I suppose this surprises some people. Protein diet plus exercise equals more weight loss:
To investigate, Layman, a nutrition professor at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, and his team studied 48 women, aged 40-56 years. The women were randomly assigned to one of four groups: a high-protein diet group, a high-protein diet group that exercised, a high-carbohydrate group and a high-carbohydrate group that exercised.The diets were equal in total energy, and were both ‘nutritionally sound,’ the researcher noted, allowing the women to consume recommended amounts of fruits, vegetables and dairy products, while controlling their servings of protein and carbohydrates, respectively.
Those who exercised were required to walk for at least 30 minutes a day for five days a week and to participate in a resistance training program twice a week, using weight machines.
At the end of the 16-week study period, women in all four groups lost a significant amount of weight, lost body fat and reduced their calorie intake, Layman and his team report in the Journal of Nutrition.
However, those who consumed the high-protein diet lost more body weight and total fat and less lean muscle mass than did those on the high-carbohydrate diet, the report indicates. Further, the addition of exercise, particularly to the high-protein diet, allowed women to lose even more body fat and preserve lean mass.
For example, women that consumed a high protein diet and exercised reduced their body fat by 21.4 percent, while those on the high-carbohydrate diet that did not exercise experienced a 12.8 percent drop in body fat, study findings show.