Is a calorie, a calorie? (Question about Protein)
JackPudding
Posts: 37 Member
I do some form of resistance training everyday. Does that mean that all the protein i eat goes to my muscles? and not to fat?
So hypothetically if i eat 100grams of protein one day which is 1000 calories and then 100 grams of carb which is also 1000 calories and do the same amount of weight training on each day, would I lose more body fat on the day i ate the protein?
That's only hypothetical by the way^ Thats not what i actually eat. Also no rude or troll answers...
So hypothetically if i eat 100grams of protein one day which is 1000 calories and then 100 grams of carb which is also 1000 calories and do the same amount of weight training on each day, would I lose more body fat on the day i ate the protein?
That's only hypothetical by the way^ Thats not what i actually eat. Also no rude or troll answers...
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First, your calculations are off. 100 grams of protein and 100 grams of carbs will be 400 calories of each.
Second, are you cutting or bulking? Because which you are currently in will determine if/how your body is retaining those calories, and I'm sure people more familiar with the bulk/cut cycle can help you out with that more than I can.0 -
MFP is a great place to log calories. The message board is a horrible place to ask for advice on eating healthy. This is the crap you get if you do:
1) Define healthy!
2) Food is fuel, a calorie is a calorie
3) Eating good foods is a way for people to feel superior
All of these arguments don't stand up to anyone with a bit of intelligence, however.
Response:
1) Define healthy. OK Bill Clinton, we all know what *is* means. We all know what healthy means. If you think nobody knows what is really healthy, then why do people change their diet after their first stroke or heart attack??? Because deep down, you know some of the crap we eat is not healthy.
2) Food is simply fuel and a calorie is just a calorie. False. If food were only a fuel, then there would have never been horrible deficency diseases like pellagra . Pellagra is caused by having too little niacin or tryptophan in the diet, and hundreds of thousands of people died from it here in the United States. The truth is that foods are a nutrition delivery system, not just fuel, and some foods have more nutrition than other foods.
3) Eating good foods is a way for people to feel superior. Yeah, some people like to eat crap and make themselves feel better by berating those that are trying to better themselves.
What do we get from eating the SAD (Standard American Diet)?
In some parts of the US, life expectancy is lower than in Nicaragua and some other third-world countries. People in The U.S. now ranks 39th and 40th out of 187 countries for life expectancy for males and females respectively. [1]
-- Many Hispanic immigrants who relocate to the United States face much higher cancer rates than those in the country they left behind. Cancer can be 40 percent more common for Hispanics after they immigrate [to the United States].
-- The risk of cancers common in Western countries is higher for Korean Americans than for their native counterparts.
-- Breast cancer among Chinese women who have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years is 80% higher than their newly arrived peers.
-- Studies of Indian immigrants in Western societies indicate that rates of cancer and other chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, increase dramatically after a generation in the adopted country. Change of diet is among the factors that may be responsible for the changing disease rates.
-- A team of researchers at West Virginia University has shown that U.S. immigrants from India and Pakistan take on the habits of their adopted country, increasing their risks of prostate cancer among male immigrants and breast cancer among females.
Eat Like An American, Die Like An American!
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MFP is a great place to log calories. The message board is a horrible place to ask for advice on eating healthy. This is the crap you get if you do:
1) Define healthy!
2) Food is fuel, a calorie is a calorie
3) Eating good foods is a way for people to feel superior
All of these arguments don't stand up to anyone with a bit of intelligence, however.
Response:
1) Define healthy. OK Bill Clinton, we all know what *is* means. We all know what healthy means. If you think nobody knows what is really healthy, then why do people change their diet after their first stroke or heart attack??? Because deep down, you know some of the crap we eat is not healthy.
2) Food is simply fuel and a calorie is just a calorie. False. If food were only a fuel, then there would have never been horrible deficency diseases like pellagra . Pellagra is caused by having too little niacin or tryptophan in the diet, and hundreds of thousands of people died from it here in the United States. The truth is that foods are a nutrition delivery system, not just fuel, and some foods have more nutrition than other foods.
