Protein, a vital component of every cell found in your body, offers the raw material to build and repair muscles, bones, skin, and other tissues. It’s also deemed instrumental in keeping your energy at peak levels – but how and how consistently throughout the day? Here are some answers.
An essential macro nutrient, protein is made up of amino acids, which are typically called the building blocks of protein. This macro nutrient can be found in a range of food sources, mostly in meats like beef and pork, fish, and poultry and dairy products. Seeds, beans, and nuts also offer plenty of protein in every serving.
It is massively crucial to have enough protein in one’s diet, given the fact that when your cells require it there’s nowhere to draw from. Your body is not storing excess protein like it does carbs and fats, the other macro nutrient groups.
Now how does protein become instrumental in obtaining energy? According to studies, high-protein diets increase satiety levels and reduce hunger pangs. Thus a high protein diet could be helpful in preventing body fat fain, decreasing your overall daily food consumption, and stabilizing glucose.
Compare this with carb-rich foods, which lead to a spike in blood sugar followed by an inevitable crash. In the process of digestion, the body converts these carbs into glucose and therefore sharply increases blood levels of it. The pancreas then takes its cue in releasing insulin to transport the glucose to cells for use, or for conversion into glycogen for storage. The “crash” takes place when suddenly there’s no glucose flowing through the bloodstream.
When you consume more protein, insulin remains more stable, and glucose is removed from your bloodstream at a much slower pace. This prevents a crash, and one of the primary reasons why experts agree that protein should be incorporated in most meals and snacks. Sustaining energy via food could involve, for instance, a protein paired with a healthy carb or fat, such as a hard-boiled egg with a small cheese.
It’s serious business to keep going throughout the day while avoiding a carbohydrate crash from taking place. The proposed solution: power up with protein as soon as breakfast, and make it a powerful component of your meals and snacks as you go about your daily routine.
Protein, however, is not the end all, be all of sustaining energy throughout the day to meet life’s mounting daily demands. Apart from a balanced diet and smart lifestyle choices, supplementation proves to be a key ingredient in enhancing energy and mental performance for a range of everyday tasks and undertakings.
The energy supplement game, for instance, include nootropics, a rising superstar in the industry. These are deemed helpful in powering up your cognitive function, and are often referred to as “smart drugs.” while not readily designed to increase intelligence or IQ in any way, nootropics are supportive of energy and mental abilities such as focus, memory retention, and constant mental and even physical fatigue.
Your diet has proven time and time again that it’s the first big step toward improving your energy. It wouldn’t hurt, however, to explore the assistance that safe, high-quality, effective energy supplements could provide in this specific wellness mission.