4 Reasons Why Chicken Thighs are Great for Muscle Gain and Fat Loss
Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash
Tired of eating the same old chicken breast over and over again for muscle building? Look no further. You don’t need to continue eating chicken breasts! Instead, try chicken thighs!
Eating chicken breast every day can be tiresome. Especially if you don’t know how to cook it well. I went months eating chicken breasts every night for dinner that tasted like rubber. It felt like I was chewing on an old tire.
Yuck!
I discovered chicken thighs the other day when I was grocery shopping. I was looking for chicken breast like I normally buy.
But, there were no chicken breasts at the store! They had chicken thighs, chicken drumsticks, and chicken wings in the fresh produce section of the store.
Rather than resigning myself to going to another store to buy some chicken breasts, I decided to look at the other options they had. I picked up a package of chicken thighs and looked at the nutritional label. I was stunned at what I saw on the label!
So, I decided to give them a try for a week. This trial turned out to be one of the best nutritional choices I’ve made in months!
While chicken breasts are a bodybuilding staple food, it’s not required to eat them to build muscle. Plus, I had been eating them every day for nearly 2 years. It was time for a change.
Chicken thighs are an underrated food for eating healthy. It’s a great food for both muscle-building and fat-loss diet plans!
Here are 4 reasons why you should include chicken thighs into your diet:
1. Chicken thighs have lots of flavor
When on a diet for any nutritional goal, taste is an important factor that determines if you stick with it. If you don’t like the foods you’re eating, then you won’t want to stick with the diet plan. You’ll be back sitting on your couch with a bag of Doritos and a box of Oreos on each side within a few weeks.
And even if you do see your diet through to the end, you still need to continue eating the same foods that helped get you to your goals. Most people start eating junk food again after finishing their diet.
Bad move.
Slacking off and eating tons of junk food will begin to erase the progress you made over time.
Effective diets build good nutritional habits.
Nutritional meals don’t need to be tasteless. In fact, you can make great-tasting foods that are also healthy!
Chicken thighs are flavorful. Cook some up and you’ll see how juicy they are. They taste great with or without seasonings! Chicken thighs hold the flavor of any spices or sauces you put on them quite well.
You won’t get bored of the flavor that chicken thighs have. It’s a mouth-watering experience every time you cook them!
And they don’t taste and feel like rubber, either!
2. High-fat
Chicken thighs are high-fat. This is great for your diet because you need to include fats in your diet. Contrary to popular belief, not all fatty foods are bad for you. And they don’t actually make you gain fat!
A sustained calorie surplus combined with little to no exercise is what causes you to gain fat, not eating healthy fats.
Healthy fats such as animal fats are important to include in your diet. Your body uses the nutrients for its everyday functions. You need to include these healthy fats in your diet to keep your body healthy and functioning properly.
Here are a few benefits of healthy fats:
Improves brain function
Maintains healthy cholesterol levels
Strengthens bones
Improved sleep
Improved skin
Keeps blood sugar levels in check
Improves satiety (The feeling of being “full”)
One 4 oz serving of chicken thighs has roughly 10 grams of fat. On the other hand, one 4 oz serving of chicken breasts has roughly 1.5 grams of fat.
Chicken thighs have over 6 times the amount of fat per serving compared to chicken breasts!
3. Low-calorie
Chicken thighs are a low-calorie type of meat.
Per 4 oz serving, skinless chicken thighs have roughly 160 calories. This is a bit higher than skinless chicken breasts, which have roughly 110 calories per 4 oz serving.
However, chicken thighs are still a low-calorie option to include in your diet plan.
Regardless of your nutritional goals, chicken thighs have a place in your diet. If you’re bulking, you can increase your serving size to increase your calorie intake. If you’re dieting for fat loss, chicken thighs are one of the lowest-calorie protein sources you could include in your diet.
Low-calorie foods are great to include in your diet. Especially if you’re on a fat loss diet.
Why?
Because low-calorie foods allow you to eat more volume of food per serving. If you have a large appetite, eating low-calorie foods helps you eat a lot of food without overeating. So, you can still hit your calorie goals while eating a lot of food!
4. High-protein
Chicken thighs are high in protein. Like other meats, chicken thighs are a great protein source to eat every day.
Chicken thighs have roughly 19 grams of protein per 4 oz serving. This is a bit lower than chicken breasts, which have roughly 25 grams of protein. However, 19 grams of protein will be enough protein for one meal for most people.
And if you need more protein in your meal, you can increase your serving size. You can also add a side dish to get some extra protein. One side dish you could pair with chicken thighs is rice, which has roughly 4 grams of protein per 200-calorie serving.
Protein is an essential macromolecule that your body needs. Especially for muscle gain.
Protein helps your body digest food. It boosts your body’s metabolism, helping your body make use of the energy you feed it. Your body also uses protein to help with hormone production. And protein transports red blood cells throughout the body. Protein works to repair and build new tissue whenever you get a cut, scrape, bruise, and so on.
As you can see, protein is used in a variety of ways by your body.
Make sure you get enough protein each day to give your body the tool it needs to keep you living healthily. Especially if you’re trying to build muscle!
Try chicken thighs today!
Chicken thighs are an excellent choice to include in your muscle-building or fat-loss diet.
I discovered them by accident, so you don’t have to. You now know how great they are!
The taste, fat content, low calories per serving, and high protein are 4 irresistible benefits you just can’t pass up.
So, don’t be chicken! Give chicken thighs a shot!
P.S. Shoutout to fellow chicken thigh lover Peyton Cox on Twitter. Check out his Twitter account here for great information on fitness, nutrition, and systems!
References:
https://blog.bioticsresearch.com/9-benefits-of-healthy-fats
https://androidconfig.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/boneless-skinless-raw-1766678427