Eating ultra-processed foods with more protein and fewer carbs makes your body burn about 130 extra calories per day just to digest and process the food, even if you’re not moving more.

When healthy young people eat ultra-processed foods that are high in protein and low in carbs, they naturally eat about 200 fewer calories per day than when they eat ultra-processed foods with normal protein and carbs—even if both meals taste the same.

Even though people still ate more calories than they burned, eating high-protein, low-carb ultra-processed foods made them much less likely to store excess energy as fat compared to normal-protein ultra-processed foods.

Increased total daily energy expenditure from high-protein diets is mediated by elevated fat-free mass resulting from enhanced muscle protein synthesis, not by sustained diet-induced thermogenesis.

Your body uses a lot more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs or fat — up to 30% of the calories from protein are used just for digestion, while fat barely uses any.

Eating a meal with more protein makes your body burn more calories right after eating — but only if you’re not overweight; if you are, this calorie-burning effect doesn’t happen as much.