3) Eating good foods is a way for people to feel superior. Yeah, some people like to eat crap and make themselves feel better by berating those that are trying to better themselves.
What do we get from eating the SAD (Standard American Diet)?
In some parts of the US, life expectancy is lower than in Nicaragua and some other third-world countries. People in The U.S. now ranks 39th and 40th out of 187 countries for life expectancy for males and females respectively. [1]
-- Many Hispanic immigrants who relocate to the United States face much higher cancer rates than those in the country they left behind. Cancer can be 40 percent more common for Hispanics after they immigrate [to the United States].
-- The risk of cancers common in Western countries is higher for Korean Americans than for their native counterparts.
-- Breast cancer among Chinese women who have been in the U.S. for more than 10 years is 80% higher than their newly arrived peers.
-- Studies of Indian immigrants in Western societies indicate that rates of cancer and other chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease and diabetes, increase dramatically after a generation in the adopted country. Change of diet is among the factors that may be responsible for the changing disease rates.
-- A team of researchers at West Virginia University has shown that U.S. immigrants from India and Pakistan take on the habits of their adopted country, increasing their risks of prostate cancer among male immigrants and breast cancer among females.
Eat Like An American, Die Like An American!
I have no idea what you're on about here. 90% of this has nothing to do with the OP, which wasn't asking anything about eating healthily. The only part of this that has any relevance as far as I can see is point 2, and when people say 'a calorie is a calorie', they're talking about purely for weight loss, not for nutrition. Discussion on good amounts of macros to aim for is very common, as well as what foods have the most nutrients for the least calories.0 -
1) Define healthy. OK Bill Clinton, we all know what *is* means. We all know what healthy means. If you think nobody knows what is really healthy, then why do people change their diet after their first stroke or heart attack??? Because deep down, you know some of the crap we eat is not healthy.
2) Food is simply fuel and a calorie is just a calorie.
3) Eating good foods is a way for people to feel superior.
I abbreviated the quote for readability:
1) It's asked to be defined because people do have different meanings. Some don't want meat, some don't want processed foods. What is healthy and acceptable to one person is not the same for everyone.
2) This is not false, It does matter if you are not giving your body the correct fuel. The Pellagra example you talked about happened 100 years ago. By 1945, pellagra had become extinct in the South.
3) Some people have different ideas for a healthy diet and try to discuss it.
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Ignoring previous posters so you'll have to excuse me if you already have your answer:
So your body does not really have an active way to store protein. It uses what it can at the time to build and repair but does not store excess. If you are consuming excess then it is just going to either convert it back over to glucose to use as energy or eventually store it as fat for later use.
This why you will hear people preach to spread your protein intake out across your day.
If you get really strong almost ammonia smell coming off you when you sweat then it is usually a sign that you are either consuming excess protein or your glycogen stores have been exhausted and your body is now burning a mix of fat and protein (which if you don't have any ingested then it is going to take from your muscles.) That smell is the nitrogen that is stripped from protein and excreted when you body is converting it to glucose to use or store.0 -
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I would say all the protein you eat does not "go to your muscles".JackPudding wrote: »I do some form of resistance training everyday. Does that mean that all the protein i eat goes to my muscles? and not to fat?
So hypothetically if i eat 100grams of protein one day which is 1000 calories and then 100 grams of carb which is also 1000 calories and do the same amount of weight training on each day, would I lose more body fat on the day i ate the protein?
That's only hypothetical by the way^ Thats not what i actually eat. Also no rude or troll answers...
And that if you hypothetically ate all protein you'd store less fat than if you ate all carbs because of the differing thermic effects.
But overall your calorie deficit/surplus is going to be the main determinant of what you store as fat.
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JackPudding wrote: »I do some form of resistance training everyday. Does that mean that all the protein i eat goes to my muscles? and not to fat?
So hypothetically if i eat 100grams of protein one day which is 1000 calories and then 100 grams of carb which is also 1000 calories and do the same amount of weight training on each day, would I lose more body fat on the day i ate the protein?
That's only hypothetical by the way^ Thats not what i actually eat. Also no rude or troll answers...
