If you are a science major and graduated with a degree in some exotic engineering or chemistry area then you may be familiar with thermogenic processes. Or on the other hand if you have been researching how to lose weight, you probably know that it means that the body has to use energy to digest food. The more energy, or calories, it takes to digest the food the less we have to worry about it going into storage in fat cells.
Thermogenic is a pretty cool word through isn’t it. I mean if I was to start talking to my friends and throw in a thermogenic here and thermogenic there, they would probably be impressed. Especially if I had just lost fifty pounds this last week. Well that’s not going to happen because the energy used to digest food is pretty small, although for things that we have a harder time digesting, like protein, we actually get less from it. Between 20 and 25 % of protein is not assimilated because it takes that much energy, calories to process it in our digestion system. So this could be one of the reasons why eating protein is less fattening that eating a double chocolate cake with frosting, duh.