Yep, you read that right! Eating MORE protein can lead you to lose weight and feel more satisfied throughout the day. Protein is necessary for everyone, yes, even you vegans and vegetarians! A high protein diet is beneficial to the human body for many reasons, but here are our top five. 

1. Build. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, and skin. Your hair and nails are comprised of mostly protein.
2. Repair. Your body uses it to build and repair tissue.
3. Oxygenate. Red blood cells contain a protein compound that carries oxygen throughout the body. This helps supply your entire body with the nutrients it needs.
4. Digest. About half the dietary protein that you consume each day goes into making enzymes, which aid in digesting food and making new cells and body chemicals.
5. Regulate. Protein plays an important role in hormone regulation, especially during the transformation and development of cells during puberty.

The first five reasons laid out above are just general functions that proteins provide for us on a day-to-day basis. If any of the functions above are a bit out of balance for you, we recommend you track how much protein you consume in a typical week. The generally prescribed diet calls for 1 gram of protein per 1lb of body weight. So quick math, hehe, let's say you weigh 145lbs, you would want to be consuming 145g of protein a day. That's why adding in one of our ICONIC Protein Shakes or two, is key for us to make sure our bodies are getting the goods they need to fuel us.

Alright now onto the aesthetic reasons why we are going to advocate for a higher protein diet. Likely, if you are reading this or have an interest in ICONIC products, you at some level care about what you look like. That is not a bad thing! In our culture, we are inundated with images of people we want to look like. We have body goals, booty goals, and lots of goals in between. Basically, someone somewhere else has the body you dream of, and here you are trying day by day to make that dream a reality. There may be a slew of reasons as to why that has not yet happened for you but we hope that by the end of this, you would see that protein is a powerful tool to be used in reaching whatever goals you have. Listed below are 5 fitness benefits of eating high-protein foods.  

1. Speeding recovery after exercise and/or injury
2. Reducing muscle loss
3. Building lean muscle
4. Helping maintain a healthy weight
5. Curbing hunger

Protein is not the catch-all for as to why your body doesn't look exactly like you imagined it would, or the sole reason you are not gaining or losing weight. But protein can and will play a pivotal role in making good changes in and for your body. 

Before you make a drastic change in diet, meet with a certified nutritionist to make sure you’re meeting all your nutritional needs. Remember, it’s important to consume complete proteins throughout your day, whether you’re a meat-eater, vegetarian or vegan.

https://www.piedmont.org/living-better/why-is-protein-important-in-your-diet