% of Calories or Not, It’s a High-Protein Diet (or it should be)
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Fascinating article. I doubt it will change the way I eat since what I do is working well for me, but I enjoyed reading a differing point of view of the LCHF way of eating. Maybe he is just splitting hairs, I don't know, but I give him points for the dig on BPC. Lol0
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KarlynKeto wrote: »Fascinating article. I doubt it will change the way I eat since what I do is working well for me, but I enjoyed reading a differing point of view of the LCHF way of eating. Maybe he is just splitting hairs, I don't know, but I give him points for the dig on BPC.
But it's tasty!
LOL 1 -
I am so split on the BPC subject. I like the taste, acquired it while doing keto, but I just don't see the need to be adding extra fat to my meat these days. So, I will allow myself a cup or two of it on rare occasions as a treat. I no longer will drink it every day. I still end up having two meals a day on most days. That's the same amount I was having with BPC, except now I am doing it without a few hundred extra calories of fat in the morning.0
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A couple studies that more directly address protein intake and GNG:
Dietary Proteins Contribute Little to Glucose Production, Even Under Optimal Gluconeogenic Conditions in Healthy Humans
Fast 12h.
Eat 23g protein, 19g fat.
In the 8h that followed, body produced 50g glucose, 4g of which came from protein intake.
But they didn't supply very much protein, so most of the protein and glucose came from endogenous sources.
What we want to know is what happens when glycogen is depleted (because that's what happens on a low-carb diet) and then you eat a bunch of protein.
As you might expect, GNG goes up.
Gluconeogenesis and energy expenditure after a high-protein, carbohydrate-free diet
In conclusion, increased gluconeogenesis contributes to increased EE after consumption of an H diet for 1.5 d following a decrease in body glycogen stores. Forty-two percent of the increase in EE after the H diet was explained by an increase in gluconeogenesis. The energy cost of gluconeogenesis was 33% of the energy content of glucose.
OK, that's kind of interesting. GNG goes up (as well as EE) when glycogen is depleted by exercise. But what about under conditions of homeostasis on a low-carb diet? I've never seen that question addressed, but we do know what happens during glucose homeostasis of fasting....
What does all this tell us? Only that context matters a lot. Keto is most similar to the fasting context, which drives GNG pretty hard.3 -
As I understand it, the thing with protein and fat storage is that it has to go through two conversions to get to that point -- first to a usable fuel (aka - glucose), then triglycerides to be stored -- both of these aren't particularly efficient, and with protein already having only 4 calories per gram, probably only half of that would actually be free to be stored as fat, just from the conversion process.
Additionally, when you add a glycogen-depleted state on top of that, excess energy is going to go to glycogen, first. Even if all of your protein went to glucose, the GNG conversion eats about a third of those calories, so it takes 1.5 grams of protein to get the caloric amount of one gram of glucose.
According to this study, we can hold 15g/kg body weight in glycogen. So a 200lb person can store about 1300 calories in glycogen.
That means it requires about 1,700 calories, or 425 grams, of protein just to refill the glycogen stores.
I'm not sure on the efficiency of de novo lipgenesis (and not coming up with an easily found answer), but let's assume it also has a 66% efficiency rate (like GNG). Therefore, in order to store one pound of body fat (3,500 calories), the body needs 4,655 calories worth of glucose (3500*1.33), and about 6,200 (3500*1.33*1.33) calories worth of protein, or 1550 grams of protein just for fat storage.
Over the course of a week, that only amounts to 900 calories worth of protein, which is "only" 225g. However, that's after the body uses the protein for maintaining/increasing lean mass, maintain amino acid stores, hormones, etc. and then uses the glucose converted from protein directly as fuel, refilling glycogen stores, etc.
That's a boatload of protein, and it becomes very apparent why it's next to impossible to gain fat from protein, itself.5 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »As I understand it, the thing with protein and fat storage is that it has to go through two conversions to get to that point -- first to a usable fuel (aka - glucose), then triglycerides to be stored -- both of these aren't particularly efficient, and with protein already having only 4 calories per gram, probably only half of that would actually be free to be stored as fat, just from the conversion process.
