With more and more people piling on more weight and getting obese, the question on everyone’s lips seems to be “what’s the perfect diet and exercise routine to help lose fat?”
A group of scientists from the McMaster University has revealed the best way to lose fat. The scientists revealed a ‘gruelling’ low calorie, high protein diet and exercising six days a week is the key to losing weight while getting strong.
It was also revealed that study participants who followed the diet lost more weight while retaining more muscle when compared to those following a low protein diet.
The researchers studied 40 men who were asked to cut dietary energy by 40 percent of what they would normally require while also following a demanding six-days-a-week exercise routine.
The researchers divided the participants into two groups. Both groups went on low-calorie diets. The difference between both groups is that one of the groups had higher levels of protein than the other.
The researchers observed that the group who had higher levels of protein had muscle gains of an average 2.5 pounds despite consuming insufficient energy while the lower protein group didn’t add muscle.
While the high protein group gained more muscle, it was also observed that the high protein group also lost more fat than the low protein group. The high protein group lost an average of 10.5 pounds during the study.
Study author Dr Stuart Phillips, professor of kinesiology at McMaster had the following to say about the study: “We expected the muscle but we were a little surprised by the amount of additional fat loss in the higher protein consuming group”.
The study was published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
S.O.Z