

Generally, studies show that smaller meals, spaced 2-3 hours apart, with a quality protein source in each mini-meal, provides the muscle tissue the nutrition they require to thrive. Refer to the diet charts in Live Right 4 Your Type. How much protein is right for you? Your Blood Type Diet is the ideal guide to not only the perfect protein sources ideally suited for you, but also the ideal amounts. The body requires protein to maintain and build muscle. It appears, protein alone had double the thermogenic potential over fat or carbs alone! Interestingly, when eating protein alone the subjects in this study burned 310 calories during this six hour period (an additional 40 calories).

When eating a single meal of carbohydrates alone or fat alone, the energy burned during this six-hour period reached 290 calories (an additional 20 calories). One significant study demonstrated that during the normal six-hour resting metabolism period, we typically burn about 270 calories. Not surprisingly, different foods have different effects on TEF, which gives us just one more reason knowing the best foods for your blood type. Using our resting (basal) metabolism as the starting point, the additional caloric expenditure that it takes to digest, absorb, and process the food you eat is called "The Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF)." The more frequent, smaller, nutrient-rich meals we eat, the more efficient the metabolism becomes! In fact, this has been measured. This is due to several reasons: With fewer meals, the body slows its metabolism, making the food we do eat harder to metabolize. Since these diets do nothing to increase active tissue mass, your metabolic rate remains unchanged or declines, leaving you predisposed to regain the weight you lost (or perhaps more) as soon as you resume normal eating." With diets that severely restrict calories, you may lose weight but also lose muscle tissue. "Maintaining a high percentage of active tissue is particularly important when you are trying to lose weight. D'Adamo explains, muscle is metabolically active tissue, requiring a great deal of caloric energy just to maintain it. These kinds of diets or even long periods during the day without eating can actually create a catabolic state of muscle burning to conserve energy. Severely-curtailed low-calorie diets can cause the body to go into "starvation and conservation" mode. Studies reveal that the weight one loses along with any temporary fat loss is typically muscle. Many people on typical "weight loss" diets are under the mistaken impression that eating "light" meals, or eating fewer and smaller meals during the day can help them lose weight. We literally feed and encourage either of these states mostly through the dietary choices we make. The body seeks a natural balance between these two alternating processes-with a preference towards anabolic. The body is in a continuous cycle of anabolic (muscle building) and catabolic (breaking muscle down). One of the body's natural cycles involves occasionally breaking muscle proteins down to be used for energy, a process called "protein turnover." When our body is working properly, we build muscle mass naturally through daily activity and regular exercise-combined with diet. If this slow-down in activity-and hence, muscle metabolism-isn't reversed through changes in diet and exercise, then excessive muscle loss is the result. As the muscle protein content of muscles diminish the muscles become fatigued more easily. Some studies go as far as assuming no relationship between muscle proteins and the raw materials from our diets that continually feed and build those muscles. Much of the research done on the relationship between aging and muscle loss often leaves diet out of the equation. One study revealed that women over the age of 35, for example, lose muscle mass at a rate of roughly one-third to one-half a pound each year. Did you know that just having more muscle causes your body to burn more calories while at rest than does being thinner with less muscle? Is Muscle Loss Inevitable with Age?Īs we age, we tend to lose muscle-which is much more likely if you're not eating a diet rich in muscle-building nutrients right for your blood type. For others, this may involve gaining or retaining muscle.Īchieving a healthy weight is about achieving the right balance of lean muscle to healthy body fat. For some, this means losing weight, naturally. The primary weight-related benefit is that this diet helps your body find and maintain it's ideal weight. With the Blood Type Diet, losing weight may be a happy side effect for some but it is not the main point. And achieving your body's ideal weight is more than just losing fat. The Blood Type Diet offers much more than weight loss. Eat Right and Burn Fat While Building Muscle
