THE MORE YOU BASE your diet on natural, unprocessed foods, the better you feel and the easier you find it to lose weight. You get more protein, vitamins, minerals and gut-friendly fibre from natural and minimally processed foods. You naturally eat fewer calories, experience fewer cravings, feel fuller for longer and your energy will stabilise. You also absorb fewer calories from natural foods because digesting them is more complex. Depending on what you eat, as much as 10-25 per cent of calories can be used during digestion.
Protein is a powerful macronutrient that we often don’t get enough of. Hair, skin and nails need a good supply to keep them strong and healthy. Protein makes the collagen and elastin that keep skin smooth and firm, and muscles need it to repair and grow after exercise. It’s essential for cell renewal and repair. The older you get, the more essential it becomes, and it’s especially significant for post-menopausal women.
Research shows eating more protein improves your body composition. Most of us would like our bodies to be more toned and a higher protein diet can give you that. Researchers compared a group of post-menopausal women eating a low-protein diet with a group eating a high-protein diet. The women who ate the highprotein diet had less fat and more muscle, even though they ate more calories.
