Protein Much?

 Whether you are trying to add muscle or burn fat, one thing you may want to take into consideration is your protein to carbohydrate to fats macro-nutrient ratio.  You may have the hang of eating more nutrient dense foods, and truly, that is key.  You certainly wouldn't want to replace the vegetables that you eat with other protein sources. Honestly, you wouldn't want to even replace the fruits with them, well, other than unless you had more than 2 or 3 servings of fruit as even Tom Venuto, in his book "The Body Fat Solution" suggests that fruit is a perfectly fine source of nutrition, let alone Dr. Fuhrman.  But, something important to remember is that lean meat sources, fish, white meat chicken, poultry, and the leaner beef/steaks and wild game, are ALL very thermic (thermogenic) foods. Meaning that they will take TWO to THREE times as much natural energy to burn as carb sources do and protein has TEN times the thermic effect of fats.  So, even though lean meats aren't very full of phyto-nutrients, they sure can act as natural catalysts to a leaner, healthier body!  Not to mention, we can also actually get our protein needs through legumes, beans, peas and nuts! Be sure to include within most meals a nice protein source.  This is particularly important for those who are insulin resistant which is often undetected and tough to beat without a much higher protein intake.  Your daily percentage of protein grams, all foods included, for optimal performance should be equal to at least 30% of your overall diet but no more than 35% for the healthy adult.

Whatever you do, remember that proteins are only building blocks for tissue, no more, no less.  So, if you figure that just electively dumping an extra truckload of wood onto the lawn is helpful to a builder who is trying to repair a home in good time, then perfect, add in about 50 or 100 extra grams of protein into your daily diet! Just keep two things in mind, first, you're by far overloading your system and slowly destroying your liver which will only have to work to rid the body of all the excess and second, your body will not repair the damaged tissue any faster at all as a result of all that extra protein. I might also add that when Lou, Arnold and Stallone were on the rise and building muscle fast, they were using about 30/35 grams a day back then, total! If it worked for them, it would work for you too. Extra protein is completely senseless. Too little is not good either.