Physical activity and nutrition are an important part of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. At Oxford at Medical Center Apartments in San Antonio, Texas, we do our best to provide our residents with resourceful tips, exercise routines, and even recipes to help you reach your fitness goals.
As we all know, nutrition is a large part of reaching your fitness goals. Although we might attribute fresh starts with the new year, any time of year is the appropriate time to make the switch, when it comes to searching for ways to get in shape and shed excess pounds. Take a high-protein diet, for instance. This type of diet recommends that you consume a large amount of protein-rich foods, all while avoiding carbohydrates. This approach will help to satisfy your hunger and keep your appetite in check.
People following the high-protein diet swear that their meals of meat, fish, dairy products, eggs, and cheese are helping them keep off pounds, just in time for summer – but is the diet healthy or sustainable over the long term?
According to nutritionists, high-protein diets are healthy – if followed within reason. If you consume too much protein, you could accidentally put unnecessary strain on your kidneys. This can lead to a host of other problems, one of the more minor being chronic dehydration. If your high-protein diet includes a lot of fat and high-fat meats, like sausage, you could up your risk for certain cancers and diseases, too.
As for weight loss, following a strict, high-protein diet can result in a slimmer you. But, you should know that most of the weight you’ll lose from this kind of diet will be water weight. That's because carbs, which this diet actively avoids, carry water in the body. So, when you abstain from eating them, you’ll naturally lose the weight these carbs packed on. However, there is a catch: though you may quickly shed the weight, you’ll also quickly gain it back, if you don’t continue to follow a strict low-carb diet.
If you want to enjoy the benefits of a high-protein diet, many nutritionists recommend you also find ways to incorporate fruit, vegetables, and healthy carbs into your meal plans, too. That way, you’ll set yourself up for long-term success with a well-rounded nutrition plan that doesn’t result in instant weight loss, but rather healthy weight loss with proper diet and exercise.