Protein and carbohydrates work together within your body; they are team players, not individuals. Think of it like this: Mr. Protein needs to take a taxi to get to muscles cells to help build and condition them. Mr. Insulin is taxi and Mr. Protein is not capable of calling a taxi, so Mr. Carbohydrate will always call Mr. Insulin to transport Mr. Protein to muscles. The muscles cells love Mr. Protein, but they also must have Mr. Carbohydrate for energy. Mr. Carbohydrate is very outgoing and there is a lot of him to go around, but too much of him is bad. On other hand, not enough of him is also bad. Muscle cells only need enough carbohydrates to fill glycogen stores. If more carbohydrates are present, it will get stored as fat. Eating protein and carbohydrates will slow down absorption of carbohydrates which means that your body will have time to burn off extra carbohydrates before they are stored as fat. So why not just significantly lower your carbohydrate consumption? Because too much protein and very low carbohydrates will cause you to overburden your liver and kidneys; could cause dehydration (most people do not realize that metabolizing protein requires you to drink more water); and your body will not get right amount of its preferred source of energy-carbohydrates. So you see, eating these two nutrients together allows your body to function like it should. The key is to know how much carbohydrates and protein is right amount to satisfy your body’s needs. Bottom Line when it comes to dieting and weight loss: Losing weight is easy. Losing weight by losing fat healthy way is more of a challenge. Don't get caught up into just losing weight. Understand that you need to stay healthy at same time that you are losing weight by losing fat.