Additionally, when you add a glycogen-depleted state on top of that, excess energy is going to go to glycogen, first. Even if all of your protein went to glucose, the GNG conversion eats about a third of those calories, so it takes 1.5 grams of protein to get the caloric amount of one gram of glucose.
According to this study, we can hold 15g/kg body weight in glycogen. So a 200lb person can store about 1300 calories in glycogen.
That means it requires about 1,700 calories, or 425 grams, of protein just to refill the glycogen stores.
I'm not sure on the efficiency of de novo lipgenesis (and not coming up with an easily found answer), but let's assume it also has a 66% efficiency rate (like GNG). Therefore, in order to store one pound of body fat (3,500 calories), the body needs 4,655 calories worth of glucose (3500*1.33), and about 6,200 (3500*1.33*1.33) calories worth of protein, or 1550 grams of protein just for fat storage.
Over the course of a week, that only amounts to 900 calories worth of protein, which is "only" 225g. However, that's after the body uses the protein for maintaining/increasing lean mass, maintain amino acid stores, hormones, etc. and then uses the glucose converted from protein directly as fuel, refilling glycogen stores, etc.
That's a boatload of protein, and it becomes very apparent why it's next to impossible to gain fat from protein, itself.
yes! Even I [mostly] understood that, thanks @Dragonwolf2 -
Minor quibble with your analysis, @Dragonwolf. Most of your readers won't be depleting their muscle glycogen. That would require intense exercise of all muscle groups. The guys in that study (one of whom was a competitive swimmer) did a bunch of swimming and running to deplete muscle glycogen.
Low-carb typically just depletes liver glycogen, which is a much smaller reserve.2 -
KarlynKeto wrote: »Fascinating article. I doubt it will change the way I eat since what I do is working well for me, but I enjoyed reading a differing point of view of the LCHF way of eating. Maybe he is just splitting hairs, I don't know, but I give him points for the dig on BPC.
But it's tasty! LOL
Haha, it really is good but the only time I tried it I was nauseous for hours! They said it kills your appetite but I didn't realize HOW0 -
Minor quibble with your analysis, @Dragonwolf. Most of your readers won't be depleting their muscle glycogen. That would require intense exercise of all muscle groups. The guys in that study (one of whom was a competitive swimmer) did a bunch of swimming and running to deplete muscle glycogen.
Low-carb typically just depletes liver glycogen, which is a much smaller reserve.
Right, but my point was that glycogen is a storage mechanism, and doesn't require the second conversion, meaning it will store the most calories from protein of the two mechanisms, and yet, you still lose a third of those calories in the act of conversion, alone. I included it to illustrate the loss from conversion to glucose.
The numbers I provided for fat storage were solely for converting the protein to fat for storage, with no numbers for any other process. In other words, the 1550 grams of protein is the amount needed just for fat storage, and the number goes up from there to deal with all the other processes that take precedence.
Had I included glycogen storage in that number, it would be close to 2,000 grams, or 8,000 calories, of protein for both empty-to-full glycogen stores and a pound of fat storage, so my original fat storage number of 1,550g/6,200 calories still works out for a sedentary person with full muscle glycogen stores.1 -
More for meat: my new word for the day thanks to Richard David Feinman .... antidiscarnivorianism. (not arguing for meat but rather opposed to inaccurately attacking meat)
(Bio: Richard David Feinman is Professor of Cell Biology (Biochemistry) at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Feinman’s original area of research was in protein chemistry and enzyme mechanism, particularly in blood coagulation and related processes.)
Interesting read - his blog "Carrot Nation" https://feinmantheother.com/2014/05/08/carrot-nation/0 -
The attack against meat seems to be the historical norm, and there's not chance of it changing any time soon. They were saying the same things about meat 100 years ago, even when all attempts to prove their claims failed. They'll probably continue for decades from this point, maybe forever. I think it goes right along with the ideas that "eating should not be pleasurable because pleasure is a sin" and "fat people are sinners who have excess fat as divine punishment for their sins, they can only get rid of that fat with diligent and painful repentance."5
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This isn't about fat as harmful to your health. It's not. Butter is great and it's not going to clog your arteries, neither will bacon grease, or any other animal fats. It's about eating meat and not just consuming fats by themselves to hit some magic macro percentage.
