Protein Is Here To Challenge Diet Culture & Liberate Us From Restrictive Eating Patterns

It's official: Gym rats are no longer the only ones prioritizing their protein intake. As we predicted in last year's Wellness Trends, protein is now helping people (especially women) lose fat, supercharge their metabolism, and get stronger1. 

And this isn't some fad diet. This is an eating pattern that promotes the mindset of more—more food, more muscle, more strength, more joy, more confidence, and more healthy years.

The term "dieting" often implies limiting one's food intake (and therefore protein intake) to drop the number on the scale. And diet culture has historically tricked us into believing that achieving weight loss of any kind is good, regardless of what type of mass we're losing. But there's so much wrong with this approach as far as protein is concerned. 

You see, eating protein-rich foods provides the body with the amino acids it needs to build all-important skeletal muscle. Having high levels of lean muscle mass increases your metabolic rate (since muscles burn more calories at rest than fat) and helps protect you from falls2, fractures, and osteoporosis as you age. If you're not eating enough protein, you won't have the building blocks your body needs to maintain this all-important muscle mass.

Instead of losing healthy muscle mass with restrictive dieting3, we're increasingly seeing people increase their protein intake to promote optimal health and body composition. 

Our social media feeds show how protein is already starting to challenge diet culture. This year, TikTok and Instagram have flooded with recipes sporting upward of 30, 40, to 50 grams of protein in a meal. We're seeing people adding protein powder to foods beyond shakes and smoothies (hello, protein cereal bars and pancakes), snacking on cottage cheese, and eating ground beef for breakfast. 

If your goal is fat loss, the nutrition science is clear: Eating more real, hearty protein can help.

A food's calorie count is an easy number to fixate on—it's often the most prominent callout on nutrition labels, after all. But at mindbodygreen, we've known for years that there's more to the story (even the fat loss story) than calories alone. Where those calories come from and when they're consumed also matter. 

Protein, compared to carbs or fat, is the best macronutrient for supporting metabolic health because of its thermic effect on the body4. The body has to spend more energy (calories) to break protein down, so eating more protein increases your daily energy expenditure or calorie burn.

Dietitian and renowned fitness coach Holly Baxter notes that protein can have a 20-30% thermic effect5, meaning, "if you eat 100 calories from protein, you'll be left with 70 [usable] calories because of its thermic effect," she says. Whereas dietary fat has a thermic effect of about 0. So 100 calories from fat equals 100 calories.

"Unless we use [those calories], they are stored. So you can see why substituting fat for protein, even if calories are matched, can make such a big impact on body fat loss," says Baxter. 

"The ideal amount of protein to consume has shifted dramatically," says Baxter. A growing number of health and nutrition experts now encourage people to get at least 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight a day. Though exact protein needs vary based on factors like age, activity level, and weight, most people will want to aim to get at least 100 grams a day.

Now, these may sound like big numbers (I'm a dietitian, and they seemed jarring to me at first). But, what are we comparing them to? Are they big compared to our previous suboptimal protein intake? Or are we still holding on to the belief that less of everything is better for our weight? 

The nutrition experts we talked to note that many women are still hesitant to adopt a higher-protein diet. "Emotional habits and ways of thinking are more challenging to break than anything," says Lyon. "We've been so ingrained to take things away that sometimes adding things can just feel uncomfortable for some people."

"There are some clients who I have to beg to get on board with this," LeVeque says. But once they do, she finds that it only takes a few weeks for their hesitancies to subside and their trust in themselves to grow.

At mindbodygreen, we've advocated for higher-protein diets for years, and it's exciting to watch prominent health and nutrition experts become more vocal about the importance of this macronutrient.