A high-protein diet can make regular exercise more effective for women trying to lose weight — helping to build muscle while trimming body fat, a small study suggests.
In a four-month period, the protein-rich diet along with exercise significantly reduced abdominal fat and triglycerides, risk factors for heart disease, according to findings published in the August issue of the Journal of Nutrition.
"People thinking about doing exercise want a return on that investment," said Donald K. Layman, a professor of nutrition at the University of Illinois' Urbana-Champaign campus, who led the study. "Our way of looking at it is the protein-rich diet basically boosts the benefit of doing exercise."
The research was funded by the Illinois Council on Food and Agricultural Research, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Kraft Foods and the Beef Board.
Forty-eight women took part in the study, eating about 1,700 calories per day. Half ate a diet rich in meat and dairy while half ate a diet that contained more complex carbohydrates, such as rice or pasta.
Each group was then split between women who were asked to walk 30 minutes a day, five days a week, and women who were required to walk at least that much and participate in two 30-minute weightlifting sessions per week.
The low-exercise group was voluntary and averaged less than 100 minutes per week. The other group was supervised and averaged more than 200 minutes of exercise per week, Layman said.
All the women who exercised at least 200 minutes per week lost about the same amount of weight whether they ate a high-protein or a high-carb diet. But almost all the weight lost by those who ate the protein diet was fat, while almost one-third of the weight lost by those on the high-carb diet was muscle.
Steve - While many other studies have shown the same, we need to apporach this one with caution because of who funded it.
No comments:
Post a Comment