It doesn't really work that way - nothing so simplistic. There are differences in how efficiently your body can use available energy (calories) from different macronutrients (thermic effect of food), but really for purposes of general weight loss, lean mass retention, and fitness, you and me and others like us will be far better off focusing on the big things -- total calorie intake for weight management, macro- and micronutrient intake for health, and exercise for both lean mass retention while in a deficit (resistance training) and cardiovascular fitness (cardio).
Elite athletes in training may have good reasons for carefully manipulating macronutrient profiles in accordance with training, but for almost all of us, our energy would be much more profitably spent in hitting the larger goals -- the right amount of calories, sufficient protein for mass retention, sufficient fat for hormone regulation and vitamin utilization, sufficient carbs to fuel our workouts, and appropriate exercise / training to reach our fitness goals.
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In the hypothetical situation, there may be some differences in the amount of fat, but hardly enough to worry about. If the body needs energy, it is going to get it from where it can get it. If the body needs to rebuild muscle, it is going to get that from where it can get it. Having it available in the stomach can help prevent it from pulling from other muscle, but the energy requirements are going to be about the same and the energy pulled from fat is going to balance out (eventually).0
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You burn fuel, you consume fuel. The simple answer is, a kcal is a kcal regardless of sugar, protein, fat, or whatever.
Some kcal are more easily processed by your body so there is a potential for more absorption and less passing into the stool. This is a difference regarding processed foods and whole foods. Also, fiber dense foods will pass more kcal into the stool without absorption.0 -
The short version: Some protein will be used for muscle repair if you're weight training, yes. But there's a limit to how much. More isn't necessarily better, past a certain point. The excess over that amount will be converted to glucose and stored as fat if you don't burn it, similar to carbs.
So, the $64,000 question is: How much can your body use for muscle repair? Where's that cutoff?
There's no simple answer, unfortunately. There are a lot of studies out there that have tried to define the upper limit, and many of them agree or disagree on various points because this is an ongoing area of research and controlled studies are hard to do. Some numbers that get bandied about are:- The body can't "use" more than about 25-30g of protein at a time for muscle repair. This is a controversial statement but one that seems to be supported by a bunch of studies. It seems to lend some support to the idea of spreading out your protein intake throughout the day in more smaller meals, rather than eating it all at once.
- The American RDA for protein is about 46g/day for average women and 56g/day for average men, but these not adjusted for age, size, or the fact that you're losing weight. I'd consider these to be bare minimums.
- The Canadian RDA for protein is 0.8g/kg of body weight. So convert your current weight to kilograms, and then multiply that by 0.8. So for instance, a 200lb man would need 72g of protein per day, while an 125lb woman would need 45g of protein per day. Again, these are minimums and most people would find these values to be low.
- There are some studies that suggest that a decent range is between 0.8g and 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass. So, for a 200lb man who has 25% body fat, he'd have about 150lbs of lean body mass and therefore could aim for 120-150g of protein per day. Again, YMMV based on the studies you read, and you can make up your own mind, but this is a decent guide for many people to see if they're in range.
- The weight lifting community tends to say that you should aim for between 0.82 and 1g of protein per pound of body weight. Most scientific studies will claim that this is excessively high, though, and that at this level there's really no observed benefit over a lower level of protein. However, you likely won't do yourself any harm at this level either, as long as you're getting enough fats.
Hope this helps!0 -
NO0
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The short version: Some protein will be used for muscle repair if you're weight training, yes. But there's a limit to how much. More isn't necessarily better, past a certain point. The excess over that amount will be converted to glucose and stored as fat if you don't burn it, similar to carbs.
So, the $64,000 question is: How much can your body use for muscle repair? Where's that cutoff?
There's no simple answer, unfortunately. There are a lot of studies out there that have tried to define the upper limit, and many of them agree or disagree on various points because this is an ongoing area of research and controlled studies are hard to do. Some numbers that get bandied about are:- The body can't "use" more than about 25-30g of protein at a time for muscle repair. This is a controversial statement but one that seems to be supported by a bunch of studies. It seems to lend some support to the idea of spreading out your protein intake throughout the day in more smaller meals, rather than eating it all at once.
