Another healthy tip courtesy of Simone Gloger

Increase your protein intake to give your metabolism a boost!

Of all the food categories, the digestion of proteins is the most time consuming. It takes over three hours to break down and assimilate proteins. The reason for this is simple: protein molecules are long chains and to break them down requires the combination of good chewing and various gastric, pancreatic, and biliary juices to start the digestion process. This long process of calorie extraction taxes the system—it has been calculated that to obtain 100 calories from a protein food, the system must use 30 calories.

We can say that the specific dynamic action of proteins is 30 percent, while it is only 12 percent for fats and just 7 percent for carbohydrates. What we should remember from this is that when someone wanting to lose weight consumes meat, fish, or fat-free yogurt, the person has to work hard to simply digest and assimilate the food, and the calories they use doing this reduces the energy absorbed from the meal. This really works in the favor of anyone wanting to lose weight. Also, this slow rate of digestion and assimilation delays the process of emptying the stomach and increases our sense of “feeling full” and our sense of satisfaction.

– Simone Gloger, BSc, RHN, CPT – and lead Nutritionist for the Dukan Diet.