humans. Adv. Ren. Replace. Ther. 7 (1): 11-21.

4. Fouque, D., P. Wang, M. Laville, and J.P. Boissel. 2000. Low protein diets delay end-stage renal disease in non-diabetic adults with chronic renal failure. Nephrol. Dial. Transplant 15 (12): 1986-92.

5. Gin, H., V. Rigalleau, and M. Aparicio. 2000. Lipids, protein intake, and diabetic nephropathy. Diabetes Metab. 26 (supp. 4): 45-53.

6. Holm, E.A., and K. Solling. 1996. Dietary protein restriction and progression of chronic renal insufficiency: a review of literature. J. Intern. Med. 239 (2): 99-104.

7. Kasiske, B.L., J.D. Lakatua, J.Z. Ma, and T.A. Louis. 1998. A meta-analysis of the effects of dietary protein restriction on the rate of decline of renal function. Am. J. Kidney Dis. 31 (6): 954-61.

8. Lambert, C., Frank, L., Evans, W. 2004. Sports Medicine. Oral amino-acid provision does not affect muscle strength or size gains in older men. 34(5):317-327.

1. Licata, A.A., E. Bow, F.C. Bartler, et al. 1979. Effect of dietary protein on urinary calcium in normal subjects and in patients with nephrolithiasis. Metabolism 28: 895;
   

2. Robertson, W.G., P.J. Heyburn, M. Peacock, et al. 1979. The effect of high animal protein intake on the risk of calcium stone formation in the urinary tract. Clin. Sci. 57: 285;
   

3. Brokis, J.G., A.S. Levitt, and S.M. Cruthers. 1982, The effect of vegetable and animal protein diet on calcium, urate and oxalate excretion. Br. J. Urol. 54: 590;
   

4. Robertson, W.G., M. Peacock, P.J. Heyburn, et al. 1981. The risk of calcium stone formation in relation to affluence and dietary animal protein, in Brokis, J.G., and B. Finlayson, eds. Urinary calculus, International Urinary Stone Conference. Littleton, Colo.: PSG Publishing, p. 3.

5. Pedrini, M.T., A.S. Levey, J. Lau, T.C. Chalmers, and P.H. Wang. 1996. The effect of dietary protein on the progression of diabetic and nondiabetic renal disease: a meta-analysis. Ann. Intern. Med. 124 (7): 627-32.

6. Rosman, J.B. 1995. Protein restriction in diet therapy in chronic kidney insufficiency. Ther. Umsch. 52 (8): 515-18; Zeller, K.R. 1991. Low-protein diets in renal disease. Diabetes care 14 (9): 856-66.