Pass The Protein Please

A month ago I wrote about my ongoing fight with my weight, and how weight training had helped me lose eight pounds and go down a dress size.  So far so good - the weight is still wandering around Siberia, and has been joined by another two pounds.

Becoming healthier and stronger through weight training is an ongoing goal for me.  But there is another important piece to the puzzle, one that women over forty often ignore.

Protein.

I am not a big fan of beef or fish.  By the way, this drives my husband crazy.  I have no idea why - I don't give him a hard time for not enjoying margaritas.  Anyway.  I don't mind chicken on occasion,  but I'm kind of picky about how it's prepared.  And as a woman constantly thinking about my weight, I've tended to stay away from eggs and cheese.

A new friend in my Zumba class happens to be a nutritionist, and one day she quizzed me about my diet.  As we delved into my typical eating habits, she suspected that I wasn't eating nearly enough protein on a daily basis.

It seems I'm not alone.  Approximately 1/3 of women don't get enough protein in their diet.   If you are active and want to know how many grams of protein you need daily, multiply your weight by .6.  If you are more sedentary, multiply times .4.  

My friend discovered that I was taking in about half the amount of protein I needed to keep my muscles humming along.  Oops.

Protein has many overall benefits, including helping prevent osteoporosis and diabetes and reducing blood pressure.  If you're trying to lose weight, it's even more beneficial. High protein foods take more work to digest and metabolize, so more calories are burned while processing them.  They also take longer to move on from your stomach, so you feel full sooner and for a longer period of time.

Whey protein is especially helpful for women in their 40's and beyond.  Whey is a high quality protein with a greater proportion of branched-chain amino acids.  These building blocks help build lean muscle mass.  More lean muscle mass means higher resting metabolism - and more weight loss.

Equally important is aiming for a chunk of that protein first thing in the morning, to help replenish your stores after a night of fasting.  This has the added benefit of helping to regulate your appetite all day.

It hasn't been hard to add protein into my day, now that I'm more aware.  Whey protein shakes, hard boiled eggs, greek yogurt, almonds, cottage cheese, protein bars, and string cheese have all become part of my diet.

I'm eating more chicken, and some steak on occasion.  I'll admit I was still a little worried that my weight would go up instead of down, but that hasn't happened.  I'm feeling fuller during the day, and those muscles are popping up here and there.

My husband is happy to hear me say, "pass the protein, please"!  Now about those margaritas... 

Linking up with Katherine's Corner