Is eating more protein helpful in losing weight?

As usual, the answer is "it depends".

The Phys Ed column in the NY Times discusses a recent publication in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (abstracted here) examining very intensive exercise regimens coupled with 40% calorie reduced diets with high protein content.

As with many clinical studies, the idea is not that everyone should be doing this; rather, the idea is to use a somewhat extreme testing method to see what the role of high protein intake is during weight loss involving both diet and exercise.

We have long known that losing weight can be achieved by taking in less calories (eating less), and expending calories and increasing metabolic rate (exercising more).

However, what can happen is that both fat and lean muscle are lost which can result in lower metabolic rates and also more difficulty exercising.

It turns out that having a relatively high protein diet can prevent the loss of lean muscle when you reduce calorie intake and also exercise.  Again, the specific diet and exercise regimens were literally a "boot camp" testing method and not meant to be sustained over the long run. 

The take-home message is that if you are using an app to assess your diet's content of protein and find it be less than 10-15% of your total calorie intake, you might want to shift some of the fat calories to protein and also step up your weight training.