Make this change and kill stress by 50%. Side effect: you'll lose 11 pounds of fat, too.
You can lose 11 pounds in about two months. For most, that means eating 750 calories below maintenance every day.
Eat less and lose weight? Shocking, right? But there's more to this story.
Depending on how you do the diet, you could be leaner and ALSO 50% less stressed. Same calorie deficit, same weight loss, but very different psychological outcomes.
And you don't have to wait two months. The improvements begin to show up at about day 15.
The difference is protein intake. High-protein dieters cut their stress by half.
We know high-protein diets cause less hunger and more muscle retention. Those are the main reasons we use MD Protein ➔ Buy at Biotest with any diet plan. But these findings about stress are new.
The study
Sixty overweight people (average weight 218 pounds) took the DASS-21 test which measures emotional states. Most had borderline or slightly elevated stress, anxiety, and depression scores.
Then they were divided into two groups. Both had their maintenance calorie intakes estimated and consumed an average of 750 calories below maintenance.
But here's the difference:
- One group consumed a high-protein diet: about 185 grams daily
- One group consumed a lower protein diet: about 90 grams – still more than most dimwitted dieticians recommend.
The diet lasted 60 days with psychological testing performed at days 15, 30, and 60.
Here's what happened
Both groups lost weight, about 11 pounds on average. No surprise there.
Here's where the results diverged. Standard dieting (lower protein) produced little to no improvement in mood, especially stress. But the high-protein dieters experienced a...
- 50% drop in stress
- 30% drop in depression
- 55% drop in anxiety
Both groups got leaner, but one group got a whole lot happier. And these positive effects showed up early – 15 days in.
Why did this happen?
Fat loss alone doesn't explain such rapid mood shifts. The researchers think the protein dieters were simply more satiated. This led to less irritability, diet stress, and food noise.
But high-protein diets also improve insulin sensitivity, reduce glycemic variability, and stabilize energy levels. That means a steady mood via metabolic and inflammatory improvements.
How to use this info
Calorie deficits matter, but where those calories come from play a big role in muscle preservation and diet compliance. And now we can add another benefit: psychological improvements, especially stress and anxiety.
The protein dieters got about 30% of their calories from protein – 185 grams daily for most. That not a bad number to shoot for if you're an average overweight person.
For lifters who need to lose around 10 pounds, it's better to aim for about a gram per pound of body weight. You'll feel fuller, keep more muscle, and according to this study, be a lot less stressed.
MD Protein ➔ Buy at Biotest has additional benefits for dieters. Whey isolate spikes metabolism while micellar casein prolongs satiety. Micellar casein is also highly anticatabolic – it protects muscle better than any other protein, even while in a calorie deficit. As a bonus, it's a low-carb flavor bomb.
For more info, check out: Protein: The 3-scoop diet strategy.
Reference
- Hashemi Javaheri, Fatemeh Sadat, et al. The Effect of a Low-Calorie, High-Protein Diet on Psychometric Variables in Obese Individuals: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Nutritional Neuroscience, 2023.