Lose Weight Program > Proteins

The third kind of calorie comes from proteins. These are substances with some of the characteristics of glue - the white of egg is an example - distinguished also for their content of nitrogen. All meat, including your own, contains large amounts of protein, which is the characteristic building material of the soft tissues.



When the normal wear and tear of keeping alive breaks down your body cells, fats and carbohydrates turn a deaf ear to tbe cry for belp. "Let George do it" is their attitude, so along comes George Protein with a load of lath, plaster, and rivets to shore up your sagging tissues. These constructive items are delivered in the form of some rather amazing substances called amino acids, which rate a section all their own in Cbapter 6.

In addition to running a building-supply company, a fraction of the proteins can also be burned to yield beat. And they keep you in what the doctors call nitrogen equilibrium, wbich, in essence, means that there is enough of this element, in you, along with other factors of protein foodstuffs, to keep your body from tearing down its own vital tissues destructively. Proteins provide the raw stuff out of which certain of your glands manufacture some pretty fascinating secretionshormones of the tbyroid and adrenal glands, for instance. Vigor and virility just don't exist without proteins.

Do you begin to see how the temperamental differences of the three kinds of calories affect your diet? One gram of protein or of carbohydrate yields 4 calories. One gram of fat gives 9 calories - more than twice as much. Sucb proteins and carbohydrates in equal amounts yield equal calories, you might think them interchangeable in the diet.

Far from it! Temperament counts! The new knowledge of nutrition gives proteins an increasingly important role, especially in reducing diets.

It is well worth your while, if you yearn to become a high-stepping, high-protein girl or a gentleman of vigor, to see what the scientists have to say about the role of these energetic food elements in giving you a slim figure.

How Proteins Help You Get Slim

During the World Wars, thousands of Europeans became overweight from undernourishment. They weren't really fat. They were waterlogged. Their tissues held fluids in such abnormal amounts that when a fingertip was pressed into the flesh, a pitlike depression remained for some time. They also suffered an emotional depression. No steam, no zest for life, no come-hitherness or even any interest in it.

Later, when well-balanced diets became available, this torpidity vanished. The fat, puffy bodies became normally slender and once again the Europeans whistled while they worked. No doubt they also whistled once more at the pretty girl passing by across the street. The water retention from which they had suffered is called edema, and their particular brand of it, caused by inadequate diet, is "hunger edema."

What element was it in the new and better diets that drove out this surplus water? To a large extent, protein! Experiment has repeatedly proved that adequate protein helps to keep the liquid balance of your body at normal levels. Since 70 per cent of your weight is represented by water in one form or another, you can see what a difference protein can make on your bathroom scales. There are, of course, other factors involved in edema-it isn't that protein always does the job singlehanded, but that other protective factors can't operate if protein is deficient.


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