- The American RDA for protein is about 46g/day for average women and 56g/day for average men, but these not adjusted for age, size, or the fact that you're losing weight. I'd consider these to be bare minimums.
- The Canadian RDA for protein is 0.8g/kg of body weight. So convert your current weight to kilograms, and then multiply that by 0.8. So for instance, a 200lb man would need 72g of protein per day, while an 125lb woman would need 45g of protein per day. Again, these are minimums and most people would find these values to be low.
- There are some studies that suggest that a decent range is between 0.8g and 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass. So, for a 200lb man who has 25% body fat, he'd have about 150lbs of lean body mass and therefore could aim for 120-150g of protein per day. Again, YMMV based on the studies you read, and you can make up your own mind, but this is a decent guide for many people to see if they're in range.
- The weight lifting community tends to say that you should aim for between 0.82 and 1g of protein per pound of body weight. Most scientific studies will claim that this is excessively high, though, and that at this level there's really no observed benefit over a lower level of protein. However, you likely won't do yourself any harm at this level either, as long as you're getting enough fats.
Hope this helps!
Yeah that made sense. So if you eat with in your recommended protein intake (for someone who does resistance training), and not over, will any of it be converted into glucose? Rather than be used for muscle repair/growth.
Also for the last year i've been losing fat (74pounds) and trying to gain muscle. Despite people saying it's impossible to make gains in a calorie deficit, i've got a hefty pair of biceps, that i've literally only gotten in the last year.
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Here's a diagram how various amino acids (protein) are utilized for glucose:
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JackPudding wrote: »Yeah that made sense. So if you eat with in your recommended protein intake (for someone who does resistance training), and not over, will any of it be converted into glucose? Rather than be used for muscle repair/growth.
Sure, some of it will. But that's okay. Your body needs energy every day. If you're eating at a calorie deficit, it will be converted to energy that you'll burn off, same as carbs. The excess protein (or carbs, or fat) will only get stored as body fat if you eat at a caloric surplus.
The point here is that, as long as you're getting *enough* protein to fuel your muscle repair, and *enough* essential micronutrients and vitamins, the macro split isn't all that important among the remainder of your calories and you can do with it as you wish. It comes down to personal preference at that point.Also for the last year i've been losing fat (74pounds) and trying to gain muscle. Despite people saying it's impossible to make gains in a calorie deficit, i've got a hefty pair of biceps, that i've literally only gotten in the last year.
Some newbie gains, maybe. But more likely, you're just exposing muscle that you had underneath that fat by losing the fat.
To truly bulk up (gain more muscle) you will likely need to eat at a small surplus while working hard to progressively weight train.
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JackPudding wrote: »I do some form of resistance training everyday. Does that mean that all the protein i eat goes to my muscles? and not to fat?
So hypothetically if i eat 100grams of protein one day which is 1000 calories and then 100 grams of carb which is also 1000 calories and do the same amount of weight training on each day, would I lose more body fat on the day i ate the protein?
That's only hypothetical by the way^ Thats not what i actually eat. Also no rude or troll answers...
It doesn't really work that way - nothing so simplistic. There are differences in how efficiently your body can use available energy (calories) from different macronutrients (thermic effect of food), but really for purposes of general weight loss, lean mass retention, and fitness, you and me and others like us will be far better off focusing on the big things -- total calorie intake for weight management, macro- and micronutrient intake for health, and exercise for both lean mass retention while in a deficit (resistance training) and cardiovascular fitness (cardio).
Elite athletes in training may have good reasons for carefully manipulating macronutrient profiles in accordance with training, but for almost all of us, our energy would be much more profitably spent in hitting the larger goals -- the right amount of calories, sufficient protein for mass retention, sufficient fat for hormone regulation and vitamin utilization, sufficient carbs to fuel our workouts, and appropriate exercise / training to reach our fitness goals.
This sums it up pretty well...0 -
Using fat stores (adipose tissue) for energy:
"FFA" is "Free Fatty Acids", or protein.
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