If you often reach out to unhealthy chocolate bars and sugary breakfast bars, you may gain unwanted weight due to excess calories. If you haven’t yet tried them, a viable alternative is protein bars. Portable, delicious, and healthy, they are the best way to include measurable protein in your diet.
Protein is an essential macronutrient that promotes muscle building, tissue repair, and the synthesis of certain enzymes and hormones. The right protein bar helps in weight management by curbing between-meal snack cravings. Additionally, they are available in many delicious flavours, making them a popular candy substitute for growing children.
Benefits of protein bars:
Macro Diet-friendly:
A macro diet requires watching how much quantity of protein, carbohydrate, and fats you consume. About 10-35% of your daily calories must come from protein, and top-quality protein bars provide nearly 20g of high-quality bioavailable protein. Bioavailability indicates that the ingredient is in a form that is easy to digest and absorb. Commercially available protein substitutes use protein broken down into concentrates and isolates. Generally, bars incorporate protein isolates – which are more bioavailable than protein concentrates – commonly found in powders. Thus, it is easier to absorb and gain protein benefits from bars.
Weight Loss:
Studies show that protein is an effective weight loss promoter. Your body takes longer to digest proteins than carbohydrates. As a result, you feel satiated for longer. Additionally, on digesting protein, your body releases phenylalanine, which helps produce a hunger-suppressing enzyme called leptin.
Further, several studies support the
Protein for Muscle gain:
Muscles are made of protein, made of amino acids. Therefore, consuming protein gives you the required amino acids to build more muscles.
Your body’s protein synthesis rate is in constant flux – sometimes higher and sometimes lower than the rate of protein breakdown. Longer durations of a positive protein balance are essential for increasing muscle mass. A study found that whey protein was the most potent in increasing muscle protein synthesis.
One of the easiest ways of increasing protein intake is via protein bars. They are convenient to measure, not messy, and can be eaten anywhere – unlike alternatives such as protein powders and shakes.
Post Workout Muscle Recovery:
Workouts cause a substantial protein breakdown in your muscles. Therefore, consuming protein post-exercise aids in speedy muscle recovery. Since carbohydrates also play an essential role in the recovery process, a protein to carbohydrate ratio of 3 or 4:1 is ideal for muscle recovery. Pick the appropriate protein bar, and toss a few in your gym bag to maintain your hard-earned gains.
Suited for Restricted Diets:
Top manufacturers of protein bars ensure that there’s an appropriate one for everyone. You can choose from gluten-free, low sugar, vegan, high-fibre, and fortified variants to suit your particular needs. None of them hold back on the punch they deliver in terms of flavour. Soon, you’ll be replacing traditional desserts with healthy bars in flavours such as Chocolate Brownie, Smores, Cookies and Cream, and many more.
In a nutshell
Protein has several proven benefits and very few side effects. When you consume it in the form of low-carbohydrate, low-sugar protein bars, you feel less sluggish and experience fewer snack cravings. If you are already on restrictive diets such as the Atkins, or a vegan diet, a protein bar is your best source of diet-compliant protein. So grab a bar today and change your lifestyle for the better!
