Below is an excerpt from Part One of

The 2004 Multi-Diet

by Anderson A. Anonymous, M.D., Ph.D.

The Protein Factor

Most people know that dietary protein is essential for life and health. Not surprisingly, your body knows this too. It also knows when it's not getting enough protein. That's when it wakes up The Beast to "stimulate" you to go eat.

When this happens, The Beast usually tries to make you eat things that will probably have some amount of protein in them but which will certainly have a whole lot more fat or other calories besides. That's why you don't want to let The Beast choose what you eat---you reserve that decision for yourself.

As with the other Multi-Diet Vital Factors, you do this by consciously making sure you get the right amount of the right type of protein each day without the other Calories. The Beast is not smart enough to learn how to do this, but you (the rational, conscious mind) are smart enough.

A convenient rule-of-thumb for estimating how much protein you should try to eat when dieting is simply to divide your weight in pounds by 2. The result is the approximate number of grams of high-quality protein you need per day. (You will find a much more precise way to calculate your personal protein needs when dieting in MORE ON... PROTEIN on page 177 in Part Two.)

[Note: My international readers can use approximately one gram of protein for each kilogram of body weight.]

In practice, this rule-of-thumb calculation means you'll probably be eating between 9 and 12 oz daily of high-protein foods (fish, chicken, or very lean beef). These are somewhat higher amounts of protein than the RDI amounts, but despite this, they are still slightly lower than the ideal amounts for dieters. Researchers studying the issue of Very Low Calorie Diets (VLCDs) in the '70s and '80s discovered that more than the RDI was needed to minimize the net loss of body protein while dieting.

Most food labels state the number of grams of protein in the food. This provides a convenient, although not perfect, tool for tracking how much protein you actually eat.

Your body has no ability to store dietary protein. This means you can't just eat a big steak on one day and then forget about managing protein for the next several days. Your body wants you to eat approximately the correct amount of protein every day. About two days without the right amount is about the maximum time you can expect to go while dieting before your Beast wakes up. Since you don't want The Beast to wake up at all, you should make sure you get the correct amount of protein (and no more) every day.

The real problem with many high-protein foods is that they also contain large amounts of fat. These are the protein foods you must avoid. Instead, you should eat seafood, chicken, turkey, skim milk, lowfat cottage cheese, very lean beef, and several other easily available foods, all of which have a lot of high-quality protein with little fat.

Tuna fish (for example) has an unusually high protein-to-calories ratio and is therefore an excellent protein choice for dieters. For reference, a single six-ounce can of tuna has about 40 grams of protein and only about 220 total calories. Shrimp, crab, lobster, and scallops all have ratios of protein to total-calories in about the same range. (Gourmet cooks take note.:))

Rule-of-Thumb for The Protein Factor

Select for meals foods that will give you about one gram of protein for every two pounds of body weight per day with the fewest other calories mixed in (read labels).

Keep in mind that controlling calories is easy---if protein and the other vital factors are under control. If they are not under control, the Beast wakes up and makes you miserable and eventually forces you off your diet.

You will find extensive information on the above and other high-protein foods and on how to determine how much of each of these protein foods you should eat in order to get your "personal best" amount of protein in MORE ON... PROTEIN, and MORE ON... ENERGY METABOLISM & STORAGE. (If you wish, you may turn to those sections now and come back here when you're done---or just continue on to the next section in this chapter.)