I eat a lot of fat. A lot of fat. I can often get over 200 grams of fat in a day. I don't add any fat to my meals and I don't eat fat by itself. It's not about avoiding fat. If you eat enough meat, you'll get plenty of fat along with it.
WOW! How are you eating this much fat. I'm trying to lose weight at 1500 cal per day. I have a very hard time even reaching 100 gr of fat.
I eat more meat than anything else. Skip breakfast. Still don't lose weight.
Have arthritic knees so exercise is difficult.0 -
Midnightgypsy0 wrote: »This isn't about fat as harmful to your health. It's not. Butter is great and it's not going to clog your arteries, neither will bacon grease, or any other animal fats. It's about eating meat and not just consuming fats by themselves to hit some magic macro percentage.
I eat a lot of fat. A lot of fat. I can often get over 200 grams of fat in a day. I don't add any fat to my meals and I don't eat fat by itself. It's not about avoiding fat. If you eat enough meat, you'll get plenty of fat along with it.
WOW! How are you eating this much fat. I'm trying to lose weight at 1500 cal per day. I have a very hard time even reaching 100 gr of fat.
I eat more meat than anything else. Skip breakfast. Still don't lose weight.
Have arthritic knees so exercise is difficult.
I eat 2,800ish calories a day. A couple pounds of fatty steak, or 75%/25% ground beef can really add up the fat totals. I also like ribs, which are very fatty, and other greasy and fatty cuts.4 -
Thanks @FIT_Goat.
I'll kick it up a notch....1 -
canadjineh wrote: »More for meat: my new word for the day thanks to Richard David Feinman .... antidiscarnivorianism. (not arguing for meat but rather opposed to inaccurately attacking meat)
(Bio: Richard David Feinman is Professor of Cell Biology (Biochemistry) at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Dr. Feinman’s original area of research was in protein chemistry and enzyme mechanism, particularly in blood coagulation and related processes.)
Interesting read - his blog "Carrot Nation" https://feinmantheother.com/2014/05/08/carrot-nation/
Ah, yes, I see you've been onto him for a while now.1 -
Great post on gluconeogenesis:A couple studies that more directly address protein intake and GNG:
Dietary Proteins Contribute Little to Glucose Production, Even Under Optimal Gluconeogenic Conditions in Healthy Humans
Fast 12h.
Eat 23g protein, 19g fat.
In the 8h that followed, body produced 50g glucose, 4g of which came from protein intake.
But they didn't supply very much protein, so most of the protein and glucose came from endogenous sources.
What we want to know is what happens when glycogen is depleted (because that's what happens on a low-carb diet) and then you eat a bunch of protein.
As you might expect, GNG goes up.
Gluconeogenesis and energy expenditure after a high-protein, carbohydrate-free diet
In conclusion, increased gluconeogenesis contributes to increased EE after consumption of an H diet for 1.5 d following a decrease in body glycogen stores. Forty-two percent of the increase in EE after the H diet was explained by an increase in gluconeogenesis. The energy cost of gluconeogenesis was 33% of the energy content of glucose.
OK, that's kind of interesting. GNG goes up (as well as EE) when glycogen is depleted by exercise. But what about under conditions of homeostasis on a low-carb diet? I've never seen that question addressed, but we do know what happens during glucose homeostasis of fasting....
What does all this tell us? Only that context matters a lot. Keto is most similar to the fasting context, which drives GNG pretty hard.
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Thanks for bumping this up. I have been reading pros and cons of higher protein. I am upping mine slightly. I had dropped mine to see if there was a difference. Didn't help the weight loss.
Do I see someone mentioned ribs, so off I go to get some of those.1 -
Ah, nothing like a good ol' FIT_Goat rant to set the tone.
I stand by pretty much everything I said. I haven't seen quite as many people worried about being kicked out of keto because they ate 105 grams of protein when their goal is 80 grams. There is, still, too much concern about what I consider "normal" levels or protein. Most here would consider my "normal" levels to be high.
What has become of me? I've become too tolerant and boring.1
