I have spoken before about how Atkins is only a short term solution but raising the protein in your diet is a great way to speed up your metabolism and accelerate weight loss.. A study here shows that this is in fact true.
There have been countless studies performed on the role of protein in the muscle growth process to try and determine exactly how much protein you should consume to build muscle mass. Recently, several studies have looked at the role that dietary protein plays in helping you lose fat, and more importantly, helping you keep it off!
One thing scientists have discovered is that eating lean protein foods is important for regulating body composition because it decreases your appetite.
In a 2003 study reported in the journal Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition And Metabolic Care, protein was shown to be more satiating (made you feel fuller) than both carbohydrate and fat both in the short term and the long term.
Eating more lean protein foods has also been proven as an effective strategy to help you burn fat and keep it off because of something called, dietary thermogenesis (also known as the thermic effect of food).
In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition in 2005 (93(2): 281-289), researchers followed a group of 113 over subjects after 4 weeks of a very low calorie diet, through a 6 month period of maintenance. The subjects were divided into a protein group or a control group. The protein group was simply given an extra 30 grams of protein per day on top of their usual diet.
The researchers found that during maintenance, the group with the higher protein intake was less likely to regain the lost weight, and any gain in the protein group was lean tissue and not fat. The results were attributed to higher thermic effect and a decrease in appetite.